Finding Better Ways for Newsrooms to Counter COVID Misinformation in the United States

Nielsen (2020) reports digital content engagement rose by 215% in the U.S. alone from March 2019 to March 2020. In light of this increased traffic, newsroom and publication standards must better explain to the public how news organizations research, reporting and publish stories on big issues, especially those so prevalent like the coronavirus pandemic. Detailing the process from story idea to fruition may create safeguards at traditional and online outlets so that the lines between fact and fiction, reality and conspiracy theory aren’t blurred. The benefits of this are twofold: gaining trust with readers by being transparent and bettering the media literacy of those in the audience who don’t understand the efforts and ethics of media professionals. However, transparency is not enough. These efforts at being more open with the audience are certainly well-intended; however, research has shown that even though more consumers say they would better trust a news source if was transparent about the process, that explanation of tends to be skipped over entirely by most readers (Murray & Stroud, 2020). Tackling misinformation and disinformation while maintaining trust in an audience must be a multi-pronged approach. Journalists overuse governmental agency experts and, particularly partisan, officials to communicate efforts in the pandemic or debunk false information regarding the virus. Political researchers find “elites are capable of fostering, rather than correcting, conspiracy beliefs.” (Uscinski, Enders, & Klofstad, Seelig, Funchion, Everett, Wuchty, Premaratne, Murthi, 2020). To fact-check misleading claims or unproven information, journalists must find sources that those in their audience can trust. Leada Gore, a reporter with Alabama Media Group, told CNN’s Reliable Sources that her organization was proactive in not only having local voices explain the complexities of the virus, pandemic and vaccines, but they also sought particular questions and concerns from local readers regarding the vaccine. “ . . . we broke it down into digestible, you know, topics that allowed people to (say) ‘I’m concerned about this, what does a local doctor say?’ Because I really think we’re realizing in Alabama that that (COVID) information needs to come from the ground up as opposed to the top down.” (CNN, 2021). Finding trusted doctors who are members of the community to address such misinformation or conspiracy theories is certainly easier for those on a hyperlocal level at small-town news organizations. And data shows that trust is higher amongst community news outlets. Pew Research found that while less than half (46%) of American adults surveyed got their COVID pandemic information from local news, 50% said their local outlets get the facts right, compared to 44% of news media in general. (Shearer, 2020). Outlets must lean more into fact-checking falsehoods and inform their audiences accordingly. In the early days of the pandemic, the media needed to do a better job about fact-checking information touted as high up as the Office of the President of the United States. According to researchers out of Cornell University, only 16% of more than 1 million articles fact-checked misinformation head on. (Evanega, Lynas, Adams, Smolenyak, 2020). During the period in which this study was conducted, one of the largest pieces of misinformation that hit news sites and social platforms was when thenPresident Donald Trump told reporters at a news conference in April that he thought medical doctors should look into using ultraviolet light and bleach to rid people’s bodies of the coronavirus, which at that point had taken the lives of nearly 50,000 Americans. This led to companies like Lysol issuing statements on social platforms and to media outlets about the toxicity in their products, and doctors across the U.S. warned officials in their areas about the possibility of increased poison control calls. JOURNAL OF MEDIA ETHICS 2022, VOL. 37, NO. 2, 148–150 https://doi.org/10.1080/23736992.2022.2061493