More than 90% of roughly 20,000 coronavirus-related news items from the most popular U.S. media outlets were negative, according to a new analysis.
In the report, circulated by the National Bureau of Economic Research, researchers from Brown University and Dartmouth College analyzed news on the topics of vaccines, increases and decreases in COVID-19 case counts, and reopenings of schools and businesses from 15 of the most popular, mainstream outlets, determined based on viewership or readership.
The authors concluded that overall, “U.S. readers demand negative stories (as evidenced by article popularity),” and all major outlets of disparate political leanings are working to meet that demand.
“COVID-19 stories from Fox News are about as negative as those from CNN,” they said.
News about the COVID-19 vaccine development process from major U.S. outlets was particularly negative, they found. Vaccine stories in major U.S. media outlets are 45 percentage points more likely to be negative relative to stories in non-U.S. media outlets. For instance, the authors said that U.S. media outlets neglected to cover early positive news about vaccine development at the University of Oxford until April 23, more than two months after the Oxford Mail first published a story.
They added that the earliest coverage of the vaccine scientists came from CNN “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.’”
They added that “the CDC’s implicit ‘warning label’ against consuming too much U.S. COVID-19 media may be warranted.”
To date, more than 12.2 million coronavirus cases have been confirmed in the United States, with more than 1.3 million new cases being confirmed in the last seven days alone. Nearly 257,000 deaths have been confirmed in the U.S. so far, with an average of 1,470 new deaths reported daily over the past week.
