Has the media been tipping the scales a bit when covering the Covid-19 pandemic? A team of really smart folks at the National Bureau of Economic Research asked that question and found the American media engages in a bit of fear-mongering with its Covid-19 coverage. NBER compared American and foreign media coverage of the virus and found 91% of American article were negative while only 54% of foreign media was. The abstract says it all:
We analyze the tone of COVID-19 related English-language news articles written since January 1, 2020. Ninety-one percent of stories by U.S. major media outlets are negative in tone versus fifty-four percent for non-U.S. major sources and sixty five percent for scientific journals. The negativity of the U.S. major media is notable even in areas with positive scientific developments including school re-openings and vaccine trials. Media negativity is unresponsive to changing trends in new COVID-19 cases or the political leanings of the audience. U.S. major media readers strongly prefer negative stories about COVID-19, and negative stories in general. Stories of increasing COVID-19 cases outnumber stories of decreasing cases by a factor of 5.5 even during periods when new cases are declining. Among U.S. major media outlets, stories discussing President Donald Trump and hydroxychloroquine are more numerous than all stories combined that cover companies and individual researchers working on COVID-19 vaccines.
The study cites coverage of the Jenner Institute's work on a Covid-19 vaccine as an example of the media bias. The Oxford Mail reported on February 18 that a rapid vaccine might be possible thanks to the Institute's previous work on a MERS vaccine. However, the American media establishment such as CNN, New York Times, and the Washington ____ just couldn't bring itself to report the good news until late April. The American media explained away Jenner's promising work with caveats and warnings. CNN is cited:
The earliest available (major outlet) U.S. story is from CNN on April 23ʳᵈ and begins with a quote from England's Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty saying that the probability of having a vaccine or treatment "anytime in the next calendar year" is "incredibly small."The CNN story gave all of five sentences to the Oxford vaccine candidate while the Times (U.K.) gave 14 sentences to the story. The British story opened with the statement "Leading scientist 80% sure drug will work." Sure enough, within six months there are not one but three vaccines. Thank you, CNN. It should be noted the NYT published a more rather thorough story on Dr. Gilbert's work on May 2.
Such fearmongering affects public perception and public policy. European schools reopened while American schools have done so half-haphazardly. Brown University compiles statistics on schoolchildren infections and determined their infection rates were only 0.14%. The schools are not super-spreaders as first feared. However, NBER found 90% of school reopening articles in American media were negative while only 56% of for English language foreign media.* The result? Heavy resistance in America to reopening schools.
Indeed, the heavily slanted reported is so depressing the CDC warned against consuming too many pandemic news stories.
The research team analyzed 9.4 million published Covid-19 news stories since January 1, 202 and found:
* Covid-19 stories reported in top-15 American media outlets are 25 percentage points more likely to be negative than the rest of the American media.
* The time pattern in the observed negativity is "at most weakly related to the actual time trend in new weekly cases." In other words, the media is reporting lagging bad news that is not actually happening today.
* Most popular stories in New York Times have high levels of negativity for Covid-19 articles.
* Negativity is not related to the media outlet's political leanings. Translation: They are all doing it.
* American major media reports benefits of measures such as wearing a mask or social distancing much less than it does on whether the President wears a mask.
The more influential the media source, the more negative the coverage. Indeed, the announcement of the new vaccines should be welcome news. Instead, we are treated to a media-created debate over who should get the vaccine as the media tries to stir up controversy.
* The Mississippi media is no better. Only 122 children under 18 years old have been hospitalized for Covid-19 all year. They make up 1.6% of all hospitalizations and 1.3% of all cases for those under 18 years old. However, the Mississippi media can't be bothered to dig up this info on the MSDH website. It sounds much better to say 9,000 children have been infected with Covid-19 in Mississippi. However, expecting reporters to perform basic research in this state is probably asking a little bit too much of them. It's much easier to harangue public officials about shutdowns and playing gotcha over masks.
Hell, WJTV one weekend thought the numbers were too low so what did it do? It simply added up the weekend daily numbers and reported the combined number as the number of new cases. The result was a headline that made the pandemic seem worse than it really was. Only when one read the story did one see the report was for cases combined from several days, giving a completely different meaning to the story.
23 comments:
So, they needed to do new research to learn that news media in the US shifted from news based to entertainment based to increase profits?
It's easy to play with numbers. 122 children (under 18) hospitalized and 9000 cases. That does not give information about the overall health effects but, in a State of deniers, it could be argued as a public service to break the bad news that it isn't only old people who are at risk and parents shouldn't dismiss the symptoms children might present.
It might be shocking to learn that some States are pinpointing geographical outbreaks to help people know where and when they may need to take extra precautions in their daily lives.
Since the overriding problem in this country is the unwillingness of too many of us to take this pandemic seriously, the negativity from the media is an understandable given the ignorance and outlandish reactions from those in denial.
See the comments below, KF. One of them assumes his parents' mild cases are relevant to the problem at hand and justify him ignoring protocols and likely being a spreader himself by either being an asymptomatic case or visiting them and sharing his contact with others.
Nor did it occur to the commenter, that someone wearing a mask who was contagious, reduced the amount of exposure to his parents.
Given that the current US numbers far exceed dire predictions now, I really think searching for economist's views on a subject outside their expertise is not helpful. They are missing more than a few obvious variables in this piece like the level of compliance in a population.
Now let's take a look at the actual results of COVID in America compared to the rest of the world. Per capita deaths are 11th in the world. Europe has generally done a much better job with mask compliance and targeted restrictions on particularly risky behavior. When cases and deaths started climbing in Europe they took action, America has resisted doing anything.
It is fine to say media coverage has influenced attitudes regarding COVID; however, with the exception of closing schools at a higher rate than in Europe, America has woefully underperformed in other areas and we are seeing the results. The Fox News acolytes will do everything they can to spread the virus far-and-wide. Yes the U.S. media is generally biased toward COVID panic, but it isn't showing up in real-life actions as much as you would like to think.
However, expecting reporters to perform basic research in this state is probably asking a little bit too much of them. It's much easier to harangue public officials about shutdowns and playing gotcha over masks.
The result of writing solely to buttress a pre-determined narrative.
Scare=clicks (revenue)
pandemic, voter fraud, socialists, religious extremism, BLM, 2nd Amendment...
Has anyone heard the media inform us of preventative measures like doses of vitamin D, vitamin C, zinc and querecetin? Or one hour of direct sunlight a day? Steam inhalation after outings? How about any coverage of therapeutics? Why not?
We are told that cases of the flu are at ZERO nationally. They tell us this is because of mask wearing. Next article tells us that covid is spreading due to mask wearing negligence.
Have to think that there are a number of those who comment here on the verge of this.
Given that the current US numbers far exceed dire predictions now, ...
Link?
... I really think searching for economist's views on a subject outside their expertise is not helpful.
AND your specific [anonymous] expertise is what? LMAO
Considering that per capita the US has had more infections and more deaths than any other country in the world, I'd say negative coverage was justified.
Additionally, most European countries continue to offer funds to those struggling or even some for of basic income. Whereas, the US sent one stimulus check, one round of PPP, expired additional unemployment bonuses, and never offered any form of rent/mortgage protection.
And the bill being floated now which absolves your employer of liability if you are exposed to COVID at work, would put in place the most un-worker friendly provision since before labor laws existed.
So yeah, I think there is cause to be negative here.
Highly contagious, lethal plagues such as COVID19 require a massive PR campaign by media, major companies and the hollywood “elite” for anyone to notice. Had to have been similar back during the Bubonic Plague
Considering that per capita the US has had more infections and more deaths than any other country in the world ...
Link? Because John Hopkins, for instance, says your claim is unsubstantiated crap.
11:31 Remember when up to 200,000 deaths was considered outrageous and the prediction was dropped to under 60,000? The virus was supposed to be gone by the first of July? Well, we've wildly surpassed those expectations and now we are reasonably looking at hitting half-a-million deaths before the end of April.
https://news.yahoo.com/trump-coronavirus-covid-19-us-death-toll-60000-mark-195436039.html
We don't want the media to mask the truth.
That's the best you can do @12:50? Move the goal posts? That is far exceeding dire? Give us a break, the early predictions were 2.2 MILLION. Go spread your bullshit somewhere else where some idiots might ignorantly find you authoritative.
This is a form of deception which is nothing but a lie. What type of idiot will attempt to justify being lied to. See 10:31. I'm almost convinced that some of these posters here are being paid, especially on certain subjects.
This shit is getting more ridiculous on a daily basis. Numbers don't correlate with the end of mankind or even being close to that scenario. Today MSDH reports 1263 new cases of Covid-19. Assume that means testing positive. Also at the same time reports New Covid-19 related deaths at "0". Again, positive doesn't necessarily mean sick nor is the number broken down to people who are asymptomatic, sub clinical, minor illness or ill enough to be placed in a hospital. And RELATED deaths don't always mean death due directly to Covid. May be someone dies being Covid Positive. Money to be made out there.
2:46 You can ignore any numbers released on Sunday or Monday. Those are from the weekend and people can't be bothered with sending reports in to the Department of Health. It is the 7-day trend you need to watch, and on all fronts it is going up rapidly with no signs of slowing down.
Does anyone have a rational explanation why the Mississippi Dept of Health hasn’t updated the influenza data since March? Have there literally been no cases since then? If masks are the reason that the entire country is currently below average in influenza cases (CDC website has a map), then obviously a mask isn’t working with COVID-19. The masks are stopping the flu, but not COVID? If that’s the case, then tell us to wear masks to prevent the flu. You can’t blame COVID cases on non-mask wearers, and still claim masks are stopping the flu. The non-mask wearers should still be catching the flu. Is the common cold still out there, or does it register as COVID since it too is a coronavirus? Does nobody actually ask these questions in their own minds? I’m not a physician, and don’t pretend to be one. I would just like some reasonable answers to some basic questions. And would it be too hard to list the deaths that were from COVID, as well as the deaths with COVID? I know this virus is killing some people, but there’s a lot that doesn’t add up.
Everyone's an expert.
10:31-10:34; Post less, take more Midol.
@3:49 the fear mongers need you to keep your deductive reasoning to yourself.
Anyone still watching mainstream news is an idiot. Pure propaganda.
at 3:49 PM
Speaking of the lack of information about flu this year, here's the update from the CDC:
Update as of December 3, 2020: The model used to generate influenza in-season preliminary burden estimates uses current season flu hospitalization data. Reported flu hospitalizations are too low at this time to generate an estimate.
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/preliminary-in-season-estimates.htm
It would be funny if it wasn't so sad.
It’s not a new thing, the subjects just change. Don Henley summed it up- we like Dirty Laundry.
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