Public Not Interested in Wright Case, Poll Finds

WASHINGTON —  Republicans who hope the scandal surrounding House Speaker Jim Wright (D-Tex.) will become a major public issue are likely to be disappointed: According to a Gallup Poll conducted for the Times Mirror Corp., most Americans are not paying attention to Wright--fewer than half even know who he is.

By contrast, Americans are paying close attention to news reports about the massive oil spill in Alaska, which has become by far the most watched story of the year, the poll shows. About 90% of those surveyed said they were following the Alaska story very or fairly closely, and about four of five respondents said they had talked about the oil spill with friends or co-workers.

As for Wright, of seven heavily reported recent stories about which respondents were questioned in the survey, the only story to which the public has paid less attention is the resignation of Japanese Prime Minister Noboru Takeshita. Almost half of all respondents said that they had ignored that story entirely. Only 15% of those polled said they were following the Wright story “very closely.” Last year, about the same percentage said they were paying very close attention to the Mike Tyson-Robin Givens divorce.

Several Republican leaders in recent weeks privately have expressed hope that the cloud surrounding Wright will become a major public concern that eventually would work against Democratic candidates generally. Democratic leaders have insisted that so far, at least, they have not seen any such effect, and the poll appears to support their contention.

Although only 15% said they were following the Wright story “very closely,” 30% said they were following the matter “fairly closely.” When asked if they could identify Wright, 46% immediately said no and an additional 14% claimed to know who he was but identified him incorrectly.

However, the poll was taken during the first week of May. Since then, there has been extensive publicity about the criminal record of Wright’s former top aide, John P. Mack, who resigned last week. Many in Congress believe that Mack’s problems have attracted more public attention to Wright’s difficulties.

The poll indicated also that the relative lack of news coming out of the Bush Administration has been noticed. When asked how the volume of news coverage of Bush compared to the volume of coverage of Ronald Reagan, 48% said Bush is being covered less.

The new poll is the first of a series of “Newstrack” surveys conducted by the Gallup organization for Times Mirror, which owns the Los Angeles Times and other newspapers. The series is designed to study how the public responds to news and how it judges the performance of media organizations. The results are based on telephone interviews with 1,239 adults and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.

In general, the poll indicated that the public is relatively satisfied with news coverage of major stories but is not necessarily following them closely. A majority of those surveyed said that they had discussed only three of the seven stories--the oil spill, the Iran-Contra trial of former National Security Council aide Oliver L. North and the explosion on the battleship Iowa that killed 47 sailors last month.

Somewhat less than half of those surveyed said that they had discussed two other stories--the brutal attack by a gang of youths on a woman jogging in New York’s Central Park and the Supreme Court case that could lead to a reversal of the landmark Roe vs. Wade abortion decision. About one-third of those surveyed said that they had taken part in conversations about Wright. Only one in 10 said that Takeshita had come up in their conversations.