CNN Busted for Deceptive Article Suggesting France School Openings Caused COVID Outbreaks

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CNN Busted for Deceptive Article Suggesting France School Openings Caused COVID Outbreaks, Deaths

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Since the start of the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic here in the U.S., the mainstream media has faced accusations that they have overwhelmingly focused on negative stories about the outbreak instead of balancing them out with positive reports about recoveries, medical and scientific breakthroughs, etc.

One major analysis done on media coverage from American sources versus international sources lent credence to the accusation, as Fort Worth Star-Telegram editorial board member Cynthia Allen pointed out back in March:

In a recently published working paper, Dartmouth College economics professor Bruce Sacerdote and two fellow researchers, Ranjan Sehgal and Molly Cook, analyzed media coverage during the pandemic. They found that national U.S. publications and networks produced dramatically more negative coverage than international, regional and scientific news sources.

The researchers built a database of news coverage, categorizing by topic more than 9.4 million published stories, and used a social-science technique that classifies language as positive, negative or neutral.

They determined that 87 percent of U.S. media coverage could be classified as negative, compared to 64 percent of news reported in scientific journals and just over half of coverage in international and regional/local media outlets.

Among the top 15 media outlets in the U.S. (by readership/viewership), COVID-19 stories were 25 percentage points more likely to be negative than more general U.S. sources or major media outlets outside the U.S.

Also interesting were the researchers’ findings on school reopenings as it related to negative media coverage, though some of them were inconclusive:

Sacerdote and his colleagues considered the impact of negativity in reporting on school re-openings, too. While they found that counties that rely less on national media sources were more likely to have reopened schools, the researchers were not able to conclude that negative national stories caused fewer schools to reopen.

Sadly, what some have characterized as “panic/fear porn” in the American media on the coronavirus is still taking place to this day, especially as it relates to school reopenings.

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