Majority Hold Positive Views of Demonstration News Coverage

As protests continue to take place around the country following the death of George Floyd, an analysis by Pew Research Center find that two-thirds of Americans, including majorities of adults across racial and ethnic groups, express support for the Black Lives Matter movement.

A companion analysis finds that Americans’ attention to news coverage of the protests has been nearly as high as recent attention to news about the COVID-19 outbreak, with 42% following the protests very closely. Both reports find deep partisan divides, including over views of the factors underlying the protests and assessments of both the quality of the news media’s coverage and Trump’s messaging about the demonstrations.

The survey of 9,654 U.S. adults conducted June 4-10, 2020, as part of the Center’s American News Pathways project, finds that the public sees a mix of factors as contributing to the protests, with seven-in-ten U.S. adults saying anger over Floyd’s death after his arrest by Minneapolis police has contributed a great deal to the protests, and roughly the same share (69%) pointing to broader tensions between black people and police. The public’s views of the amount of coverage news organizations have devoted to six specific protest-related storylines also varies. For example, a plurality of 44% of Americans say too much news coverage has been focused on acts of violence around the protests (as opposed to too little or the right amount) while 51% say too little coverage has focused on nonviolent protests.

Among the key findings of the report focused on attitudes toward the Black Lives Matter movement, recent protests and racial inequality in the U.S. more broadly:

• Republicans and Democrats have vastly different views on the factors underlying the protests: While 84% of Democrats and those who lean Democratic say long-standing concerns about treatment of black people in this country have contributed a great deal to the protests, only 45% of Republicans agree. Eight-in-ten Democrats say tensions between black people and police was a major contributing factor, while 57% of Republicans say the same.
• The public sees working with black people in their local communities as more effective than protests and other tactics for achieving racial equality. Overall, majorities of Americans see working directly with black people to solve problems in their local communities (82%), bringing people of different racial backgrounds together to talk about race (74%) and working to get more black people elected to office (68%) as effective tactics for groups and organizations that work to help black people achieve equality. Smaller shares – though still more than half (55%) – believe organizing protests and rallies is an effective tool.
• About seven-in-ten Americans, including majorities across racial and ethnic groups, say they’ve had conversations about race in the past month. Additionally, 37% of those who use social networking sites say they have posted or shared content related to race or racial equality on these sites during this period.
• Deep racial divides persist in views of President Donald Trump’s impact on race relations in the U.S. About half of respondents (48%) say the president has made race relations worse, a number that is higher among black (68%), Asian (62%) and Hispanic (55%) adults. Roughly one-in-five adults (19%) say President Trump has made progress toward improving race relations, with only 5% of black adults, 11% of Hispanic adults and 14% of Asian adults agreeing with this assessment.
• Republicans and Democrats differ widely in their views on the impact Trump has had on race relations. Fully four-in-ten Republicans say Trump has made things better, while only 13% say he has made things worse. About a third of Republicans (32%) say Trump has tried but failed to make progress, and 13% say he hasn’t addressed the issue. By contrast, 80% of Democrats say Trump has made race relations worse, only 2% say he’s made things better, 8% say he’s tried and failed and 10% say he hasn’t addressed the issue.

Among the key findings of the report focused on news coverage of the protests and views of Trump’s messaging about the demonstrations:

• Six-in-ten U.S. adults say Donald Trump’s message in response to the protests has been wrong, including about four-in-ten (39%) who say it has been completely wrong and 21% who say it’s been mostly wrong. Fewer (37%) say his message has been completely or mostly right.
• Americans offer a more positive assessment of media coverage of the demonstrations. A majority of U.S. adults (57%) say news organizations have done a good or excellent job, compared with 42% who give the news media an only fair or poor assessment.
• Differences in the evaluations of Trump and the news media are particularly dramatic among black Americans. Fully 85% of black adults say the message Trump has been putting out in response to the protests is wrong, including 64% who say it is completely wrong and 21% who say it is mostly wrong. Conversely, about seven-in-ten black adults (72%) say the news media has done a good (40%) or excellent (32%) job covering the demonstrations in the wake of George Floyd’s death.
• White Democrats and white Republicans (both including those who lean to the party) express very different views on both Trump’s messaging and news coverage around the protests. For example, 76% of white Republicans say Trump’s messaging has been mostly or completely right, in contrast with the 94% of white Democrats that say his messaging has been completely or mostly wrong.
• Young Americans stand out for discussing the protests more than older adults, being particularly negative on Trump’s message and wanting more news coverage of most issues. For example, 76% of young Americans say Trump is delivering a mostly or completely wrong message on the demonstrations. That contrasts with the 49% of Americans 65 and older who say so.
• Of six storylines about the protests asked about in the survey, only one was evaluated by a plurality of the public as being covered too much by the news media: acts of violence and destruction that have occurred around the protests. More than four-in-ten U.S. adults (44%) say this element of the story is getting too much attention, compared with about half as many (20%) who say coverage is too light and 36% who say the level of coverage has been about right.
• Black and white adults offer varying perspectives on the amount of coverage the news media are giving to some of the storylines. For example, about half of black adults (51%) say there has been too little coverage of the decisions around whether to prosecute Minneapolis police officers for Floyd’s killing, while just 28% of white Americans agree, again with partisan divides among white adults.