FAKE NEWS LANGUAGE, BIAS, AND AUSTRALIA’S PANDEMIC PRESS During the COVID-19 pandemic the news has become for many of us, a source of vital information. Every day we hear reports and updates on the situation – new cases, vaccine development and even disgraced “border jumpers” – to the extent that our daily actions are almost wholly decided by the media. Sadly, the pandemic has prompted many ‘ugly’ behaviours, including; racist attacks against Asian-Australians, mistrust of healthcare workers and the blaming of certain countries or people groups for the spread and origin of the virus. The social nature of the virus, specifically the fact that it spreads so easily and that no one is immune, can create a crippling sense of anxiety and stress as people struggle to balance personal relationships with the need to protect themselves against the virus. How people make those decisions, as well as their attitudes and behaviours, is undeniably reflective of the type of media they consume. With this in mind I decided to launch a small investigation into the way COVID-19 is portrayed by Australia’s most-read news websites: ABC News, Daily Mail Australia, nine.com.au, 7 News and The Guardian. Given my limited time and resources I decided to look at the six most recent “COVID-19” headlines from each source as of January 22nd, 2021. I then compiled a list of nouns, verbs and adjectives across the 30 headlines and made a note of how frequently each word came up. To be honest the results were not what I expected. There didn’t seem to be a significant difference between how each of the websites reported on and described recent events of the pandemic, at least not in the headline of the article. Overall, the headlines were pretty negative, particularly when it came to the kind of verbs and adjectives that were used. When it came to describing events there were three common words: “new,” “undetected,” and “Australian,” in the context of describing one or more people or things. The first two point to a real or imagined urgency associated with the virus and ultimately present the pandemic as something unpredictable and dynamic. The majority of adjectives had negative connotations and evoked a sense of deceit, isolation, and distrust of others. Some examples included the words “chaotic,” “closed,” and “conditional.” Likewise, the verbs used also had negative connotations as seen in “exposed,” “crushes,” “threaten,” “challenges,” and “bans.” There were also a few neutral words like “records,” “modify,” and “mentioned,” but overwhelmingly the language pointed to multiple deceptions and dubious actions on the behalf of individuals and governments. Interestingly, the headlines used a wide diversity of verbs, which is impressive on the part of the journalists. This is with the exception of the words “says,” and “spreading,” which were found four and two times respectively.
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