Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Public Sees No Improvement in Economic News

Gulf Oil Leak Still Tops News Interest

June 16, 2010

News about the economy has been overshadowed by the Gulf oil leak in recent weeks. And in the public's view, the economic news has not improved. Currently, 65% say they are hearing a mix of good and bad news about the economy, while 30% say they are hearing mostly bad news and just 4% say they are hearing mostly good news.

These opinions are virtually unchanged from May and have changed little for more than a year. When the question was first asked in December 2008, 80% said they were hearing mostly bad news about the economy; that figure dropped to 31% by May 2009. Since then, majorities have consistently said they are hearing a mix of good and bad economic news.

The latest News Interest Index survey, conducted June 10-13 among 1,010 adults by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press finds that public interest in the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico continues to overshadow interest in other stories. Nearly six-in-ten (59%) say they followed news about the oil leak more closely than any other story, far surpassing the proportion citing the economy (8%) or any other story.

The oil leak continues to dominate news coverage as well. About a third of all coverage (34%) was devoted to the oil leak, far more than any other story, according to a separate analysis by the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism.

Election news was the second most covered story last week, with 12% of the newshole dedicated to primaries around the country, but the public was not especially engaged with that story: While 20% say they followed the elections very closely, just 3% say it is the story they followed most closely. More Republicans (30%) followed election news very closely than either independents (21%) or Democrats (12%).

The Week's Other News

Other news topics attracted far less public attention last week. Joran van der Sloot, the Dutch man suspected in the 2005 disappearance of Alabama teen Natalee Holloway, resurfaced in the news last week, when he was arrested and soon confessed to killing a woman in Peru. This story accounted for 3% of news coverage, according to PEJ. Nearly a quarter of the public (23%) followed this story very closely and 6% say it is the story they followed most closely.

About one-in-five followed news about the new UN sanctions on Iran (19%) very closely, and 2% name this as their top story. News about the sanctions approved last week in response to Iran's nuclear program made up 3% of newshole, according to PEJ.

The NBA finals between the Los Angeles Lakers and Boston Celtics received less than 1% of all news coverage last week; 15% of the public followed the finals very closely and 6% said it was their most closely followed story last week. People living in the West are following news about the basketball finals more closely than are people living elsewhere: 25% of Westerners are following the NBA finals very closely, while just 15% of Easterners and Southerners and 7% of Midwesterners are doing the same.

There are gender differences in attentiveness to both the basketball championship and the Peruvian murder-confession story. Nearly twice as many men as women followed the NBA finals very closely (20% vs. 11%); more women (29%) than men (17%) followed the Peruvian murder case very closely.

Few Heard Much about Helen Thomas Gaffe

About one-in-five people (22%) heard a lot about Helen Thomas' resignation as a Hearst political columnist, following a controversial remark she made about Israel, and as many (22%) heard a lot about a U.S. Border Patrol agent fatally shooting a Mexican teenager near the Texas-Mexico border.

Slightly fewer Americans say they heard a lot about the congressional debate over energy and environmental policy (18%) or the start of former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich's federal trial on corruption charges (16%).

These findings are based on the most recent installment of the weekly News Interest Index, an ongoing project of the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press. The index, building on the Center's longstanding research into public attentiveness to major news stories, examines news interest as it relates to the news media's coverage. The weekly survey is conducted in conjunction with The Project for Excellence in Journalism's News Coverage Index, which monitors the news reported by major newspaper, television, radio and online news outlets on an ongoing basis. In the most recent week, data relating to news coverage were collected June 7-13, and survey data measuring public interest in the top news stories of the week were collected June 10-13, from a nationally representative sample of 1,010 adults.

View the topline and survey methodology at people-press.org.