Mainstream Media Guilty of Anti-Bitcoin Bias

A research and a survey conducted by a blockchain research company Clover came to a general conclusion that coverage on cryptocurrency and Bitcoin-related events in major mass media outlets soared with last year's climb in value, mostly focused on crashes and drops in value and developed an increasingly negative outlook when reporting on it.

Media Doesn't Favor Bitcoin

The survey was administered by closely examining 7,527 articles on cryptocurrencies published by 48 media outlets during a period from January 1st 2013 to July 31st 2018...

...it was backed by an algorithm which helped researchers assess the general sentiment and emotion of each article.

Their findings show that cryptocurrencies were uncharted waters to most mainstream media until sometime last year, when Bitcoin's value started to surge without precedent - this is when coverage in the press and online portals really begin to take notice digital assets and their role in modern finance.

Still, even during the 2017 which was mostly a golden year for digital currencies, media coverage spiked during those rare periods of market decline. The most prominent "press frenzy" took part during December of last year when a huge number of articles wrote about the record value of Bitcoin.

In fact, as the researchers noted, during the final days of 2017 as Bitcoin plunged somewhat, articles with negative undertones towards it multiplied and during January, when cryptocurrencies fell 34%, negative articles became the norm.

Ideological Clash

There is a distinctive divide with how certain publishers reported on cryptocurrencies as time progressed. While some of them became less hostile, a more common route was to become more antagonistic over time, which was noted in reports by Gizmodo and Reuters USA.

Interestingly, financial news sector seemed to be more embracing towards Bitcoin than technology portals...

...however, not all financial outlets treated the crypto equally. Those more traditional ones, leaning towards conservative and generally more mature audience, such as The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, The FInancial Times and even The New York Times were mostly adopting an adverse stance.

News outlets aimed towards younger and liberal demographic (eg. Forbes and Business Insider) had a more positive sentiment on average. Making a point against conservative media and their overal anti-Bitcoin coverage is Breitbart News which published exclusively negative articles - a somewhat surprising affair since their former CEO Steve Bannon though himself a "crypto revolutionary."

What are your thoughts on these findings? Are you surprised by them or is it very much as expected? Why is it, in your opinion, that mainstream media seems so reluctant to accept Bitcoin and give cryptocurrencies credit where it's due? Make yourself heard in the comments!

Source:

"Research Exposes Anti-Bitcoin Bias in Mainstream Media", Avi Mizrahi, bitcoin.com, November 30, 2018.