Little Interest In The News p.14

By: Debra Gersh Hernandez Latest Times Mirror Center poll reveals no more than 25% of the
public has paid very close attention to the major news stories

FOR WHATEVER REASON, people have not been paying very close attention to the news lately.
No more than one-quarter of the public paid very close attention to the earthquake in Japan (25%), violence at abortion clinics (24%), the U.S. economy (23%), or even the O.J. Simpson trial (23%), according to the latest News Interest Index from the Times Mirror Center for the People & the Press.
What might be considered "inside the Beltway" stories also garnered little close attention from the public.
Only 19% of respondents said they very closely followed the activities of the new Republican leaders, 14% said the same about President Bill Clinton's decision regarding loan guarantees to Mexico, 13% very closely followed news about the balanced-budget amendment debate, and barely getting into double digits was federal funding for PBS, which was very closely followed by only 11% of the public.
News about the ongoing baseball strike attracted little devoted attention, with 12% reporting they very closely followed news about it.
If people were not interested in news at home, they were even less interested in news from overseas.
The Russian fighting in Chechnya was very closely followed by only 10%, and the civil war in Bosnia received its least attention registered to date, with a mere 8% of the American public reporting paid very close attention to news about the situation there.
The 23% who paid very close attention to news about the U.S. economy continued to reflect a decline in interest in the story since it peaked at 49% in February 1993.
When the percentages of those following each story very closely are broken down by demographics, there was little variance, with a few exceptions.
For example, more whites (12%), blacks (17%) and men (15%) very closely followed the baseball strike than did women (9%) and Hispanics (7%).
Republicans and Democrats registered fairly evenly on the stories they most closely followed, diverging only when it came to Congress-based stories.
The activities of the new Republican leaders were followed very closely by 26% of Republicans and 16% of Democrats; in the debate over the balanced budget amendment, 16% of Republicans followed very closely, versus 10% of Democrats; and federal funding for PBS was very closely followed by 10% of Republicans and 14% of Democrats.
The O.J. Simpson story showed a decline in interest from the 48% who said they very closely followed the news of the superstar's arrest in June 1994 to 23% in the latest survey. Nevertheless, the new survey showed an additional 33% reporting they fairly closely followed news of the trial.
Blacks (37%) showed more interest in the O.J. Simpson case than whites (21%) or Hispanics (20%), although followers in the West (17%) showed less interest in the California trial than those in the East (31%).
But even if people report they are not very closely watching the O.J. Simpson trial, 64% of respondents knew the name of the judge in the case, Lance Ito, while only 52% could name Newt Gingrich as speaker of the House of Representatives.
Perhaps that is because 10% of respondents said they have watched almost all the Simpson trial, with an additional 13% saying they watched a lot of it, and 23% some of it. Ironically, however, of those who had watched all, a lot or some of the trial, 31% said they were not that interested in tuning in each day.
Thirty-one percent of respondents had watched hardly any of the live coverage of the trial, and 17% said they had seen none of it.
Talk radio programs were listened to regularly by 17% of respondents, while 26% said they sometimes listened, 27% rarely listened, and 30% said they never listened.
?( But even if people report they are not very closely watching O.J. Simpson trial, 64% of respondents knew the name of the judge in that case, Lance Ito, while only 52% could name Newt Gingrich as speaker of the House of Representatives.) [Photo & Caption]