Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

More Hearing Good News About Gulf Spill

Views of Economic News Little Changed

August 11, 2010

In the days following BP's latest -- and apparently successful -- effort to seal the oil well in the Gulf of Mexico, public perceptions of news about the spill have become somewhat more positive. Only a quarter of Americans (25%) say they are hearing mostly good news about the oil spill, but that is more than double the percentage expressing this view two weeks ago (11%).

The latest weekly News Interest Index survey conducted Aug. 5-8 among 1,002 adults by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, finds that about half of the public (47%) says they are hearing a mix of good and bad news about the oil spill in the Gulf, while 25% say they are hearing mostly bad news. The percentage saying they are hearing mixed news has fallen since late July (from 59%), while the proportion hearing mostly bad news has edged upward (from 18%).

The Gulf coast oil leak continues to be the public's most closely followed story, but interest has declined from last week. About four-in-ten (42%) say they followed the story very closely, down from 57% a week ago.

Nevertheless, the Gulf oil leak was once again the public's top news story: 42% say it is the story they followed most closely this week; news about the economy was a distant second, cited by just 16%.

News coverage about the leak also has dropped off in recent weeks. The leak accounted for 11% of this week's newshole according to a separate analysis by the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism (PEJ). By comparison, the story dominated news coverage throughout June -- constituting 44% of the newshole at its peak, the week ending June 20th.

Views of Economic News Little Changed

In contrast to views of news about the oil spill, the public's perceptions of economic news have not changed and remain far more negative than positive. Currently, 55% say they are hearing a mix of good and bad news about the economy, while 38% say the economic news they are hearing is mostly bad and just 4% say they are hearing mostly good news about the economy.

That is little changed from early July, when 54% said they were hearing mixed news, and 42% said they were hearing mostly bad news. In June, however, just 30% said they were hearing mostly bad news and 65% said the news was a mix of good and bad.

As has been the case throughout the year, Republican perceptions of economic news are more negative than Democratic perceptions. Half of Republicans (50%) say they are hearing mostly negative news. Just 27% of Democrats and 37% of independents say this.

Those who say they are following economic news very closely have similar impressions of the tenor of economic news as those who are following news about the economy less closely.

The Week's News

Although the level of public interest in the oil leak is lower than it was earlier in the summer, the story continues to top the list of stories the public is following. Similarly, although the news media is no longer devoting as much coverage to the leak as in the past, it remains one of the top two stories covered by the press.

News about the economy rivaled the oil leak in the amount of coverage this week, accounting for 12% of the newshole, and public interest in economic news remains high. Nearly four-in-ten (39%) say they are following economic news very closely; 16% say it is the news they followed most closely.

As the scheduled end of the combat mission in Iraq approaches at the end of this month, about a quarter (23%) say they followed news about the situation in Iraq very closely, while just 8% say this is the story they followed most closely. The public's attention to news about Iraq has not shifted much over the last year. According to PEJ, Iraq filled just 3% of this week's newshole.

A federal judge's ruling that California's ban on same sex-marriage is unconstitutional garnered 5% of news coverage this week, with 21% of the public reporting that they are following this story very closely and 7% naming it their top story. Both Republicans (27%) and Democrats (25%) were more likely than independents (17%) to say they followed news about the Proposition 8 ruling very closely.

About one-in-five (19%) say they followed news about the planned mosque and Islamic cultural center near the site of the World Trade Center in downtown Manhattan very closely, with 5% saying it was the story they followed most closely. News about the planned mosque, which accounted for just 2% of the newshole, was followed more closely by Republicans (27% very closely) than Democrats (16% very closely); 19% of independents say they followed the story very closely.

Just 15% say they followed the Senate's confirmation of Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court very closely -- about the same percentage (16%) who said they followed her confirmation hearings in July. Only 3% of press coverage was focused on Kagan. The confirmations of both Sonia Sotomayor last year and John Roberts in 2005 were more closely followed by the public (22% and 28%, respectively, said they followed those confirmations very closely).

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 August 2-8, and survey data measuring public interest in the top news stories of the week were collected August 5-8, from a nationally representative sample of 1,002 adults.

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