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    The Economist - Biggest Story Ever

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    Melina
    The article discusses how COVID-19 dominated news coverage in 2020 more than any other story in modern history based on an analysis of keyword mentions in The Economist and New York Times archives. It found that around half of articles in both publications in 2020 mentioned "COVID-19" or "coronavirus", exceeding coverage of World War I and II which previously received the most attention. While fatality counts alone don't represent the pandemic's full impact, the unprecedented changes it brought to daily life globally means it has likely set a new record for media attention of any event.

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    The Economist - Biggest Story Ever

    Uploaded by

    Melina
    35 views3 pages
    The article discusses how COVID-19 dominated news coverage in 2020 more than any other story in modern history based on an analysis of keyword mentions in The Economist and New York Times archives. It found that around half of articles in both publications in 2020 mentioned "COVID-19" or "coronavirus", exceeding coverage of World War I and II which previously received the most attention. While fatality counts alone don't represent the pandemic's full impact, the unprecedented changes it brought to daily life globally means it has likely set a new record for media attention of any event.

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    The article discusses how COVID-19 dominated news coverage in 2020 more than any other story in modern history based on an analysis of keyword mentions in The Economist and New York Times archives. It found that around half of articles in both publications in 2020 mentioned "COVID-19" or "coronavirus", exceeding coverage of World War I and II which previously received the most attention. While fatality counts alone don't represent the pandemic's full impact, the unprecedented changes it brought to daily life globally means it has likely set a new record for media attention of any event.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    35 views3 pages

    The Economist - Biggest Story Ever

    Uploaded by

    Melina
    The article discusses how COVID-19 dominated news coverage in 2020 more than any other story in modern history based on an analysis of keyword mentions in The Economist and New York Times archives. It found that around half of articles in both publications in 2020 mentioned "COVID-19" or "coronavirus", exceeding coverage of World War I and II which previously received the most attention. While fatality counts alone don't represent the pandemic's full impact, the unprecedented changes it brought to daily life globally means it has likely set a new record for media attention of any event.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    of 3

    Dec 16th 2020 edition

    Given how much the world has changed in 2020, it is hard to


    fathom that the year was just one leap-day longer than 2019. On
    January 16th The Economist published its first article about a
    novel coronavirus in Wuhan, China, which at that point had
    been confirmed only as the cause of 42 infections and one
    death. Two weeks later, covid-19 made its debut on our cover. It
    returned there on February 27th, and held the slot for ten
    consecutive issues. The topic has claimed seven more covers
    since then.

    Is the pandemic the biggest news story ever? The two world
    wars and the Spanish flu of 1918 caused far more deaths, as
    have various famines and genocides. However, covid-19 has
    altered people’s daily routines in almost every country, in a way
    that deadlier events did not. Moreover, fatality counts cannot
    quantify developments that have changed people’s lives for the
    better.

    As an alternative measure, we combed through every article we


    have published since our founding in 1843, and counted how
    often we mentioned certain keywords in each year. To diversify
    this analysis, the New York Times has also granted us access to
    its archives, which stretch back to 1851. In both publications,
    just under half of articles this year (including January and
    February, when the disease was mostly limited to China) have
    included “covid-19” or “coronavirus”. In late March, four-fifths
    of our own stories used one of those words.

    Only two events in modern history have come close to these


    fractions: the world wars. The share of Economiststories
    referring to “war” reached 53% in 1915 and 54% in 1941. For
    the New York Times, it peaked at 39% in 1918 and 37% in
    1942. This gap may be explained by America’s distance from the
    battlefronts, which reduced the effect of the fighting on daily
    life. If newspapers around the world hewed closer to 35% than
    55% in their reporting of the wars, then covid-19 has probably
    set a new record.
    Media coverage is a flawed gauge of importance. Many critics
    worry that journalists focus too much on bad news, which often
    arrives via unexpected catastrophes, and too little on
    improvements, which tend to accumulate more gradually.
    Nonetheless, The Economist’s archive bears traces of life getting
    better—or at least, we have taken stock of slow-moving changes
    in welfare more frequently as time has gone on. Even before
    2020, mentions of “health” were rising. “Democracy”, though
    under threat in many countries, grew in popularity in the late
    1980s. Articles about “poverty” became more common after
    2000, when the un listed its eradication as its first goal for the
    new millennium.

    The 21st century also brought a surge in stories referring to the


    “internet” or being “online”. Before 2020, the biggest change in
    most people’s daily lives in recent decades was probably the
    advent of the world wide web and smartphones. If the pandemic
    makes working from home realistic for many employees, it
    might have a similarly long-lasting effect. That would be a
    welcome silver lining to a long, gloomy year.

    Sources: Gale; New York Times; The Economist

    This article appeared in the Graphic detail section of the


    print edition under the headline "The biggest story ever?"

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