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.
Interesting that they highlight the disparities in negativity between American mainstream media versus foreign news and specialist news reporting. Unremarked is that 91% negativity rate is not dissimilar to the American mainstream media reporting on Trump in the past four years. It is also not dissimilar to the imbalance among news reporters between Liberal and Conservative.
While the appeal of mainstream media has become much narrower than in the past, the constant crisis mode has been successful for a select few, principally The New York Times. Whether roiling hysteria is a sustainable business model is an interesting question.
Russian Collusion, Rape Culture, AGW, Systemic Racism, Impeachment, Micro-Aggressions, Implicit Attitude Tests, White Fragility, etc. have all put money in the NYT bank even at the cost of prestige, reputation and quality of information reporting.
Searching the research paper, it is unclear to me whether they distinguished news articles from editorials/opinion pieces. Their numbers make sense for general reporters but I would suspect that a handful of outlets, such as the Wall Street Journal, would have some interesting kinks. The WSJ editorials and opinions skew persistently conservative whereas their news reporting skews liberal.
Which goes to the conclusion the author's are drawing. I think their empirical observation is likely directionally correct and needs discussion and investigation. But I question this observation:
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.
If the research is on the mainstream media, as it seems to be, then there is a sampling issue that might be overlooked. If all mainstream media are strongly skewed Liberal, then likely their readership is likely strongly skewed Liberal. My sense is that moderates and conservatives now have such a deep distrust of the mainstream media, that they don't engage with it in the way they might once have a decade ago.
They now get their information from highly specialized news sites, forums, blogs, foreign reporting, etc. Their informational ecosystem is much more varied and diverse than would likely be captured by the researchers.
If that is true, then the researchers are looking at mainstream media who are in a contracting industry, surviving by peddling hysteria (and frequently politically tinged hysteria), catering primarily to a high income and strongly left leaning readership.
I suspect that the reality is not that the at large media, broadly defined, are skewing negative in their reporting (at least to the degree being reported.) My suspicion is that the mainstream media is producing negative stories for its Mandarin Class readers who are consuming a negative news feed because it is what is on offer from their trusted sources, because it supports the business model of that media, and because their own personal anxieties in an era of populism and disquiet with the effectiveness of the competency of the Mandarin Class. The Mandarin Class may be demanding (and getting) negative news. Not American news consumers at large. And the Mandarin Class have good reason for being anxious about their declining status.
If the Mandarin Class can deliver demonstrable value, skepticism is held at bay. The left leaning Mandarin Class have not been delivering population wide value for a long time and I suspect that is the source of a lot of status anxiety and positional anxiety. And that is what the mainstream media pander to.
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