Newspaper Coverage of Hospitals During a Prolonged Health Crisis: Longitudinal Mixed Methods Study

BACKGROUND: It is important for health organizations to communicate with the public through newspapers during health crises. Although hospitals were a main source of information for the public during the COVID-19 pandemic, little is known about how this information was presented to the public through (web-based) newspaper articles. OBJECTIVE: This study aims to examine newspaper reporting on the situation in hospitals during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic in the Netherlands and to assess the degree to which the reporting in newspapers aligned with what occurred in practice. METHODS: We used a mixed methods longitudinal design to compare internal data from all hospitals (n=5) located in one of the most heavily affected regions of the Netherlands with the information reported by a newspaper covering the same region. The internal data comprised 763 pages of crisis meeting documents and 635 minutes of video communications. A total of 14,401 newspaper articles were retrieved from the LexisNexis Academic (RELX Group) database, of which 194 (1.3%) articles were included for data analysis. For qualitative analysis, we used content and thematic analyses. For quantitative analysis, we used chi-square tests. RESULTS: The content of the internal data was categorized into 12 themes: COVID-19 capacity; regular care capacity; regional, national, and international collaboration; human resources; well-being; public support; material resources; innovation; policies and protocols; finance; preparedness; and ethics. Compared with the internal documents, the newspaper articles focused significantly more on the themes COVID-19 capacity (P<.001), regular care capacity (P<.001), and public support (P<.001) during the first year of the pandemic, whereas they focused significantly less on the themes material resources (P=.004) and policies and protocols (P<.001). Differences in attention toward themes were mainly observed between the first and second waves of the pandemic and at the end of the third wave. For some themes, the attention in the newspaper articles preceded the attention given to these themes in the internal documents. Reporting was done through various forms, including diary articles written from the perspective of the hospital staff. No indication of the presence of misinformation was found in the newspaper articles. CONCLUSIONS: Throughout the first year of the pandemic, newspaper articles provided coverage on the situation of hospitals and experiences of staff. The focus on themes within newspaper articles compared with internal hospital data differed significantly for 5 (42%) of the 12 identified themes. The discrepancies between newspapers and hospitals in their focus on themes could be attributed to their gatekeeping roles. Both parties should be aware of their gatekeeping role and how this may affect information distribution. During health crises, newspapers can be a credible source of information for the public. The information can also be valuable for hospitals themselves, as it allows them to anticipate internal and external developments.