I am writing today to announce the closure of the New Mexico Independent. After three and a half years of operation in New Mexico, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news…
While environmental activists played their part yesterday during demonstrations at the capitol building, going so far as to dress up as solar panels and to sing the tune of “You Are My Sunshine,” their counterparts, the anti-cap-and-trade contingency who has…
Roughly one quarter of University of New Mexico students are unimpressed with the state’s flagship public school, according to a survey that questioned college students about their higher education experiences.
From a Pew Research Center for the People & the Press poll, from April 1-5
According to a national poll by The Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, health care is still on the minds of the public, while news on jobs is still seen as bad despite some positive economic signs.
“Close to half the public (48 percent) followed news about the new health care law most closely last week, dwarfing the 8 percent following the other top policy story, the economy, that closely, according to the latest News Interest Index survey conducted by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press,” according to the polling report.
The poll also finds that 56 percent are hearing mostly bad news on the jobs front “despite the release of a federal employment report on April 2 that showed the creation of 162,000 new jobs last month” while 33 percent are hearing a mixture of good or bad news. Just nine percent say they are hearing mostly good things.
On the economy as a whole, 66 percent are hearing a mixture of good news and bad news on the economy, which has not changed much in recent months, according to Pew. However, 28 percent say they are hearing mostly bad news and just six percent are hearing mostly good news.
The poll finds interesting — if not surprising — data on the partisan split on views of the economy.
Just as in March, Republicans are somewhat more likely than Democrats to say they are hearing mostly bad news about the economy (32% vs. 23%), a view shared by 26% of independents. Republicans also are more likely than Democrats to say they are hearing bad news about the job situation (62% vs. 49%); 56% of independents say job news is mostly negative. About four-in-ten Democrats (42%) say they are hearing a mix of good and bad news about jobs, compared with 27% of Republicans and 33% of independents. Partisan differences are less pronounced in assessments of news about other aspects of the economy.
As for media coverage, a plurality (46 percent) say the media is devoting the right amount of coverage on both the economy and the recently-passed health care law.
The Republican National Committee was involved in a scandal when FEC reports indicated that the group had spent nearly $2,000 at a Los Angeles lesbian bondage-themed club. However, the Pew poll finds that the scandal went largely under the radar. Just 16 percent said they heard a lot about the scandal.
This doesn’t mean that the RNC has escaped any harm from the scandal — a new conservative PAC has launched, with advertisements that tweak the RNC. And Tony Perkins, who heads the Family Research Council, told conservatives to boycott the RNC.
Twice as many people, 32 percent, had heard “a lot” about the major flooding in New England and 26 percent had heard “a lot” about major changes to the student loan program that were part of the health care reform package. However, the RNC scandal did beat out one piece of news; the news about the Large Hadron Collider running its first experiemnts.
There was a story that 11 percent of the public said they were following most closely, sandwiched between health care and the economy but it wasn’t a policy — or even a hard-news — story. The NCAA tournament which concluded Monday with Duke University winning their fourth national tile, beating underdog Butler University.
The poll was conduced from April 1-5 and had a nationally representative sample of 1,016 adults. Polling was not conducted on Sunday, April 4 because that day was Easter.
