Gas Prices, Disasters Top News Interest in 2007

The weekly News Interest Index was paired with the News Coverage Index, an initiative of The Project for Excellence in Journalism, which monitors the amount of news coverage devoted to major stories by newspapers, television, radio and online news outlets. The news story that received the greatest amount of coverage in any given week this year was the Virginia Tech shootings. During the week of May 20-25, 52% said they followed rising gas prices very closely (the highest percentage for any story in 2007), while 27% said it was the story that week they followed most closely. More than twice as much news coverage that week was devoted to immigration (10%), the Iraq policy debate (10%), and the situation in Iraq (9%); each of these stories drew less public interest than did rising gas prices. The story of poor treatment for Iraqi troops recovering at Walter Reed Army Medical Center also struck a nerve with the public, but received only modest news coverage. During the week of March 4, 20% of Americans cited Walter Reed as their most closely followed story of the week, trailing only the situation in Iraq (27% most closely). read more

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