Microeconomics Seminar with Bruce Sacerdote (Dartmouth)

Abstract: We analyze the tone of COVID-19 related English-language news articles written since January 1, 2020. Eighty seven percent of stories by U.S. major media outlets are negative in tone versus fifty percent for non-U.S. major sources and sixty four percent for scientific journals. The negativity of the U.S. major media is notable even in areas with positive developments including school re-openings and vaccine trials. Media negativity is unresponsive to changing trends in new COVID-19 cases or the political leanings of the audience. As evidenced by most viewed and most shared major media readers in the U.S. and U.K. strongly prefer negative stories about COVID-19, and negative stories in general. But the U.S. major media is more willing to satisfy this demand for negativity in both COVID and pre-COVID years. We suggest that this American exceptionalism stems from the lack of fair and balanced media laws and a lack of a large public option in the U.S. media. The causal impacts of this negative COVID coverage are less obvious; counties in the U.S. that rely more heavily on the major media are as likely to re-open schools as other similar counties.

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