[Washington Examiner] Research shows U.S. media outlets have covered the coronavirus pandemic far more negatively than international media sources, irrespective of any positive developments on vaccines or declining case numbers.
That would've been my guess, but I'm glad somebody quantified it for us.
"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," reads the working paper's abstract. "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."
Coronavirus = OrangeManBad.
The paper, published by the National Bureau of Economic Research last week and written by Dartmouth College scholars Bruce Sacerdote and Ranjan Sehgal along with Brown University's Molly Cook, analyzed over 20,000 news reports from the 15 top U.S. media outlets and 39 international sources. Overall, they conclude that "U.S. major media outlets are much more negative" when publishing similar stories to "non-U.S. sources."
The paper cites a study on school reopenings and COVID-19 infections that found "infection rates among students remain low" and that "schools have not become the super-spreaders many "The tone of media coverage impacts both human health and attitudes towards preventative measures including vaccination, mask wearing, and social distance," the authors wrote. "The proportion of U.S. adults who exhibit depression symptoms has risen threefold since the start of the novel coronavirus pandemic."
Somebody apparently believes what they read.
The authors note that even the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has a recommendation against "heavy consumption of news stories about the pandemic.""Our results suggest the CDC's warning is prescient," the authors wrote.
Is there nothing Fauci, Birx, and Redfield can't do?
"U.S. major media stories that discuss the benefits of social distancing or alternatively the benefits of mask wearing are less numbers than stories about President Trump not wearing a mask," the researchers wrote. "Similarly, the terms ‘Trump and hydroxychloroquine' receive more media coverage than do all stories about companies and researchers developing vaccines."The paper found that "mentions of COVID-19 vaccines" or "any names of the top ten institutions or companies working on" a vaccine were mentioned in 1,371 stories. But during the same time period, the researchers found "8,756 stories involving Trump and mask wearing and 1,636 stories about Trump and hydroxychloroquine."