Reporting in a Time of Crisis: Progressive Alternative Media’s Coverage of the COVID-19 Pandemic in Canada

Abstract

This study examines how domestic alternative media reported the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada. It pays special attention to whether the Conversation Canada, as an emerging not-for-profit journalism organization founded on the premise of “explanatory journalism”, has taken a different approach to COVID-19 reporting than three long-standing Canadian alternative media: Canada's National Observer, Rabble, and Tyee. A combination of quantitative content analysis and qualitative discourse analysis found that the pandemic's far-reaching impacts gained the main emphasis in the surveyed media. These media also provided slightly divergent accounts of what precipitated the pandemic's disastrous results. Additionally, the way the Conversation Canada framed COVID-19 expressed a close resemblance to academic writing, especially in terms of the strategic use of in-text citations for making compelling arguments. These findings highlight the indispensable role that progressive alternative media play in the effective public communication of COVID-19.