Negative bias in Nation Media Coverage of Covid

Hopefully because it is Covid coverage this is not behind a paywall, but I have quoted it extensively just in case 

Covid Coverage by National Media in US is an Outlier

The coverage by U.S. publications with a national audience has been much more negative than coverage by any other source that the researchers analyzed, including scientific journals, major international publications and regional U.S. media. “The most well-read U.S. media are outliers in terms of their negativity,” Molly Cook, a co-author of the study, told me.

About 87 percent of Covid coverage in national U.S. media last year was negative. The share was 51 percent in international media, 53 percent in U.S. regional media and 64 percent in scientific journals.

Notably, the coverage was negative in both U.S. media outlets with liberal audiences (like MSNBC) and those with conservative audiences (like Fox News).

Sacerdote is careful to emphasize that he does not think journalists usually report falsehoods. The issue is which facts they emphasize. Still, the new study — which the National Bureau of Economic Research has published as a working paper, titled, “Why is all Covid-19 news bad news?” — calls for some self-reflection from those of us in the media.

The researchers say they are not sure what explains their findings, but they do have a leading contender: The U.S. media is giving the audience what it wants.

When the researchers examined which stories were the most read or the most shared on Facebook, they tended to be the most negative stories. To put it another way, the stories that people choose to read skew even more negative than the stories that media organizations choose to publish. “Human beings, particularly consumers of major media, like negativity in their stories,” Sacerdote said. “We think the major media are responding to consumer demand.”

That idea is consistent with the patterns in the data, Sacerdote added: It makes sense that national publications have better instincts about reaching a large audience than, say, science journals. And overseas, some of the most influential English-language media organizations — like the BBC — have long received government funding, potentially making them less focused on consumer demand.

All of that sounds plausible to me, but I don’t think it is the full explanation.

In the modern era of journalism — dating roughly to the Vietnam War and Watergate — we tend to equate impact with asking tough questions and exposing problems. There are some good reasons for that. We are inundated by politicians, business executives, movie stars and others trying to portray themselves in the best light. Our job is to cut through the self-promotion and find the truth. If we don’t tell you the bad news, you may never hear it.

Sometimes, though, our healthy skepticism can turn into reflexive cynicism, and we end up telling something less than the complete story.

My take on the findings and explanations:

1. We as individuals have a natural bias in looking for the negative, the threatening in the news so that we can be on alert. This goes far beyond the pandemic. It is as simple as checking to see if it is going to rain or snow.  

2. The national media has a bias toward greater circulation so it picks up on the negative stories to increase its ratings and circulation.  This became evident decades ago as I watched the Weather Channel and woke up one winter morning to see Jim Cantore broadcasting from the truck stop on I-90 a few miles from me. It was an ordinary Lake effect snow when I would simply wait an extra hour before going into work. However the Weather Channel had expected a bigger regular snow storm for Cleveland and obviously had to shift its cameras to cover our ordinary Lake effect snow. I was very glad to abandon the Weather Channel and its hyping the weather for the abundant weather data that now allows me to make my own less hyped forecasts. 

3. A brand of aggressive journalism developed around heroes such as Edward R. Murrow and Sixty Minutes which extolled aggressive questioning. However in that era in which everyone watched the major networks this was counterbalanced by people on the national news media with father figures such as Walter Cronkite whom we relied upon be very balanced before the advent of cable. There were just three major networks competing for the same audience. They call competed for the center rather than specializing on the edges.

4. With the advent of cable and the fight for ratings, the middle ground has disappeared in all media. We know everyone who claims to be "fair and balanced" has an axe to grind to maintain its particular audience. So the media have become providers of negative content to people who desire a particular brand of negative commentary that fits what they worry about. I lay the  blame for the culture wars, the Red states and the Blues states, on the national media  who cater to people on the left and the right who are always looking for the threat from the opposite side.  Of course this has all been exaggerated by all the organizations and media outlets that have built their funding around particular issues.

5. "We are inundated by politicians, business executives, movie stars and others trying to portray themselves in the best light. Our job is to cut through the self-promotion and find the truth." Sorry but this describes Entertainment news rather than good journalism. We have always had gossip news, it has now migrated to front page news. Trump was the epitome of gossip news in which rumor, fake news and personal conflicts dominated everything.