From stories about a new global health crisis that have included misleading reports and even racist tones, the international media has struggled to make sense of the new strain of coronavirus, being both lauded and criticized by media experts. Analysts say coverage has been carried in areas not yet exposed to the virus and has included some racial stereotyping, while not enough attention has been focused on real stories shared by patients.
For weeks, the coronavirus has been covered by news outlets around the world. Television channels have been flooded with information about the outbreak that originated in China with live updates. The media has diligently reported on the number of deaths, infected patients as well as possible causes of the virus.
But media analysts also say the coverage has been uneven around the world, including in the United States, and has included sensational aspects.
“Attention to how media messages address the virus, its transmission and risk varied significantly across types of coverage and by the nation that produces it,” says Katie Foss, professor of media studies at the School of Journalism and Strategic Media at Middle Tennessee State University. “U.S. coverage has been inflammatory, particularly across social media and other unsubstantiated sources, which are unfortunately often taken as fact.”
In other parts of the world, the media exploited the unusual origin of the virus that jumped from animals to people. When scientists revealed that the likely source of the coronavirus are bats, a British tabloid, the Daily Mail, published a story of a Chinese woman eating one such mammal.
“Footage purporting to show a Chinese woman eating a whole bat at a fancy restaurant has gone viral as the country is ravaged by a new deadly virus believed to have come from the flying mammals,” the Daily Mail wrote.
In France, newspaper Le Courrier picard published on its Jan. 26 cover a story on the coronavirus outbreak with the headline “The Yellow Peril”. The media outlet, as well as its coverage, has been highly criticized on Twitter for “uninhibited racism” and its headline having crossed “a line.” French Asians have taken to social media to express their anger and created the hashtag #JeNeSuisPasUnVirus (#IAmNotAVirus). Le Courrier picard later apologized in a note, saying the piece was meant to be an op-ed whose headline also carried a question mark.
“We apologize to anyone who may have been sincerely shocked,” the newspaper said. “We will be twice as careful in the future.”
“Releasing such a picture does nothing to the outbreak, but only causes panic, mutual blaming and even radical discrimination,” the Chinese Embassy in Berlin said on its official webpage. “We despise such a move.”
For other media experts, the coverage in the U.S. has had a more moderate tone, with media outlets such as The Washington Post “actively addressing, contextualizing and critiquing past inappropriate connections of outbreaks to xenophobic activity,” says John Vilanova, professor of journalism and communication at Lehigh University. Yet covering biased reports can also have adverse consequences, he adds.
“Covering all the instances of racism does indirectly amplify them in ways we as journalism scholars are still trying to figure out,” Vilanova says. “But the fact that there have been so many of those pieces and no noteworthy problems (in the U.S. media) is somewhat of a pleasant surprise and a minor victory.”
Conflict arose between China and the U.S. over the outbreak when Beijing accused Washington of having spread fear about the outbreak, while not assisting the Asian giant in its fight against the virus. On the other hand, U.S. media accused China of having lied about the Wuhan virus. Hostile comments have also been identified in U.S. academia, where the University of California—Berkeley listed xenophobia as a “normal reaction” to the coronavirus reporting.
Meanwhile, in China, a country with high levels of media censorship, social media played an important role in spreading information about the virus, say experts.
“The interactive platforms gave voice to these individuals and their personal stories, images, and videos, which may easily be overlooked otherwise by traditional media,” says Haiyan Jia, professor of journalism and communication at Lehigh University. “Such content, usually containing the most heart-wrenching stories, (became a) trending topic on Chinese social media, attracting attention from NGOs and humanitarian groups, as well as national and local governments, leading to new mechanisms for identifying material shortage and people in need for help.”
Overall, distorted media coverage can be avoided if the international agencies in charge of monitoring the outbreak would more actively disseminate information, positioning themselves as the most credible source.
“In the United States, because so many people regularly use social media, it is particularly important that the Centers for Disease Controls and the World Health Organization produce content on these platforms,” says Foss, the Middle Tennessee State professor.
