VRT News Graphs February April 2020

SYLVIA WENMACKERS

VRT TV NEWS (7 o'clock)

Graphs February – April 2020

Dear viewer, if you have watched the 7 o'clock TV news on VRT during March and April of 2020, you know that Covid-19-related numbers were mentioned daily. Sometimes the numbers were even presented as graphs! We wanted to do something in return, so we put these broadcasts into 4 graphs.*

The start of the Belgian lockdown on the 13th of March 2020 is clearly visible in these graphs. For instance, the number of news items decreased …

Total number of items in the TV news

25

20

15

10

5

0

13-3-2020

3/2 10/2 17/2 24/2 2/3 9/3 16/3 23/3 30/3 6/4 13/4 20/4 27/4 … while their duration increased. Covid-19 was underreported during the weekends, so this graph shows a pronounced weekend effect.

Duration of the news in minutes

70 65 60 55 50 45 40 35 30 25 20

13-3-2020

27-3-2020 15-4-2020

3/2 10/2 17/2 24/2 2/3 9/3 16/3 23/3 30/3 6/4 13/4 20/4 27/4

The percentage of items on Covid-19 reached 100% on the 13th of March and this happened more than ten times after that day. At least this indicator could not get any worse.

Percentage of items on Covid-19

100% 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0%

13-3-2020

3/2 10/2 17/2 24/2 2/3 9/3 16/3 23/3 30/3 6/4 13/4 20/4 27/4 To end appropriately, we now have to turn to sports. As this graph clearly shows, even a pandemic cannot stop the reporting on (cancelled) sports events.

Percentage of items on sports

100% 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0%

13-3-2020

3/2 10/2 17/2 24/2 2/3 9/3 16/3 23/3 30/3 6/4 13/4 20/4 27/4

Only if we adhere strictly to all preventive measures will the duration of the news broadcast stay below the critical threshold. Thank you for watching and stay safe!

Maja is the annual magazine of the Young Academy of Belgium (Flanders), an interdisciplinary and interuniversity meeting place for young top researchers and artists with their own view on science, society, art and policy. Through opinion pieces and events on current topics, it aims to contribute to the public perception of science and the debate on science policy, specifically from the perspective of the young academic and artist.

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