Conquering the COVID-19 Infodemic

How Mainstream News Reported on COVID-19

As the COVID-19 pandemic spread throughout the world, it so happened that the US was amid a contentious election year. Pres. Donald Trump was seeking reelection. A crowded field of more than two-dozen Democratic candidates vied for the chance to run against him. This zeitgeist may explain why COVID-19 media studies in 2020 largely explored political communication (Druckman et al. Citation2021; Jiang et al. Citation2020; Jurkowitz and Mitchell Citation2020). Hart, Chinn, and Soroka (Citation2020), for example, examined the level of polarization in COVID-19 news from March to May 2020. Using computer-assisted content analysis they found that “newspaper coverage was highly politicized, network news coverage somewhat less so, and both newspaper and network news coverage are highly polarized” (2020, 679). Additionally, politicians appeared in newspaper coverage more frequently than scientists, whereas politicians and scientists were more equally featured in TV network news. The researchers concluded that “the high degree of politicization and polarization in initial COVID-19 coverage may have contributed to polarization in US COVID-19 attitudes” (2020, 679).

This divide had real-world implications too. When the elite class could not agree on a unifying message about COVID-19, for example, researchers found that it hindered effective responses to the public health crisis. In one study, scholars found that in the US Congress, Democrats emphasized threats to public health and American workers, while Republicans placed greater emphasis on China and businesses (Green et al. Citation2020). This partisan divide split the public’s early reaction to COVID-19.

Cable television news shows exacerbated political disagreements even further, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research and Pew Research Center. The Bureau claimed that Fox News, for instance, stoked the masking debate and convinced its viewers to shirk stay-at-home orders (Simonov et al. Citation2020). Likewise, Pew discovered: “The group who names MSNBC as their main news source is far more likely than the Fox News group to answer correctly that the coronavirus originated in nature rather than a laboratory and that it will take a year or more for a vaccine to become available” (Jurkowitz and Mitchell Citation2020).

By 2021, research about how legacy media reported on COVID-19 began to expand beyond political polarization frameworks. There were misinformation typologies (Hansson et al. Citation2021) and newsroom ecologies (García-Avilés Citation2021; Perreault and Perreault Citation2021). Studies that explored press freedom emerged; especially in terms of evaluating threats to digital journalism (Papadopoulou and Maniou Citation2021). Phenomenologies sprang up also, to highlight how journalists dealt with the trauma of reporting a pandemic (Jukes, Fowler-Watt, and Rees Citation2021) and how reporters working outside of the US adopted creative digital technologies to bring news to rural and remote communities (Ndlovu and Sibanda Citation2021).

How COVID-19 Misinformation Spread Online

In addition to the aforementioned flurry of COVID-19 political communication studies, scholars wanted to understand how misinformation traveled throughout various social media channels. The Havey (Citation2020) investigation, for example, found five common misinformation topics regarding the virus on Twitter: (1) the use of hydroxychloroquine as treatment, (2) the use of bleach as a preventative measure, (3) Bill Gates intentionally causing the virus, (4) the Chinese Communist Party intentionally causing the virus, and (5) the Deep State causing the virus to ruin the economy and threaten President Trump’s reelection chances. There were also images containing misinformation about the pandemic on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram (Mellado et al. Citation2021; El Damanhoury and Garud-Paktar Citation2021). Visual content served three functions: to “illustrate and selectively emphasize arguments and claims, purport to present evidence for claims, and impersonate supposedly authoritative sources for claims” (Brennan, Simon and Nielsen 2020, 277). All pandemic-related misinformation was problematic because it could have “dire consequences” for the entire country (Havey, Citation2020 319). Negative online news can arouse strong emotions, such as fear or anger, that significantly influence public opinion during times of crisis (Overgaard Citation2021).

YouTube proved to be a hub for visual misinformation dissemination as well. A team of scholars identified more than 8,000 videos containing false COVID-19 claims between October 2019 and June 2020, which represented less than one percent of all the platform’s videos about coronavirus. It took YouTube roughly 41 days to take down the problematic videos. During that time, users shared them nearly 20 million times across several social media platforms—especially via Facebook, which is where most web users encountered the videos initially. Unfortunately, Facebook placed warning labels on only one percent of the videos that contained false claims, which represented 55 total videos in the dataset (Knuutila et al. Citation2020). This meant that by the time YouTube took down the video, after about a month of it being online, web users would have shared it more than any other COVID-19 news story from the five largest English-language news sources on YouTube combined (CNN, ABC News, BBC, Fox News and Al Jazeera). These studies demonstrate the challenges that mainstream media faced, as it attempted to report on COVID-19—all while dispelling health-related myths that traveled perhaps faster than they ever had before.

How the Black Press Reported on COVID-19

While African Americans predominantly use mainstream media as a source for news, they still frequently use Black news outlets for health information and have positive ratings of coverage from these outlets (Brodie et al. Citation1999). Nearly 65% of African Americans read Black news outlets and non-Black readers consume Black press content as well (Pew Research Center Citation2023; Williams Fayne and Richardson Citation2023). Black press newspapers collectively reach over 20 million readers weekly and top Black news websites individually attract 5 to 10 million unique visitors monthly (Ford, McFall, and Dabney Citation2019; Prince Citation2023; Williams Fayne and Richardson Citation2023). The majority of African Americans trust health information from Black press publications and believe they do a good job meeting the needs of African Americans, while only about a third say the same is true for mainstream media outlets (Brodie et al. Citation1999; Kaiser Family Foundation Citation1998). Black press outlets typically emphasize systemic causality and include detailed explanations of causes, such as racial discrimination and an absence of culturally relevant care (Rasmussen Citation2014).

Despite the growing body of literature that analyzed mainstream media’s COVID-19 coverage, there remains a dearth of information about how the Black press reported during the pandemic. At the time of our writing, there were only two studies besides this work (Biswas, Sipes, and Brost Citation2021; Upshaw and Davis Citation2022). In their analysis of three Black newspapers’ COVID-19 coverage, Upshaw and Davis (Citation2022) concluded that these outlets provided culturally tailored information to the Black community. The Black press discussed COVID-19 in the context of historical health barriers the Black community experiences, such as limited access to health care. These publications also addressed many African Americans’ anxiety and skepticism regarding testing and vaccination by explaining the advantages and reasoning for interventions.

Biswas, Sipes, and Brost (Citation2021) compared mainstream news media’s coverage of the pandemic to Black online news sites’ coverage. The team found that the Black press functioned as “mobilizing agents” for African Americans, providing valuable access to health education and community activism (Biswas, Sipes, and Brost Citation2021, 410). Aside from those observations, the scholars “did not find any significant difference in the news coverage of African American issues,” (2021, 410) in mainstream publications. The team surmised that legacy media and the Black press were in alignment, for example, with reporting on how systemic racism shaped Black health outcomes. However, the scholars concluded that their study was limited, insofar as it only spanned 10 weeks of the pandemic, between March and May 2020. Moreover, neither study explored the Black press’ fight against misinformation.

How the Black Press Combatted COVID-19 Misinformation

Historically, Black press publications have countered misinformation found in mainstream news and have discredited conspiracy theories about the Black community and disease origins (Kinsella Citation1989; Lester Citation1992). For example, New York Amsterdam News critiqued mainstream media’s AIDS coverage and investigated conspiracy theories, such as AIDS originating from a CIA experiment in the Congo (Kinsella Citation1989). Pickle, Quinn, and Brown’s (Citation2002) examination of mainstream media’s AIDS coverage found that many outlets disregarded the Black community’s fears regarding treatment instead of disproving them. However, the Black press provided numerous articles that were informational and discussed nomenclature, prevention, trends, statistics, education and awareness (Krishnan, Durrah, and Winkler Citation1997). Black press outlets also compared AIDS to other illnesses or social issues, such as racism and inequality, and focused on its impact on the Black community (Campbell et al. Citation2013; Clarke, McLellan, and Hoffman-Goetz Citation2006). Other Black press publications countered misinformation by focusing on personal experiences with the disease and celebrity obituaries (Kinsella Citation1989).

The Black press began to raise concerns about a racialized COVID-19 infodemic in its coverage in March 2020. Given the virus’ disproportionate effect on the African American community, Black news outlets’ efforts to also correct COVID misinformation were arguably even more essential than mainstream’s. Yet there were no scholarly studies that investigated the role these publications played in either quelling or perpetuating false claims that year. The National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA), which is a consortium of more than 200 Black newspapers across the US, printed an urgent declaration in all of its outlets: “Dear Black People: Coronavirus Will Kill You” (Burton Citation2020). Were there more patterns of a myth-busting Black press? We searched the literature for insight.

Research has shown that journalists play a large role in influencing the outcome of social issues and are responsible for informing or misinforming readers about diseases (Baker Citation1986; Spence Citation2010). Some scholars believe that Black press outlets should partner with government agencies, health educators and professionals, activists, and community members for more effective health coverage (Campbell et al. Citation2013; Kinsella Citation1989; Krishnan, Durrah, and Winkler Citation1997; Pickle, Quinn, and Brown Citation2002). The National Medical Association, which consists of Black doctors, dentists and pharmacists, previously advocated for a partnership with the NNPA, in order to educate and inform the Black community about diseases (Morgan Citation1997). While we did not find any NNPA partnerships with medical organizations during the pandemic, one study highlighted the NNPA’s efforts to give COVID-19 its own Black reporting “beat” (Mangun and Perry Citation2020). In the report, researchers claimed that the nearly 80-year-old organization’s formation of a Coronavirus Task Force and Resource Center offered “a collective voice in the media landscape” and created a platform for Black newspaper publishers to share information and resources (2020, 307).

While the NNPA’s collaborative reporting practices are necessary to document, so too are the contributions of the digital Black press, which has grown exponentially since the turn of the century. As Williams Fayne (Citation2020) has noted, the Black press is no longer limited to Black-owned news outlets. In the twenty-first century, African Americans made a “great digital migration” to online publications, which had business structures that differed from previous generations (Williams Fayne Citation2020). Whereas Ebony and Jet magazines once were owned by legendary Black magnate John H. Johnson, today’s digital Black press is just as likely to be nestled within a white corporate entity, such as ESPN’s vertical Andscape, formerly named The Undefeated, or G/O Media, Inc.’s The Root. Williams Fayne has argued that the new defining characteristic for the digital Black press, therefore, is not Black ownership. Instead, the new Black press must demonstrate that it is “targeting a Black audience and advocating for the Black community” (2020 704). Williams Fayne’s conclusion, that Black news audiences moved from Black newspapers to Black websites, means that African Americans may have relied heavily on the digital Black press for news during the pandemic.

Many digital Black news outlets have a strong social media presence that they use to engage with their readers. Research has found that journalists pay attention to their audience on social media and often create stories based on trending topics (Wang Citation2020). Also, some journalists engage with users in order to correct information or answer questions (Xia et al. Citation2020). This is a tactic that may be more pronounced in the Black press given the close relationship that Black press journalists have with their readers. Digital Black press editors feel a responsibility to serve the Black community and intentionally publish content that generates a conversation with the audience (Williams Fayne Citation2019). In Florini’s (Citation2016) analysis of the Black media outlet This Week in Blackness, she noted that the network was prominent on social media because it prioritized “community and audience interaction” (330). She stated that the show highlights group-based experiences in hopes of finding group-based solutions; a practice that may be common among the digital Black press’ COVID-19 coverage.

If social media and the web was littered with coronavirus misinformation, however, as Oxford Internet Institute found (Knuutila et al. Citation2020), then this created a fraught place to learn about the disease and its spread. This intrigued us. We wanted to know how the digital Black press battled this online infodemic. Our inquiry, therefore, comprised three research questions:

• (RQ1) How did the digital Black press challenge racialized COVID-19 misinformation online?

• (RQ2) What mythbusting COVID-19 story angles did the editors use most often?

• (RQ3) How did the publishers measure the efficacy of their editorial approaches?

In this next section, we outline our methods, coding scheme and key findings. Additionally, we will discuss what our observations revealed about the digital Black press’ strategy for providing factual information to a vulnerable news audience.

Reliability

In the first phase of coding our 13 Black press outlets’ COVID coverage, we cleaned the data. For example, search results that contained advertisements for Corona beer, or news stories about Corona, California were captured inadvertently in our API scrape. Once the data were cleaned, we used the New York Amsterdam News interview transcript, website and social media feeds as the basis for an initial intercoder reliability test. We trained one additional coder on the above protocol. Then, all three of us coded the New York Amsterdam News data independently. Per both Krippendorff’s Alpha and Cohen’s Kappa calculations, the average pairwise agreement was.92. In the second phase of coding our 13 outlets’ websites and social media feeds, we used the same three coders to analyze 100% of the interview data, and a random sampling of 50% of the total data (roughly 43,000 website articles, tweets and Instagram posts). We ran another intercoder reliability measurement. Per both Krippendorff’s Alpha and Cohen’s Kappa calculations, the three coders achieved .94 agreement on average in phase two, ranging from 0.89 to 1 on the six parent categories.

(RQ1) How did the digital Black press challenge racialized COVID-19 misinformation online?

(RQ2) What mythbusting COVID-19 story angles did the editors use most often?

(RQ3) How did the publishers measure the efficacy of their editorial approaches?

The Digital Black Press Limited Their Audience’s Exposure to Misinformation

Given that many Black press websites foreground entertainment news (Williams Fayne Citation2020), the outlets in our sample’s most commonly published COVID-19 coverage was celebrity-related. However, editors intentionally did not post content with celebrities flaunting safety guidelines. Also, when they chose to discuss Black entertainers’ hoax theories, it was always in the context of reproach. Entertainment news is commonly found among digital Black press outlets because it provides additional coverage of African Americans that is not typically present in mainstream media (Williams Fayne Citation2020). Due to Dawson’s (Citation1994) concept of linked fate, which states that African Americans perceive a connection between individual interests and collective group interests, Black press readers may identify with the success or plight of Black celebrities (Williams Fayne Citation2020). The articles Black press outlets posted about celebrity COVID-19-related deaths or positive test results can then be valuable in helping readers believe that they too are susceptible to the disease. Similar to the Black press’ inclusion of celebrity obituaries during the AIDS epidemic (Kinsella Citation1989), their coverage of pandemic deaths evidenced that African Americans were not immune to the disease. Humanizing framing (Keliikoa et al. Citation2022) of African Americans is a practice often seen in the Black press. We find that in their COVID-19 coverage, editors humanized celebrities, essential workers and others in the Black community as an intentional strategy to convey to readers the actual impact of the virus.

Many Black press outlets have limited financial resources, in comparison to mainstream news outlets, which often results in smaller staffs (Williams Fayne Citation2019). But despite these restrictions, the editors invested time in protecting their readers from misinformation on social media. They monitored the comments on Twitter and Instagram and chose to respond, restrict or delete content that was not factual. Future research should investigate how the audience responds to these editorial strategies. Do they feel that their free speech rights are being violated or do they appreciate the editors maintaining a safe space for Black readers? Trolling is something that Black social media users are more prone to (Freelon et al. Citation2022) so the editors’ tactics may be more warranted and welcomed. Also investigating what motivates Black press readers to comment on social media at all may help to expand research that has been conducted on digital news commenting (Tenenboim and Cohen Citation2015).

The Digital Black Press Revived Public Interest Journalism

The Black press’ educational turn may signal a revival of public interest journalism, which strives to give audiences the information they need to participate fully in society (Sweet et al. Citation2021; Jukes, Fowler-Watt, and Rees Citation2021). Prior to the pandemic, Williams Fayne (Citation2021) posited that the twentieth-century Black press is conceptualized most often as an advocacy press that focused on activist campaigns for equality. In the twenty-first century, however, Williams Fayne argued that a shift away from hard news, toward entertainment, offered positive representations of Black life or “soft advocacy” (2021, 1). Our dataset revealed that these two concepts—of hard advocacy and soft advocacy—are both present during times of crisis.

We found that Black publishers indeed hooked their news audiences with celebrity angles often. However, once the reader or viewer entered celebrity news stories, they were often met with statistics and sourcing from COVID-19 officials, such as Dr. Fauci. Further research is warranted to show why this approach was so effective. Did Black celebrities comfort Black news audiences in ways that the government or the medical community alone could not; especially in light of African Americans’ intimate knowledge of medical racism (Ruiz, Horowitz, and Tamir Citation2021; Devakumar et al. Citation2020; Egede and Walker Citation2020)? Might Black Americans’ loyalty to these outlets during the pandemic indicate a rise in journalistic fact-checking as an act of “de-fusion,” which focuses on “separating audiences from actors when the latter lack authenticity and credibility” (Luengo and García-Marín Citation2020)? These are researchable questions.

The Digital Black Press Expanded Its Content, Yet Remained On-Brand

Perhaps one of the most notable observations in this study is how the digital Black press leveraged the instantaneous communication that Twitter and Instagram afforded, to interact with an audience that was afraid and grieving. They held live Q&A sessions with journalists and health care experts and provided their audience with a means to obtain authoritative information firsthand. Many editors found their social media strategy effective given the large amount of shares and comments they received on posts. Black press journalists also created partnerships with other organizations to inform the public and spread awareness about how COVID-19 was affecting the Black community. This enactment of collaborations with health professionals, which research previously suggested as a potential solution for addressing minority health disparities (Campbell et al. Citation2013; Kinsella Citation1989; Krishnan, Durrah, and Winkler Citation1997; Pickle, Quinn, and Brown Citation2002) was then brought to fruition in the Black press’ pandemic coverage.

Still, future studies might research how Black news audiences perceived these brand aspirations. Emergent studies have begun to indicate that people struggled during the pandemic “between conflicting needs for information and disconnection” (Ytre-Arne and Moe Citation2021, 1). A study of Norwegian media users, for instance, revealed a pattern of “doomscrolling, monitoring and avoiding” news (Ytre-Arne and Moe Citation2021, 6). Similarly, a study of Dutch young people (ages 19-36) found that after an increase in their news consumption at the beginning of the pandemic, they later experienced “corona fatigue,” which made them decrease their news intake (Groot Kormelink and Klein Gunnewiek Citation2021).

Does this pattern hold for Black American news audiences? Did African Americans doomscroll, monitor and avoid Black press outlets, or did they check them more often than ever? If the latter is true, then why did they rely on these publications so much, even when other news consumers around the world were reducing their news diets? More ethnocentric media studies would help elucidate how various groups of people around the world, with varying levels of vulnerability to COVID-19, engaged with news in 2020.