Michael Jackson Media Coverage Excessive
WASHINGTON (AFP) - - Nearly two out of three Americans believe the media gave too much coverage to the death of Michael Jackson and just three percent think it was too little, according to a survey published on Wednesday.
Twenty-nine percent of the 1,000 people polled June 26-29 for the survey by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press believe the coverage of Jackson’s sudden death on Thursday at the age of 50 was the “right amount.”
Thirty percent of those polled said they followed the coverage of Jackson’s death “very closely” while 28 percent said they followed it “fairly closely.” Twenty-three percent said they followed it “not too closely” and 19 percent said they followed it “not at all closely.”
Thirty-one percent said they followed the Jackson story more closely than any other during the week. Pew said African-Americans followed the death of Jackson more closely than the population as a whole with eight in 10 blacks saying they followed the news of his death very closely compared with 22 percent of whites.
Seven in 10 whites said there had been too much coverage compared with 36 percent of blacks.
Thirty-eight percent of those under the age of 40 said they followed the pop star’s death very closely compared with 27 percent of those between 40 and 64 and 20 percent of those 65 and older.
Pew said a separate analysis of media coverage by the Pew Research Centers Project for Excellence in Journalism found that for the week of June 22-28 the Jackson story and protests in Iran received similar levels of media coverage. The protests in Iran made up 19 percent of the news hole for the week while the Jackson story took up 18 percent, it said.
However, from the time the Jackson story broke Thursday afternoon to the end of the day Friday, 60 percent of the news coverage studied was devoted to his death, Pew said.
Iran coverage dropped to seven percent of the news hole during the same period. Thirty-one percent of those surveyed said they followed coverage of the Iranian governments crackdown on election protesters very closely.
Pew said the survey of some 1,000 Americans aged 18 years older has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.