Americans Sick Of Gossip, Sports In News Coverage, Want More Substance

A new Harris survey finds that a large proportion of Americans are fed up with news coverage that skews toward the sensational, superficial, and sports-centric.

Harris found that 76% of US adults surveyed believe that celebrity gossip and scandal stories receive too much coverage, while 49% believe that entertainment news in general gets too much attention. Meanwhile, 44% believe that the news focuses too much on professional spectator sports, and 33% believe the same for politics and elections. Other topics receive too little attention, according to the Harris respondents, including humanitarian issues in the U.S., cited by 47%; education, also 47%; science, at 45%; government corruption and scandals, at 44%; corporate corruption and white collar crime, at 42%; global humanitarian issues, at 33%; and health, at 30%.