Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Events in Iraq Top Don Imus in News Interest

April 18, 2007

The war in Iraq continued to attract broad public attention, despite drawing far less news coverage than the Imus flap. Overall, 34% of Americans say they followed news about the situation in Iraq very closely, and 26% cited the war as the story they followed most closely from April 12-16.

News about Imus's remarks regarding the Rutgers women's basketball team was the second most closely followed story: 24% say they followed this story very closely, and 20% named it as the story they tracked most closely.

The public paid less attention to the week's other major stories. Fewer than one-in-ten cited the issue of immigration (8%), the Iraq policy debate (7%), the 2008 presidential campaign (6%), or the Duke lacrosse case (5%) as the story they followed most closely last week.

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 agenda. 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.

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