Just when the public needed the media to play it straight, the growing bias in the press let them down and made the coronavirus crisis “worse than it needed to be,” according to a new analysis.
Already facing a substantial trust gap, the latest Gallup/Knight Foundation survey found that people in the United States were concerned about the media exaggerating the illness or downplaying how the crisis caused substantial harm.
As with many things in the Trump political environment, partisanship played a role. Democrats saw a bigger problem with stories that downplayed the virus, while Republicans said reports that hyped the crisis were more harmful.
But in both cases, the majority of partisans in each political party agreed that the media's coverage of the pandemic fell far short of what they wanted.
Asked if media exaggerating the coronavirus caused "unnecessary harm," 87% of Republicans agreed. Among Democrats, it was 25 points lower, at 62%.
Asked if downplaying the crisis threatened public health, 78% of Democrats agreed. Among Republicans, it was 60%.
“Partisanship informs what type of skewed coverage is considered harmful. More than twice as many Democrats (84%) as Republicans (35%) ‘strongly agree’ that coverage downplaying the threat is harmful, although majorities of all party groups at least somewhat agree,” read the analysis.
It concluded, “Americans have been more likely to disapprove than approve of the news media's response to the coronavirus situation at a time when most other institutions' responses have been rated more positively than negatively. This may indicate that people do not see the media as getting coronavirus coverage quite right — either drifting too far in the direction of downplaying the threat or too far in the direction of exaggerating it.”
And, it added, “To the extent Americans believe the media is going too far to downplay or to play up the coronavirus, they may see the media — in addition to elected leaders and public health officials — as responsible for making the crisis worse than it needed to be.”
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