Public Calls Trump Coverage Overkill : Media: 55% in survey say too much attention was given to marital dispute during February. Mandela was the most closely followed story.

Americans have had enough of Donald and Ivana, a new survey released Thursday found.

A record number of people believe that the media have “over-covered” the story of flamboyant developer Donald Trump’s dissolving marriage to former model Ivana, according to the Times Mirror News Interest Index, a monthly survey of public attitudes toward the news.

And while no story has truly riveted Americans’ attention lately, the most closely followed story during February was the release of black South African leader Nelson Mandela, the survey found.

A record 55% of respondents said that the media had devoted too much coverage to the Trumps’ marital dispute, which has dominated national tabloid magazines and even received generous play on the once-staid network news.

Even assuming that some people who eagerly read accounts of the Trumps’ problems might have told a pollster they consider such stories trash, the number is high.

In previous surveys, the closest any story has come to being considered so over-covered was the sentencing of televangelist Jim Bakker last October, at 43%.

In general, only about 12% of Americans said they were paying “very close attention” to the Trump story. That is about the same percentage as the 14% who admitted to closely following the widely publicized marital problems of heavyweight boxer Mike Tyson and TV actress Robin Givens last year.

Nonetheless, some details of the Trump case seemed to grab attention--even that of apparently casual observers. Nearly 40% of survey participants were able to identify Donald Trump’s girlfriend, Marla Maples. The survey’s authors called that “a very significant level of awareness for someone who only entered the public’s consciousness within the last month.”

Few politicians are so memorable. Only 14% of the poll respondents could identify Czechoslovakian President Vaclav Havel, for instance, up from 10% in January. And only 6% of Americans said they were paying very close attention to Havel’s visit to Washington last month.

The most closely followed story of the month, Mandela’s release from jail in South Africa, captured the attention of 30% of respondents. While this is not a high number relative to other stories the survey has monitored in the last four years, it suggests that, with certain stories, extraordinary amounts of coverage can raise the public’s interest.

The previous month, the announcement that Mandela would be released and that his African National Congress would be legalized was closely followed by only 11% of the public. The near tripling of public interest last month coincided with saturation coverage on network evening news, where Mandela’s release received almost three times more time than any other story.

Still, as the Trump story suggests, the amount of coverage is not a clear determinant of public interest. Events in the Soviet Union were very closely followed by 28% of respondents, almost as many as in South Africa, even though Soviet affairs received only a quarter of the network news time devoted to the South African story.

The defeat of Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua’s elections also received somewhat less attention than coverage. Only 19% of participants said they were closely monitoring news of the vote, though it was the second most heavily covered story in February.

But 63% of respondents were aware that Ortega had been defeated.

Other stories from Eastern Europe were more closely followed, such as German reunification, (23%). The drug summit in Colombia was next (22%), roughly the same number as closely followed President Bush’s summit with Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev in Malta.

The discovery in New Zealand of Hilary Foretich, the 7-year-old subject of a bitter custody dispute between her mother, Dr. Elizabeth Morgan, and her father, Dr. Eric Foretich, was very closely followed by 17% of Americans, and by twice as many women as men. The press also received below average grades for its coverage of the case, as it did for the Trump case.

And the bankruptcy of the Wall Street brokerage firm that helped create merger mania, Drexel Burnham Lambert, was very closely followed by just 9% of Americans.

Apparently, news you can use is more memorable. Nearly 80% of Americans, an extraordinarily high number, knew about the recall of Perrier mineral water.