Communicating Health Uncertainty: How Australia’s only National Broadsheet Newspaper Reported the Emerging COVID-19 Pandemic

ABSTRACT

The news media play an important role in communicating health topics to the public (Hallin the first deaths;and the World Health Organisation?s declaration of a global pandemic. This paper found that The Australian coverage was not hyped but measured, with heavy reliance on analysis of the economic fallout of COVID-19. It also found evidence the conservative newspaper used war metaphors to convey the fight against the coronavirus.