Mission:
To serve as a forum for ideas on the media and public policy through public opinion research.

Background:
The Pew Research Center for the People and the Press is an independent opinion research group that studies attitudes toward the press, politics, and public policy issues. It is best known for national surveys, available free of charge, that measure public attentiveness to major news stories, and for polling that charts trends in values and fundamental political and social attitudes. Formerly the Times Mirror Center for the People & the Press (1990-1995) and now sponsored by the Philadelphia-based Pew Charitable Trusts, the center is an information resource for political leaders, journalists, scholars, and public-interest organizations. Its research program covers five main areas of investigation: people and the press; people, the press and politics; the news-interest index; media use; and America's place in the world. Its director, independent pollster Andrew Kohut, was founder of Princeton Survey Research Associates and former president of the Gallup Organization.

Outstanding Features:
The Web site provides a list of all the survey reports the center has published since 1989, accessible by topic or by year; as well as an archive of raw survey data in downloadable ASCII files for scholars to use in their own research.