Fort Hood Shootings Top Interest, Coverage

The November 5 shootings at the Fort Hood Army post in Texas - which resulted in the death of 13 Americans - was the public's top news story last week. News coverage of the tragedy was also high, with the national media devoting more attention to the story than to any other. Three-in-ten Americans followed news about the shootings at Fort Hood more closely than any other news story last week. In addition, the latest weekly News Interest Index survey, conducted November 6-9 among 1,001 adults by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, finds that 44% say they paid very close attention to the shootings. That level of very close interest is on par with the level of attention paid to the shootings at the Virginia Tech campus in 2007.