Kerby Anderson

The mainstream press has done a very poor job of covering the pandemic. That is the conclusion of one research paper published by the National Bureau of Economic Research. Scholars from Dartmouth College and Brown University analyzed the tone of COVID-19-related news articles since the start of this year.

They found a significant difference between the way the US media covered the pandemic compared to how media in other countries covered it. For example, more than nine out of ten (91%) stories by US major media were negative in tone. By contrast, only about half (54%) were negative when covered by non-US media. The US media ran many more stories about increasing COVID-19 cases than stories about decreasing cases even during periods when new cases were actually declining.

The researchers also found a disconnect when it came to reporting the reopening of the schools. While researchers were finding that young students are less likely to catch the virus or become super-spreaders, the mainstream media was overwhelmingly negative compared to major media in other countries.

Finally, the researchers also found that the US media did not accurately report on the development the vaccines. They actually spent more time talking about the president and hydroxychloroquine than they did on vaccine research. The media did very few stories on the vaccines and didn’t even start covering the vaccine development until later in the year.

This research study merely validates what many of us saw during the press conferences with the Coronavirus Task Force, the headlines in newspapers, and news stories on television. Press coverage was routinely negative because the press disliked the president and didn’t want to acknowledge any successes during this election year.