COLUMBIA JOURNALISM REVIEW – 17/03/2020
Jon Allsop
The coronavirus is shaping up to be a multifaceted crisis for US journalism. Mixed messages coming from President Trump and other administration officials—and boosted by Trump sycophants in the right-wing mediasphere—have muddied the picture we’ve tried to present to readers and viewers. Public-health restrictions, including newsroom closures, have imposed limitations on the practice of reporting, and—along with the worsening economic picture—cast fresh doubt on some news organizations’ financial viability. The US media is not alone in facing such problems; as with the virus itself, these challenges are global, but subject to important local variation. This morning, I looked into the media response in four other countries: the UK, Italy, France, and South Korea.