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Americans Approve of News Coverage of Attacks

The day after the attack on America, the staff at WestGroup asked ourselves the question, "What kind of job have the broadcast media, nationally and locally, done in covering the devastating attack on America during the past few days?" As you have seen in other newsletters, WG does a significant amount of research each year for a television news consultant. We thought it would be interesting to find out how the public was responding to the news coverage of the September 11 events, and perhaps it would be helpful for the news stations to have public input as well.

We knew it would be important to gather the information quickly while the perceptions were fresh in the minds of viewers. We rallied the interviewers and made the commitment to complete 500 interviews with residents in all 50 states on September 12, 2001. Our interviewers met the challenge, as we expected, and we were able to complete the study in one evening and by mid-afternoon on September 13th, we had prepared a comprehensive PowerPoint presentation of the results ready to be released to news stations around the country. The following is a brief summary of the results. The complete PowerPoint presentation can be found on our web site at www.westgroupresearch.com/crisiscoverage.

The study showed that overall, Americans overwhelmingly approved of the television coverage of the attack on America. Those surveyed appreciated the accuracy and immediacy of the television coverage, as well as stations' commitment to continuous coverage. Almost 60% of those surveyed had no complaints about the news coverage they viewed in the first few days of the crisis. Of those who mentioned areas for improvement, repetition of information (12%) and pictures (8%) were the major criticisms. Also, approximately one in ten felt the coverage should be less sensational in nature.

Specifically, praise was given in the following areas:

• Accuracy of the news coverage was most often appreciated by viewers (36%). This was particularly true of those preferring the coverage on CBS (46%).
• Immediacy of coverage and the commitment by stations to offer continuous coverage was appreciated by approximately one in five viewers.
• Commitment to continuous coverage was more often mentioned as the "best aspect" of coverage by ABC (22%) and CNN viewers (25%).
• Professionalism of the anchors was mentioned by 15%.
• Photos and video footage were cited as the "best aspects" by 14%, but were particularly popular among NBC (21%) and FOX (20%) viewers.

Friends, family and co-workers were most often the initial source of notification of the attack on America (mentioned by 25%). Local and network television news coverage, plus radio announcements, were mentioned by approximately one in five residents.

For continuing information, Americans relied most often on television.

• CNN (21%) and ABC (21%) topped the list as the preferred stations for crisis news coverage.
• NBC followed closely (17%).
• CBS and FOX were selected by one in ten viewers (11% each).

NOVEMBER 2001 Answers:
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