COVID-19: The first 100 days of U.S. news coverage

This two-part series is about the shape and flow of U.S. media coverage about Covid-19, and its visual representation across time and digital space during the early months of 2020.

Report 1 included  interactive data visualizations showing the results of a computational analysis of 125,696 news articles from 66 widely-read national, metropolitan, and digital-only news websites. A follow-up analysis identifies the top 12 news outlets producing the most coverage of Covid-19. Findings indicated the U.S. coronavirus news story gained momentum in three distinct waves of coverage that culminated in a news tsunami in mid-March that spread through every news section from business and politics to health and sports. Certain stories were amplified and re-circulated across news sites and on social media, thus creating a network of diverse contributors to this vast news ecosystem.

In Report 2, a content analysis of 532 randomly selected news images from the top 12 outlets examined the visual representation of the coronavirus story. Five dominant visual themes – fear, hope, loneliness, determination, and grief – emerged from the sample of news images analyzed. Together, this series illustrates how the coronavirus story developed and spread, and how news is experienced in the 21st century, even as mass layoffs, mergers, and closures challenge the news industry.

 

Interested in healthcare? Check out this GovWhitePapers blog post! You can also find healthcare events on our sister site, GovEvents.