Most Viewers Think All That Flight 370 Coverage Is Just Fine

The media's wall-to-wall-to-wall coverage of the Flight 370 disaster has attracted its fair share of criticism—but almost half of viewers and readers have no problem with how much attention the story's been given.

Pew did one of its regular surveys of news consumers on Monday and found that, not surprisingly, a large plurality of them were very interested in the Flight 370 story. 44 percent told the research center that they were following events very closely. Russia's actions in Crimea, by contrast, were being tracked closely by just 15 percent of respondents.

Moreover, the percentage of people who thought that there had been the right amount of coverage (48)—far outweighed those who thought the coverage went too far (33). For good measure, 12 percent of respondents said there should be even more coverage.

The results are not too surprising, given that networks such as CNN have seen their ratings spike the more they've focused on Flight 370.

And it's ratings—far more than mockery from journalists or sniping from critics—that network executives care about more than anything else.