Did Media Spend Too Much Time Covering Michael Jackson's Death?

Wednesday July 1, 2009

Did the U.S. media spend too much time covering the death of Michael Jackson?

Nearly two-in-three Americans - 69 percent - feel the media devoted too much time to the story, according to a survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press.

Overall, the Jackson story and the Iranian protests received similar levels of coverage. The protests in Iran took up 19 percent of the newshole for the week, the Jackson story 18 percent, according to the Pew Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism.

But from the time the Jackson story broke Thursday afternoon to the end of the day Friday, 60 percent of the news coverage studied was about his death, his life story and his legacy. Iran coverage dropped to 7 percent of coverage in that same period.

Whatever their feelings about the Jackson coverage, many followed it closely. The poll found that 30 percent of respondents followed stories about Jackson very closely, and 31 percent said it was the story they followed more closely than any other.

(That compares to the 28 percent who followed the death of Tim Russert very closely last year; the 30 percent who followed the death of croc hunter Steve Irwin very closely in September 2006; and the 54 percent who very closely followed the deaths of John F. Kennedy Jr. in July 1999 and Princess Diana in September 1997.)

Eight-in-ten African Americans said they followed the Jackson news very closely, compared with 22 percent of whites. Women (35 percent) followed the story more closely than men (26 percent), and 38 percent of under people under 40 followed the news very closely, compared with people between 40 and 64 (27 percent) and those 65 and older (20 percent).

Half of those polled said they felt the media had the right mix of coverage on Jackson's life, career and scandals; 26 percent said the coverage focused too much on the scandals and 11 percent said it focused too much on his career.