Early COVID-19 news coverage amplified political divide

Newspaper coverage of COVID-19 is at least as politicized and polarized as climate change coverage, say University of Michigan researchers. Both newspaper and network news COVID-19 stories were polarized in early coverage of the pandemic, which may have shaped pandemic attitudes, according to a new U-M analysis of U.S. media coverage from March to May 2020. Using multiple computer-assisted content analytic approaches, researchers found that politicians appeared in newspaper coverage more frequently than scientists. Both politicians and scientists were equally featured in network news. The divide in pandemic opinions has been immediate-unlike other issues such as global warming coverage which became politicized over several decades, said Sol Hart, U-M associate professor of communication and media and the study's lead author. "Polarization around COVID-19 is at least as high as coverage of climate change, if not higher. This is particularly striking as climate change is currently one of the most polarizing issues in the U.S. today,” Hart said.