By Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON, Dec 19 2007 (IPS)

While the Iraq war remained the most consistently monitored story by U.S. media consumers through most of 2007, the public found the rise in gasoline prices and various natural and man-made disasters more compelling, according to a new survey released here Wednesday by the Pew Research Centre for the People and the Press.

Media consumers named the war as their first or second most closely watched story each week for all but four of the 46 weeks covered by the survey.

But according to the survey, the percentage of the public who said they were following Iraq “very closely” peaked last January at 40 percent and has since fallen to 28 percent.

By contrast, 52 percent of respondents said they were following the rising price of gasoline “very closely” during one week last May, and 45 percent said they were following the shootings of 33 students at Virginia Tech University “very closely” the previous month.

Also attracting as much or more attention than the war in Iraq among media consumers were the collapse of a freeway bridge across the Mississippi River in Minneapolis in late July (45 percent) and the California wildfires that destroyed scores of homes in October (40 percent).

The survey, a new initiative of the Pew Centre and the Project for Excellence in Journalism, sought to compare what news drew the most interest from the public each week (the “News Interest Index”, or NII) with the stories to which the mainstream media – including newspapers, network and cable television, radio, and their online news sites – devoted the most time or space (the “News Coverage Index”, or NCI).

The California wildfires ranked second, accounting for 38 percent of the national newshole during the week of Oct. 21-26, while the debate over the performance of the administration’s “surge” policy in Iraq accounted for 36 percent of the newshole during the week of Sep. 9-14.

With one exception, all of the other major stories – those that accounted for more than 15 percent of the weekly national newshole – covered domestic events. They included the racist remarks of a prominent media talk-show host (26 percent); the bridge collapse (25 percent); the administration’s firing of Justice Department attorneys and the lewdness scandal involving a U.S. senator (18 percent).

In the most recent week surveyed by the NCI, Dec. 9-14, the 2008 presidential campaign, which is likely to dominate the news in the coming year, took up 25 percent of the newshole.

The one exception to the dominance of domestic stories was the media’s coverage of political turmoil in Pakistan earlier this fall. It claimed 17 percent of the national newshole during the week of Nov. 4-9.

While those stories by and large corresponded with the results of the NII – that is, the stories of greatest interest to media consumers – there were significant disconnects between the two indices.

Thus, during the week in May when the public was most concerned about the rise in gas prices, the media devoted only four percent of the newshole to the issue. At the time, 27 percent of the public said that was the story they were following “most closely”, while 52 percent said they were following it “very closely”.

Similarly, 20 percent of respondents during the week of Mar. 4-9 cited the poor treatment of wounded Iraq veterans at a top military hospital here as the story they were following “most closely”, while the media were giving it only six percent of the newshole.

The media also consistently underestimated the public’s interest in health and economic issues. Thus, 17 percent of respondents cited the recall of pet food one week as their most closely followed story, but the media gave it only one percent of the newshole Apr. 29-May4. Similarly, the media devoted only two percent of the newshole to the recall of Chinese-made toys last month, but 15 percent of the public considered that the top story of the week of Nov. 4-9.

At the same time, the public was much less interested in many of the stories – particularly regarding foreign policy – to which the media devoted significant attention.

During the week of Sep. 9-14, for example, the media devoted more than a third of its news coverage to the progress report by the U.S. military commander in Iraq to Congress. But only 14 percent of respondents that week said that was the story they were following most closely.

Similarly, the political crisis in Pakistan claimed 17 percent of the newshole during the week of Nov. 4-9, but only 11 percent of the public said they considered that the most important story that week.

The two indexes also showed that the public was significantly less interested in the U.S. attorneys’ firing scandal, the perjury conviction of Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff; last month’s Middle East summit in Annapolis; North Korea’s nuclear programme, and violence in Lebanon than was indicated by the media’s attention to those stories.

Public interest in the Iraq war appears to have fallen sharply in recent weeks, according to the NII. While the war was identified as the “most closely followed news story” by respondents in 29 of the first 38 weeks covered by the NII, it has not reclaimed that position since early October.

Between October 14 and mid-November, it fell into second place behind, successively, news of a drug-resistant staph infection, the California fires, the 2008 presidential campaign, and the rise in oil prices, it has since disappeared from the top two slots named by respondents from the six top stories covered by the media in the four weeks that have followed.

During the past six weeks, the percentage of respondents who have said they are following the war “very closely” has dropped to below 30 percent for the first time.

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