A new study looks at which news organizations were first to publish stories about COVID-19.
Digital Third Coast is out with a research paper called "Waking Up to Covid-19: An Analysis of American Media Coverage"
We began with the first week of January, when coverage in the US was nearly nonexistent, and followed through March 9th, just as the story broke open and consumed the entirety of the nation’s attention. To create a fair sample size across the publications, we measured coverage at a consistent point each week: Mondays between 11 am and 2 pm CST.
The study found Bloomberg News was publishing stories about the coronavirus in January. In the first quarter, they had 49 prominent articles about the virus. The Washington Post was second with 32. Reuters and and Wall Street Journal are also in the top four. The study found that those organizations are responsible for nearly half of all coronavirus stories posted online in the U.S.
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