New publication from our team on local TV news coverage of COVID-19-related racial disparities. This work highlights which communities and media environments were more — and less — likely to encounter reporting on racial health disparities during COVID-19. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
Analyzing closed captions from 758 local TV stations across all 210 U.S. media markets (2020–2021), we examined how community demographics, political context, station ownership, and network affiliation shaped coverage of racial disparities during the pandemic.
Read the full newsletter here: mailchi.mp/7cd3b2207f73...
We found that markets with lower Trump vote share and larger Black and Indigenous populations were more likely to feature this coverage, while attention declined over time. Sinclair-owned stations were unexpectedly more likely to cover racial disparities early in the pandemic.
US adults’ awareness of actions threatening public health and science declined between March and September 2025, according to a new survey from @commhsp.bsky.social.
Our 2025 Year in Review is here!
The COMMHSP team has wrapped up a year of impactful research, publications, and community engagement. Highlights include:
📢 Newly Published Article
📚 Year in Review: A roundup of our 2025 publications and blog posts on equity messaging, local journalism, racism in media, public health narratives, and more
🎤 A Q&A with our early career researchers
📸 A look at our growing team
Our December COMM News is here! Catch up on the latest updates from our team, including recent publications, presentations, and a new blog post on Native American representation in the media.
Read the full edition: mailchi.mp/3dee028de89f...
We examined market-level social and demographic characteristics and station-level factors as predictors of local television news coverage of COVID-19-related racial disparities using the theoretica...