As cases crept up, coverage crept down

Media coverage of Covid across the waves

According to the chyrons that display text across the bottom of cable TV news programs, coverage of the pandemic has mainly declined from its peak in April, even as the number of new cases has steadily increased in waves (with the third beginning its crest right now).

The data in the plot below come from Third Eye and rt.live. The chyron data is processed by detecting words associated with the pandemic, like “new cases”, “hospitalizations”, “vaccine”, etc.

CNN ticked up a little bit during the second wave, but it appears that coverage essentially died in the run-up to the election. While we were all focused on that, the largest wave yet was building momentum, and we’re riding that rocket up right now.