Up to 80% of news coverage in 2020 related to COVID-19, finds joint report

July 20, 2021 1:43

Over 2.5 million news items from 2020 were related to COVID-19 according to the new report ‘Covering COVID-19: How Australian media reported the coronavirus pandemic in 2020’.

The News and Media Research Centre at the University of Canberra partnered with media monitoring company Streem to analyse online, television, radio and print media between January and November 2020 to determine how news media reporting contributed to the construction of the COVID-19 crisis in the context of the societal forces and factors that shape news.

“The COVID-19 pandemic’s scope, severity and ubiquity gave news audiences an unquenchable thirst for news, while intense and relentless media reporting formed the backdrop to the public’s everyday experience of the pandemic,” said lead author, David Nolan.

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Emma Shepherd

Emma Shepherd was the acting deputy editor at Mumbrella who has over seven years of print and digital experience in the industry and has previously worked as a reporter for media outlets Bauer Media (now Are Media), Yahoo Australia, and a content strategist and writer for various independent marketing agencies.

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