Seattle Times Mental Health
A research project for Western's Ethics class, about how the Seattle Times sources for their articles about mental health
The questions I posed in my research was how publications, such as the Washington Post, use credible sources to show the relationship between Covid-19 and mental health issues. Even before the start of Covid-19, there has been a rise in people coming out with their struggles that have to do with mental health, such as depression and anxiety. Some people have suggested that their mental health has been made worse during the pandemic, with rising feelings with anxiety and isolation. I wanted to see if the Washington Post was citing credible and reliable sources, such as mental health professionals, in their articles. With May being Mental Health Awareness month, I looked at articles from the Washington Post’s website that have mentioned both Covid-19 (coronavirus, pandemic, etc.) and mental health (anxiety, depression, or isolation), at least once, as well as the article had to be centered around mental health. For example, articles that mentioned both topics but were about economic anxieties, would not be included. I had thought that May would have more articles centered around mental health struggles, than other months, which is why I chose to center the majority of the dates I looked at during that month, that being April 25, 2021, to May 25, 2021. One article fell outside of these dates, being published before April 25, but was continuously being updated throughout the 30-day period. I also noted which section each article was labeled under, such as lifestyle, business, health, etc. For this, I counted 20 articles that meet these criteria’s, during the 30 days.
For each article I counted each time Covid-19, coronavirus, and pandemic, was used, and later added them all together for a total among all articles. On top of that, I counted each time mental health, anxiety, depression, and isolation was used and later added them up for a total number of mentions across all articles. In order to be counted, words could be used in the body of the story, headlines, subheads, quotes, captions, and could be hyperlinks. However, links to other articles or websites that were not part of the actual story were not counted. The types of sources I categorized were health professionals, people who struggles with mental health first-hand, academic professors, politicians, and other, which included sources who were not struggling with their mental health or statistics surrounding Covid-19 (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and World Health Organization) and mental health (Mental Health America and American Psychological Association).
Over the course of 20 articles, pandemic had been mentioned the most, along with all of the other categories surrounding COVID-19, with the mental health categories being mentioned the least, isolation only being mentioned 10 times across every article. Anxiety was mentioned the most among the mental health topics.
Topics surrounding COVID-19 were mentioned a total of 260 times across all 20 articles, whereas mental health topics were only mentioned 87 times. I was surprised by this, because I expected the results to be more even. However, many of the articles only mentioned mental health topics, a handful of times each, mostly either from sources or describing the pandemic. Whereas topics around Covid-19 were talked about much more frequently and oftentimes words such as COVID-19, coronavirus, and pandemic were seemingly used interchangeably.
Also, to my surprise were how many health professionals were used as sources. I had suspected the number to be lower but the number of sources who struggle with mental health to be higher. I was somewhat intrigued that the other category was the highest, but I think it makes the most sense. Statistics being used to back up data or using information that organizations like the CDC put out would be more prominent. On the other hand, at least two of the articles used more sources who were not said to have troubles with their mental health, such as in an article about living away from family or someone who works for the Hawaiian Airlines explaining how new travel mandates operate in terms of easing traveler anxieties when visiting Hawaii during a pandemic. Politicians were only sourced from articles surrounding new issues or changes that were made from the Biden or Trump Administration. All the sources I mentioned were used in the articles I read.
I decided to add which section of the Washington Post each article was placed, with each one being labeled at the top of the article and in the URL link to the website. Wellness was often used as a sub-section for lifestyle, so I decided to combine them. I also changed the By the Way section to travel since that’s what that specific section is about. I found it interesting how the articles were spread around different sections, but it could be that the Washington Post wanted to spread the articles across the whole website, piquing the interest of many different readers. I think Lifestyle and Politics make the most sense for having the most articles in their sections, since both mental health and Covid affects people every day and what politicians say about any new rules, regulations, and updates.
Of the Washington Post readers, 82% of those people live outside of the Washington area. Nationwide, on average there is about 104 million unique visitors per month from April to June in 2020. During the month of April, the average user spent 16.4 minutes consuming content on the website. That is a 15% increase from March. Additionally, there are about 1.6 million readers of the print edition per week. About 1 out of every 2 pages viewed falls into the lifestyle section. Out of those employed at the Washington Post, 57.1% are male and 42.6% are female, with .3% choosing not to disclose their gender. In terms of ethnicity and race, more than half, 57.3% of employees are white.
A study I found comparable is the journal article, Mental health consequences of COVID-19 media coverage: the need for effective crisis communication practices. This article discusses’ affects newsfeed containing information about COVID-19 can have on one’s mental health. It also goes into what is considered to be biased and misleading, false and dishonest, and balanced and truth-oriented coverage. According to this article, all of these can be considered harmful to one’s mental health. It suggests that all of those could lead to anxieties about the current pandemic, with balanced and truth-oriented possibly making people worried about how COVID-19 is changing, false and dishonest leading to people not trusting the news sources and reading baseless articles, and biased and misleading leading them to learning the wrong information about the virus. However, being balanced and truth-oriented is most ideal.
Due to a global pandemic, such as COVID-19, crisis communication will happen regardless, causing fear and uncertainty among citizens. Steps to address these issues include an evidence-based preparedness plan, ways to execute the plan and keeping the public as up to date as possible. Other countries such as the Chinese and Finnish government have managed to communicate effective strategies with the public and timely updates. During these unprecedented times, social media platforms, such as Twitter, TikTok, and Facebook can disseminate credible and reliable sources. While there is yet to be a definitive answer to easing all of the public’s uncertainties, the need for valuable media, health experts and professionals have a duty to step-up and stop misinformation from spreading.
This goes along with my reach from the Washington Post because all except one of the articles I had looked at had credible professionals and professors as sources or used data from organizations, such as the CDC. The one that did not, had a source who was struggling with their mental health.
The ethical theories related to my study were truth telling, the right of the public to receive information, and media credibility. I think truth telling and right of public to receive information go hand-and-hand, because the public should be getting new information about COVID-19 and any changes or new regulations that have been made, and of course they should be receiving the unbiased truth. I also chose media credibility because media outlets, such as the Washington Post, should be held accountable to giving the public the truth and using credible sources in their articles.
As far as ethical theories, I think the Golden Mean was partially met, while all 20 of those articles did meet the criteria I had set, there was much more focus on COVID-19 rather than mental health. I think for the Golden Mean to have been fully met, the number of times mentioned across all articles should have been closer or have the articles show more of an emphasis on issues pertaining to mental health. I would say that for the most part, Categorical Imperative was met, because the Washington Post has a duty of keeping its readers informed with the most up-to-date news on COVID-19. I am unable to say it was completely met on the mental health side, but I would say there were a good number of articles across multiple sections, and 20% of the articles were in the lifestyle section, which is one of the more popular sections of the Washington Post website. I would also say Utilitarianism was also met because the Washington Post did the good for the greatest number of people, by keeping the public informed and used credible sources in their articles. Lastly, I would say that the Veil of Ignorance was also met. From what I was able to tell, the articles that were categorized were unbiased, using sources ranging from professionals to people who have struggled with an aspect of their mental health during COVID-19.
This research shows that the Washington Post can cite credible sources, in articles mentioning the ongoing pandemic in relation to mental health. I do not think any more articles were posted than in previous months that fit the criteria I had set up, despite most of the articles coming from mental health awareness month. However, the research also shows that the Washington Post keeps its readers up to date with the newest information and keeping the information unbiased and credible.
Journal Article
Su, Z., McDonnell, D., Wen, J., Kozak, M., Abbas, J., Šegalo, S., Li, X., Ahmad, J., Cheshmehzangi, A., Cai, Y., Yang, L., & Xiang, Y.-T. (2021). Mental health consequences of COVID-19 media coverage: the need for effective crisis communication practices. Globalization and Health, 17(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12992-020-00654-4