Behind the News — August 31, 2007 12:44 PM

What Kind of News do People Really Want?

Pew report studies twenty years of American preferences

By Curtis Brainard

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What kind of news do people really want? That’s a good question and we will probably never really know the answer. Some people like to read about War and Terrorism, others like bad weather, man-made and natural disasters and crime. Then there’s some who like politics and sports. Overall, it depends on what the person themselves likes to read. It can also depend on what’s going on in the world, which now would make War/Terrorism the highest read news category at 43% of the 30% of total people who follow the news very closely. Following right behind that at 40% is bad weather and money. Obviously, people have always liked reading about bad things happening to other people. Bad weather, man-made disasters, natural disasters, and crime and social violence rank among the top 19 news categories for this decade. Money is right up there because our economy is not during very well so people like to read about the status of money in our country. Some of the lower categories include science and technology and other nations. Since this study started in 1986, those two have both been ranked lowest in the news, but money has grown more popular over time, going from 23% during the 80’s to 40% now. Overall, it all comes down to what people want to read and pretty much there always going to want to read about bad things such as disasters and other horrible things and that is why they are some of the most popular news categories of our decade.

Posted by Mark on Tue 4 Sep 2007 at 01:39 PM

The main headlines and top stories in papers and magazines changes almost every day. From the game-winning touchdown of a football game to the death toll of the current war, almost every topic has graced the front page of a newspaper. Unfortunately, what is written about is not always the happiest of events. It’s sad to say that the highest rated articles are stories of death, war and disaster. But, as a journalist it is a job to write about what your readers want to be informed of in order to maintain ratings. In many instances, such as the war, news has become very personal to both the readers and those responsible for reporting it. Stories have become more opinionated even though journalists are supposed to step aside and list the facts. This leads to a decrease in popularity because not everyone has the same views on a given subject. And, even a slight, momentary drop in the number of readers can influence a magazine’s decision to shift their news menu in order to keep up with what the think is now of interest. To be honest, most people do not even know what they want to read about or what topics they are interested in on a daily basis. This makes it hard for writers to satisfy every reader, but from the statistics in the study by Robinson, they have some idea.

Posted by Alli on Tue 4 Sep 2007 at 01:43 PM

The article “What Kind of News do People Really Want” shows what kind of stories are being read the most, and in what time periods. The subjects of “War and Terrorism” and “Man-Made Disasters” ranked fairly high in the standings of what people followed more closely, which led to an increase of news following in the 2000’s. The fact that media was less followed in the 1990’s makes perfect sense, as the United States was at good economic standings, and had significantly less natural disasters. I was surprised to know that celebrity gossip ranked low on the news that people find the least interesting on a daily basis. Celebrity scandals seem to appear in all news shows, even though a smaller audience finds them relevant and appealing.
However, “even the smallest shift of ratings can cause news organizations to alter substantially their news focus”. Such events as the affair between Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie will briefly cover news shows that need a boost in ratings. The news always shifts to what the public wants to hear for that day. On a basis of a longer scale, the general interest includes more topics with sustenance, like the War in Iraq and global warming.
Popular journalism means to give the people the news they want to hear for that day. Good journalism means to give the people news that they haven’t heard before.

Posted by Greenwood on Tue 4 Sep 2007 at 01:47 PM

I think that the article “What Kind of News do People Really Want?” was true about how we like to read things that are covered by the media all the time. It’s things such as global warming and the war in Iraq that get most people to read things in the paper because these are the stories that are going to impact the future of the reader.
I think the auther of the article hit it on the dot with how the journalist has to have a rapport with the reader of the story so that the reader is more likely to read the article

Posted by meghan Cline on Tue 4 Sep 2007 at 01:50 PM

I believe that if an outlet like CNN chooses to woo a different audience for ratings’ sake, then the national audience will be even more confused when judging the importance of a report or article. Sometimes it takes a reputable news source like CNN to emphasize the importance of a story and make it clear to their audience. For important news, I would much prefer watch a show on CNN because I know that they only report on the important stories.

It may be thanks to the “ratings channels” that the public knows more about how long Paris Hilton has been in jail than who the presidential candidates are. In my opinion, those networks are dumbing down America by reporting on the less complex, more media friendly stories.

Sometimes in order to learn more, you have to focus on the areas that you don’t know so much about. The “ratings networks” are reporting on stories that people are more familiar with and easier to process. Unfortunately, today, people want the kind of news that won’t require them to think or form an knowledgeable opinion.

Posted by Tyler E on Tue 4 Sep 2007 at 01:53 PM

Robinson is saying that people are fed up with the celebrity lifestyle updates or the ‘less important’ things and it’s time for the more boring stuff to be written about because people are becoming more interested with government and what’s going on with the war and such. All the updates on celebrity life and such is boring people because it’s always the same old stories.

Posted by Kaitlin Dowdy on Tue 4 Sep 2007 at 01:56 PM

Just a note -- could you spell Robinson's name right? There are several typos of "Robison" in the article. Thanks.

Posted by jdorsey on Wed 5 Sep 2007 at 06:40 AM

I believe that the news and media do base their news on what the public likes at the moment. All that matters to them is ratings. They might like another subject or think something is of more importance than the other but because of the lack of interest of the public the news and media sticks to what the readers and viewers find interesting or of more importance. The scales of changes on coverage have changed rapidly over the years.
The big question, “not, how have preferences changed, but rather to what degree and how quickly does content influence those preferences?” The different ways in which the reporters base their opinions has changed dramatically. They go more into the opinion of what the public thinks or wants to hear. Opinions have formed more into the popular demand on the subject. So basically to answer this question I feel as if the content influences the preferences because people like to hear what they feel is right and what they want to hear. When the reporters feed the readers a little on what they want to hear, the readers crave more on the subject. That explains why there is always the same kind of coverage on all the media resources.
-sonia famania*

Posted by journalism on Wed 5 Sep 2007 at 01:25 PM

What I find interesting in the article “What Kind of News People Really Want?” is that the percentage of people who follow the news closely dropped from 30% in the 1980’s to 23% in the 1990’s and then back up to 30% in the 21st century. I feel like that shows that there was not a lot of newsworthy things that people cared about. We had our president, Bill Clinton, get impeached in 1998 and yet the percent of how many people followed the news was 23%. It shows that many people were not really interested in politics back then and why their president was getting impeached. Now, more people are much more interested in the War in Iraq, than they are about celebrity scandals, however CNN and Nancy Grace have devoted much time to the Lindsay Lohan scandal, Paris Hilton’s incarceration, and Anna Nicole Smith’s death.

Posted by emily3825 on Wed 5 Sep 2007 at 01:29 PM

What I find most interesting about this article is, in fact, not what area of news is more popular or most covered, but that without intending to the news caters to the viewers. Although it is heartening that thus far celebrity news has ranked fairly low, it seems that all it takes is a true “scandal,” and I use that word lightly because anything that happens in Hollywood is already over-dramatized and blown out of proportion before it even hits the press, for news agencies to stop covering hard news and start focusing on the soap opera that is Hollywood. The fact that CNN gave priority to the Anna Nicole Smith stories, yes, more than one story on the death of one woman, over the story of the Prince of England, one of the US’s allies since World War I, deciding to risk his life in the war against terrorism is purely ludicrous. Her story was given priority purely because it came out of Hollywood. People die of drug overdoses in hospitals daily, yet you never see any of their stories on the news. Why is that? I’m sure that they’ve led much harder and much more interesting lives than Anna Nicole Smith, yet she is the one who gets media attention over hard-hitting, breaking news stories. In fact, the reason that she got priority was not because she was more important, but because the viewers would prefer to hear of a “scandalous” tragedy then find out what is happening in the real world. The general populace would rather sit at home, blame the government for all their problems and demand that the government fix them instead of actually paying attention to the world around them and realizing that the government has enough of it’s own problems. The people would rather live in a world where the biggest tragedy is that Anna Nicole Smith overdosed on drugs than one where the world’s problems really exist. With that attitude from the viewers, reporters are forced to cover stories that want to be seen, instead of real stories for without viewers the stations would shut down. And that, my friends is the problem with media.

Posted by kpeck on Wed 5 Sep 2007 at 01:38 PM

“What Kind of News Do people Really Want?”
The news has changed a lot over the years. The stories are always different, but what people want to hear about has not changed. Sense the 80’s the top stories have always been about war, terrorism, death, and disaster. What attracts the viewer is how the topic impacts them. For instance most people are attracted to the stories on the war in Iraq, this is because it affects them in a certain way. Another example is the story on Anna Nicole Smith, even though this story did have a lot of coverage a lot of people didn’t really want to hear about this topic. Overall this article was true about everything, the more the topic affects the viewers the more attention it will recive.

Posted by Pat on Wed 5 Sep 2007 at 01:54 PM

With scandals involving Britney Spears and Lindsey Lohan’s clashes and DUI’s grazing the cover pages of magazines, the public eye is starting to tune out of the Hollywood scene. The article studies twenty years of America’s preference in news articles. Topping the list of most popular articles is the war on terrorism and man made natural disasters. Audiences are interested in the death rate and troops in the Middle East, and they want to present themselves as a more patriotic and devoted nation. Immediate direct articles that affect lives such as weather and disasters intrigue the minds of many readers and can affect them at any given moment. A majority of readers prefer to read day to day human issues which they can relate to. However, key issues such as politics and campaign elections that will someday affect us, are ranking in the middle with many of the educated citizens only showing an interest. So the question pops up again, what kind of news do people really want? In my opinion, I feel people are more inclined to read articles where bad things happen to innocent people, like weather disasters, crime, and wars. But it remains to be said that people want to read articles that entertain them. We are all different and we can not just say everyone likes the same thing; one person may like to read about celebrity gossip, while another prefers the future 2009 elections. People’s different opinions make it hard for a journalist to write about something that interests everyone, whether they have to make the audience read about something they’ve never read before or something that makes the audience’s life seem better than it really is.

Posted by tashia on Wed 5 Sep 2007 at 10:40 PM