News is too scandalous for Americans, poll shows

NEW YORK – Americans blame the media for the saturation of celebrity coverage on TV.

A survey conducted by the Pew Research Center for People & the Press said this week that 87% of respondents believe celebrity scandals get way too much ink and airtime. Only 8% think the media get the balance between celebrity and serious news right, while 2% told the surveyors that there wasn't enough celebrity scandal coverage.

There's been no shortage of scandals to report on in 2007, from the death of Anna Nicole Smith and the subsequent custody battle over her infant daughter to the jail saga of heiress Paris Hilton. Despite the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and a presidential campaign already under way, celebrity stories oftentimes have taken over the news. Pew found that 24% of all news was devoted to Smith at the time of her death, while 12% of all Americans said in early June that Hilton's incarceration was their most-followed news story of the week.

The survey found that cable news is most to blame for the ongoing celebrity coverage, with 34% of respondents saying cable news had the most celebrity coverage, followed by network TV news (27%), Internet news sites (15%) and newspapers (8%).

The survey sampled 1,027 adults from July 22-27.

[Source: Reuters/Hollywood Reporter]