News Media Trends

What would a world in which citizens set the news agenda rather than editors look like? A new PEJ study comparing user-news sites, like Digg, Del.icio.us,and Reddit, with mainstream news outlets provides some initial answers. The snapshot suggests both a drastically different set of topics and information sources.

One is a longtime senator who may be driven from office by scandal. Another is a former senator who announced his intent to seek the highest office in the land. Both were target-rich environments for the talk shows last week and both took their share of lumps. This, plus Michael Savage’s memorable Pavarotti tribute.

The political skirmishing in advance of General Petraeus’ progress report made the Iraq debate the top story last week. And Fred Thompson’s entry helped generate coverage of the 2008 Presidential race. But a new video, a major arrest in Germany, and two mysterious men in Seattle proved why terrorism is still a major newsmaker.

It’s been a while since the debate over Iraq policy was the nation’s top talk show topic. But the Iraq doubters drove the suddenly re-ignited conversation on the airwaves last week. Meanwhile, the strange saga of Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick and his dog fighting operation proved a difficult topic to tackle.

Summary of Findings Michael Vick’s legal troubles attracted a large news audience last week. One-in-four Americans followed the Vick story very closely and 18% said it was the single news story they followed more closely than any other. Overall, the public believes Vick, the Atlanta Falcons quarterback, has been treated fairly by the press, but […]

Two different destructive storms struck the continent and even in the dog days of summer, the presidential race continued to attract significant media interest. But several factors—an intelligence report, a senatorial statement, and a presidential analogy—all combined to re-ignite the debate over U.S. policy in Iraq.

Pew Internet, Pew Research, and McKinsey analysts all come to similar conclusions: the online news space is active and ripe for innovation.

The departure of the Bush Administration’s most-polarizing adviser gave talk shows plenty to talk about last week, as hosts from the left and right assessed the White House tenure of Karl Rove. But even as the aide prepared to shuffle off to Texas, the campaign was on most hosts’ minds.

Summary of Findings For the second week in a row, the plight of six miners trapped in a Utah mine dominated public interest. Though coverage of the miners fell off significantly from the previous week, 32% of the public paid very close attention to the story and roughly the same proportion (34%) said this was […]

In the second of two parts, Pew Research Center consultant Michael Robinson analyzes data from 165 surveys on audience news preferences to examine news interest across decades and describe how the public's news interests have changed -- or not changed -- over different news eras.