A new study released today of news coverage in Los Angeles finds that crime and fluff get more air time, and news pages, than local government news.

The findings are from the University of Southern California's Lear Center, which monitored such coverage on the air and in local newspapers.

“Los Angeles may be hemorrhaging red ink, but 'if it bleeds it leads' doesn't apply to news coverage of its fiscal woes,” an announcement of the findings stated. “Though crime led local TV news in Los Angeles on one out of three broadcasts, stories about L.A.'s budget crisis topped local news only one time out of 100.”

It also stated: “An average half-hour of L.A. local news packed all its local government coverage - including budget, law enforcement, education, layoffs, new ordinances, voting procedures, personnel changes, city and county government actions on health care, transportation and immigration - into 22 seconds.

”But crime stories filled 7 times more of the broadcast, averaging 2:50. Sports and weather took the most time: 3:36. Soft news - human interest, oddball stories and miscellaneous fluff - took up the next-largest chunk after crime, averaging 2:26. The findings come from a study of nearly 1,000 half-hours of local news on 8 stations in the L.A. media market: KABC, KCAL, KCBS, KCOP, KNBC, KTLA, KTTV and the Spanish-language KMEX. The study, released today by the Norman Lear Center at the USC Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism, and sponsored by the Los Angeles Civic Alliance, recorded all local news programs, round-the-clock, on 14 days in August and September 2009. Over 11,000 news stories were analyzed."

Other highlights of the TV findings:

• Coverage of business and the economy in Los Angeles averaged 29 seconds. Teasers (“coming up on the Southland's best news...”) lasted more than four times that amount (2:10).

• The time spent on ads (8:25), teasers, and sports and weather takes up nearly half of a typical half-hour of local news. Of the time left for everything else (15:44), almost half (8:17) was made up of stories taking place outside the L.A. media market.

• If you add up all the time given to all stories focused on L.A. government, business and economy; all crime-related stories of civic importance (e.g., rewards offered, public corruption, police shootings); all stories about people dealing with local issues like traffic and the environment; all local public health news; and all coverage of the L.A. wildfires and water main breaks (which occurred during the study's sample), all that news combined took up about 4 minutes of a composite half-hour.

Local TV used 1.9% of its news hole - total time, minus ads and teasers - to cover L.A. government. The L.A. Times news hole - total space, minus ads and teasers - used 3.3%.

Other comparisons between print and TV on the 14 days of the study:

• The L.A. Times devoted 10% of its front page stories to local government, compared to 2.5% of TV news lead stories about it.

• The paper allocated 7.8% of its news hole to L.A. business and economy, compared to TV's 2.3%. Six percent of the Times's front page stories focused on local business and economy, compared to 0.5% TV leads about L.A. business/economy.

• TV spent 9 times more of its news hole on soft, odd, and miscellaneous stories, and almost three times more on crime, than the paper. Fourteen percent of the paper's front page stories were about crime, compared to more than a third of TV's lead stories.

The entire report can be found HERE