News Interest Index: Public Keeps Focus on Economy, Media on Elections

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News Interest Index: Public Keeps Focus on Economy, Media on Elections

While the media provided heavy coverage of the congressional elections last week, the public continued to track news about the nation's struggling economy more closely than news about the midterm vote.

About four-in-ten (41%) say they followed news about the economy very closely last week, while 30% say they followed news about the elections very closely, according to the latest News Interest Index survey of 1,006 adults by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press. By another measure, 24% say they followed news about the economy more closely than any other major story; 20% say they followed news about the elections most closely.

Election news dominated coverage, accounting for 38% of the newshole, according to a separate analysis by the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism (PEJ). The economy was a distant second, accounting for 12% of coverage.

Read the full report, Public Keeps Focus on Economy, Media on Elections on the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press' Web site.

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