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Covering COVID-19: How Australian Media Reported the Coronavirus Pandemic in 2020

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Covering COVID-19: How Australian Media Reported the Coronavirus Pandemic in 2020 NEWS & MEDIA RESEARCH CENTRE Covering COVID-19: How Australian media reported the coronavirus pandemic in 2020 David Nolan Kieran McGuinness Kerry McCallum Conal Hanna For further information please contact: David Nolan [email protected] Published by the News & Media Research Centre, Canberra, Australia. © 2021 News & Media Research Centre ISBN: 978-1-74088-519-5 DOI: 10.25916/01t1-6649 Cite as: Nolan, D., Hanna, C., McGuinness, K. and McCallum, K. (2021). Covering COVID-19: How Australian Media reported the Coronavirus pandemic in 2020. Canberra: News & Media Research Centre, University of Canberra. Report design: Zita Leung NEWS & MEDIA RESEARCH CENTRE The N&MRC advances understanding of the changing media environment. Our research focuses on digital news consumption and the impacts of digital technology on journalism, politics, and society. Research occurs in three hubs: the Critical Conversations Lab; the Digital News+ Lab; and the Media Cultures Lab. The Centre conducts both critical and applied research projects with partners and institutions in Australia and internationally. More information at www. canberra.edu.au/nmrc The production of this report was supported by funding from the office of the Deputy Vice-Chancellor Research and Innovation at the University of Canberra, whom we thank for their support. Covering COVID-19: How Australian media reported the coronavirus pandemic in 2020 David Nolan Kieran McGuinness Kerry McCallum Conal Hanna ABOUT THE AUTHORS David Nolan is Associate Professor in Journalism, Media and Communication at the University of Canberra, and a member of the News and Media Research Centre. Prior to this, he was the Deputy Director of the Centre for Advancing Journalism at the University of Melbourne, and is the current Vice-President of the Australian and New Zealand Communication Association (ANZCA). He is currently lead investigator on the ARC-funded project ‘Amplifying Indigenous News: A digital intervention’. His research focuses on understanding change in journalism, the role of media in intercultural relations, and transformations in humanitarian communication and journalism. Kieran McGuinness is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the News & Media Research Centre at the University of Canberra. His recent research focuses on mixed method approaches to news consumption, misinformation, journalistic role performance, defence journalism and discourses of risk, problematisation and threat in news media. As a Postdoctoral Fellow Kieran assists with data analysis and report writing with a special focus on combining quantitative and qualitative approaches to research. Kerry McCallum is Director of the News & Media Research Centre. Her research specialises in the relationships between changing media and Australian social policy. She is the co-author of ‘The Dynamics of News and Indigenous Policy in Australia’ (Intellect, 2017), and is currently lead investigator on the ARC-funded project ‘Breaking Silences: Media and the Child Abuse Royal Commission’. Kerry is a former President of the Australian and New Zealand Communication Association (ANZCA) and Member of the Australian Institute for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS). Conal Hanna is Streem’s Media and Partnerships lead, providing journalists with regular analysis and commentary on the news cycle. Before joining Streem he worked as Digital Editor of the Sydney Morning Herald, and Head of Audience and Strategy for Fairfax Media nationally. He is the recipient of a Melbourne Press Club award for Innovation in Journalism and has been a Walkley Award finalist. TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. Executive Summary 06 2. Introduction 08 3. Background: COVID-19 and the news 10 1. Factors shaping news coverage 11 2. ‘Deciding what’s news’ during a pandemic 14 4. Method 16 5. Covering COVID-19 in 2020: overall findings 18 1. The big picture: the dominance of information, civic journalism 20 2. Sources of news 22 3. Lives and livelihoods 24 4. COVID-19 and international news 26 6. How Australia covered COVID-19 in 2020 28 1. From ‘foreign news’ to near-total dominance 29 2. An early consensus? 31 i. News in focus: in the national interest: uniting the nation 32 and citizen responsibility 3. Conflict as a news value 34 4. Coverage peaks and proliferates: April-May 2020 35 5. Australia flattens the curve 37 6. Returning to politics as usual 30 7. Postscript 44 8. Endnotes and references 45 9. Appendix: Themes, categories and topics applied in content 47 coding 6 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY This report presents the findings of a comprehensive study of the volume, patterns and nature of Australian journalists’ reporting of the COVID-19 global health crisis during 2020. Researchers from the University of Canberra’s News and Media Research Centre and media monitoring company Streem identified 2,549,143 distinct news items about COVID-19 across online, television, radio and print media between January and November 2020. Items were coded into four themes, 14 categories and 37 distinct topics. We analysed 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 and the processes and practices of journalistic decision-making. We note the logistical, financial and emotional pressures on the news media industry tasked with reporting on this unprecedented event and the subsequent volume of news it generated. The COVID-19 pandemic dominated Australian news in 2020. Its scope, severity and ubiquity gave news audiences an unquenchable thirst for news, while intense and relentless news media reporting formed the backdrop to the public’s everyday experience of the pandemic. 01 7 • Informational news content was the dominant theme identified in COVID-19 news, with 960,000 of our overall sample of 2.55 million news items being informational in nature. In such coverage, journalists performed a ‘loyal facilitator’ role by relaying information from governments and health authorities to the public. • Australia’s COVID-19 crisis was reported as both a health issue and an economic issue. In terms of sheer prominence health issues tended to rise and fall with the peaks of the total number of COVID-19 cases in Australia, while economic issues like jobs and employment were evergreen topics of high reporting throughout the year. • The news topics ‘tracking the spread’, ‘employment figures’, and ‘case numbers’ received the most coverage. That said, there was an impressive degree of diversity in the 37 news topics identified in the study, with ‘mask wearing’, ‘mental health’ and ‘working from home’ receiving consistently high levels of coverage. Our analysis finds that political leaders, health experts and During the early phases of coverage , Australia’s COVID-19 journalists co-constructed news about the pandemic for response was framed in news coverage as a national crisis Australian news audiences. In the early stages of the pandemic requiring a united response. News coverage broadly health messages were prioritised, with news coverage reinforced public health messages that encouraged individual reflecting a consensus between political leaders, media editors responsibility to stop the spread of the virus. While much and health experts that arguably contributed to the Australian of this reporting served to relay and reinforce government public’s trust in health advice and the success of its response. messaging, the media nevertheless also performed a In this phase, journalists tended to perform a civic role and watchdog role in the case of particular concerning events. act as loyal facilitators, relaying and amplifying official information and messaging. News conferences also offered News coverage was shaped by Australia’s federal system a direct way for political and health authorities to provide of government. Although the Prime Minister was the most information to the public. reported individual overall, as Victoria became the epicentre of the crisis, its Premier Daniel Andrews received more The focus and volume of COVID-19 reporting changed coverage than PM Morrison for four months of 2020 (July- over the course of 2020. News coverage peaked in March October). Not all of this coverage was positive, however, 2020 with 288,362 stories produced about COVID-19, but and as 2020 progressed we saw a shift away from stories that by November the total volume of items was 181,991. The reflected a political unity and broad consensus of purpose, initial focus on informational news reporting public health and a return to ‘politics as usual’. Following the rise of the messages was replaced by mid-year by politically driven ‘second wave’ of infections in Victoria, our findings indicate topics, reflecting a return to awatchdog role for journalists. a much stronger emphasis on conflict and blame in media Alongside more consistent informational news topics, event- coverage. We saw an increased tendency for coverage to driven stories such as the Ruby Princess incident (April) and look both outside of Australia and at politicians within who hoarding (March) generated news focus at particular times. might provide targets of blame. Importantly, too, during this phase we also significant examples of investigative reporting International news was a key topic in COVID-19 coverage. addressing areas such as devastating outbreaks in aged care This reporting reflected outbreaks of the virus in those facilities and the lockdown of tower blocks in Melbourne. countries. Reporting of China as the source of the
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