Local and regional news more likely to feature school-related COVID-19 coverage

A new look at data from Media Cloud suggests that local and regional outlets are more likely to publish school-related COVID-19 coverage.

Update: While top national news coverage featuring schools and COVID-19 continues to decline, local, regional, and other categories of news coverage appear to be somewhat more likely to include schools.

Mainstream coverage of schools and COVID-19 returns to downward trend

The quantity of mainstream coverage of schools and COVID-19 reverted downward last week, based on a look at stories from the top 100 sites in the US collected by Media Cloud — a trend that has occurred in 4 of the last 5 weeks.

There were 1,407 stories about schools and the coronavirus in mainstream media sources during the most recent week, of April 18 through 25 —a decline from 1,666 stories the prior week. Look here to see the results and the query on which they were based.

This is the lowest number of stories since March 1 through 6, very early on in the COVID-19 crisis, when just 1,117 stories appeared.

Mainstream coverage of schools and COVID-19 peaked more than a month ago, with 3, 838 stories the week of March 15 through 21.

Above: Education stories (in green) about the COVID-19 crisis produced by top national news outlets.

Number of Stories per Week

The percentage of all news stories about schools and COVID-19 has also declined steadily.

According to Media Cloud, stories about schools and the virus comprised 3.4 percent of all mainstream news stories on all topics last week, less than half of the 7.5 percent during the week of March 15.

Above: The percentage of education stories (green line) focused on education during the COVID-19 crisis among top national news outlets.

Local and regional education coverage

However, The Grade also looked at 33 local/regional news media sources and 13 national news media sources that are known to cover education and compared the number of stories in those outlets to the larger mainstream media category used by Media Cloud.

Above: Selected local and regional news outlets (in red) featured education-related COVID-19 stories somewhat more prominently than other kinds of outlets. 

This new comparison showed similar trend lines among all three categories, with a peak in the number of stories in mid-March, followed by steep declines.

However, our analysis also revealed that stories about schools and COVID-19 are consistently a higher share of local news sources than our selected national sources and top mainstream sources.

Last week, COVID-19 schools stories made up 5.7 percent of local stories, 4.8 percent of stories from national sources, and 3.4 percent of stories from top mainstream sources.

To see the data and the results in detail, click here.