Research unveils COVID coverage negative 90% of time

TYLER — Americans have been inundated with coverage of COVID-19 for months leading many to ask the question, why does American coverage of the pandemic always seem like bad news? On Tuesday, Paul Seegert, a managing partner with PCS consulting firm told KTBB News, “The biggest takeaway is we should be sharing some optimism with our population, that we are getting into herd immunity or that we are already at herd immunity. Looking at the CDC’s own recently published research, eight times more Americans have had COVID than have been confirmed to have COVID.” Seegert went on to say, “Yesterday [Monday] we got to 31.7 million confirmed cases of COVID. Multiply that by eight and you add the two together and you are over 270 million. Which is the original number that Dr. Fauci initially used as that herd immunity number.”

Seggert continued, “The mainstream media uniquely in our country has reported negative things about the pandemic about 90% of the time. And when you look at other countries they had a much more even approach about it, sharing the good news with their populations and just the facts more so than we have here.” Seegert cited research from Dartmouth College led by a team that using a social science technique determining if reporting was negative, positive or neutral. That team found that almost 90% of reports on the coronvirus pandemic, the coverage was negative.