A content analysis of television news fact checking and sources during the coronavirus pandemic

This data collected in this study is based on news items appearing on UK television news. 

The content analysis included five major evening bulletins – the BBC News at Ten, ITV News at Ten, Sky News at Ten, Channel 4 at 7 pm and Channel 5 at 5 pm – between April 14 to 10 May 2020 excluding Easter Monday. In order to fairly compare and contrast coverage between broadcasters, we only coded the first 25 minutes of Channel 4’s nightly bulletin (which typically airs for just under an hour). The weekend editions of Channel Five and ITV were also relatively short (5 and 15–20 minutes respectively) compared to routine television bulletins (typically 20–25 min). Our unit of analysis was any coronavirus-related television item during the sample period. We coded items according to news convention rather than different stories. This included items that were either a stand-alone anchor only, an edited package, a live two-way or studio interview/discussion. A story about the government meeting its testing targets might last five minutes, for example, but it may be covered by two items, such as an edited package and a live studio interview.

Overall, 1,259 news items were examined over the four-week study, as well as 2300 sources.

The content analysis quanified a range of variables such as the topic being examined, the sourced used, and how government decision-making was questioned. In doing so, we coded if a news item featured the government being questioned, how implicitly or explicitly they were challenged, whether it was from a journalist or external source, and the topic under scrutiny. Measuring the extent and degree to which the government was challenged allowed us to comparatively quantify how broadcasters held power to account. By contrast, quantifying fact-checking is methodologically difficult to trace in news content because it is part of routine news gathering and reporting. The intercoder reliability test involved recoding roughly 10% of the sample with two researchers. All variables achieved a high level of intercoder reliability according to Cohen’s Kappa (CK).

Research results based upon these data are published here:

Full article: Why Media Systems Matter: A Fact-Checking Study of UK Television News during the Coronavirus Pandemic (tandfonline.com)

Expert voices in the news reporting of the coronavirus pandemic: A study of UK television news bulletins and their audiences - Marina Morani, Stephen Cushion, Maria Kyriakidou, Nikki Soo, 2022 (sagepub.com)

Full article: (Mis)understanding the Coronavirus and How it Was Handled in the UK: An Analysis of Public Knowledge and the Information Environment (tandfonline.com)

The data files consists of 2 excel files. This includes data on the 1) sources used by TV news bulletins, including the type of source featured, how much if at all they challenge government sources, and 2) type of TV news that featured, the topics of news items, which nations appeared in coverage and whether statistics were used to inform coverage.