39% of speakers in news items on coronavirus: regional officials and politicians - IMI research

Representatives of local or regional authorities and Ukrainian politicians are the most frequent speakers in news items about coronavirus : 39% of the total number of coronavirus news. 

These are the results of a study the "Institute of Mass Information" NGO held in 10 regions of Ukraine in April this year *.

The representatives of local and regional authorities have been cited as speakers in 25% of news, Ukrainian politicians were in 14%, and medical workers were in 7% of publications about the coronavirus. 

Businessmen as speakers have been cited in 4% of news, regional politicians and local figures (public activists, volunteers) commented on news about the coronavirus at the same level: 3% for each, religious figures as speakers have been quoted in 1% of news items. Other speakers accounted for 9% of the total coronavirus news. 

4% of news about the coronavirus contained signs of being pre-paid stories. According to the monitoring data, the businessmen served of coronavirus topic for jeansa stories the most frequently (40% of the total number of news items with signs ofpre-paid journalism), then regional (21%) and national politicians (20% of news items about the coronavirus with signs of sponsored journalism) followed. Representatives of regional and local authorities promoted themselves in 11% of the news, local public figures did in 4% of the total number of news about the coronavirus with signs of order. No materials with signs of jeansa involving medical staff and religious figures have been recorded.

At the same time, most news about coronavirus with signs of pre-paid journalism was recorded in Cherkasy (9% of the total number of news about coronavirus in the region), Dnipro (6%) and Kharkiv (5.6%). The least quantity of pre-paid stories about coronavirus have been published by online media in Donetsk (2.8%) and Volyn (2.5%).

As for the amount of news items on coronavirus, compared to March, their number has almost doubled - from 25 to 43% of the total number of news.

Thus, most of the news about the pandemic and coronavirus COVID-19 in April was published in the online media of Kherson (56% of the total number of news in the region), Dnipro (54%), Donetsk (52%) and Lviv (51%). The least such news was published in online media of Mykolaiv (29%) and Odessa (23%). 

* 9626 news items have been analyzed in this study, including 4140 news about the coronavirus and 2737 speakers from 50 regional online media in 10 regions of Ukraine (Volyn, Dnipro, Donetsk (Mariupol), Lviv, Mykolaiv, Odessa, Poltava, Kharkiv, Kherson, Cherkasy). The monitoring included only news from the online media tape: articles, journalistic investigations, analytics, blogs, author's columns, announcements, etc. have not been analyzed. 

The monitoring methodology included analysis of the number of news about the COVID-19 pandemic and coronavirus, types of speakers, as well as materials with signs of jeansa in news about coronavirus, which were published in selected online media lines from 6 to 10 April 2020 inclusive. In general, the following categories of speakers were studied during the analyzed period: representatives of local / regional authorities, Ukrainian politicians, regional politicians, local activists (public activists, volunteers), medical workers, businessmen, religious figures, etc. (journalists, foreign speakers, law enforcement officers, ordinary citizens, etc. ).

Monitoring was conducted in the following media:

VOLYN (Volynski Novyny, VolynPost, Volyn24, Rayon.in.ua, Pershiy), DNIPRO (opentv.media, nashemisto.dp.ua, dnpr.com.ua, dp.informator.ua, gorod.dp.ua), DONETSK (MARIUPOL) (0629.com.ua, Donbass News, Karachun (Slavyansk), Vostochny variant, MRPL.CITY), LVIV (ZIK, Zahid.net, Vgolos, Varta1, Tvoye misto), MYKOLAYIV ( Crime.net , Moy Horod, Novodti-N, Inshe.TV, 0512), ODESSA (Dumska, 048, Odesskaya zhyzn, USI.Odessa, Odessa online), POLTAVA (Poltava region, poltavske.tv, OKIA Poltava region news, 0532.ua, Zmist), KHARKIV (ATN, Status Quo, City X, KHARKIV Today, 057.ua), KHERSON(KhersonOnline, 0552.ua, Lyubimyy Kherson, Khersonshyna za den, Kherson), CHERKASY (Vykluchno, 18000, Procherk, Zmi.ck.ua, Provse).