News Analysis

The Frequency of Haiti’s Cholera Outbreak in the News

We traced the coverage of the cholera epidemic from its initial outbreak in October 2010 until the recent two-year anniversary of the devastating earthquake in January 2012.  By dividing our search into two-month sections, we narrowed our scope to help decipher who was reporting what and how often they were reporting in a specified time range.

The time ranges that we created are as follows:
         October 1, 2010 to November 30, 2010
         October 1, 2011 to November 30, 2011
         January 1, 2012 to February 29, 2011

How was the search conducted?

Looking through online databases of various major news sources, we searched the phrase “cholera outbreak haiti”.  These keywords resulted in the following hits:

What resources were included?

Click for an explanation on how the news source explored the cholera outbreak in Haiti.

USA Today
The New York Times
The London Times
BBC
The New Zealand Herald
The Zimbabwe Herald

Who is reporting about cholera in Haiti today?

As the cholera outbreak in Haiti became more controlled, fewer newspapers reported about the health issue because it was seen as “less newsworthy”.  By examining the table above, a dramatic decrease in the frequency of reporting between 2011 and 2012 was seen among all the sources.  Despite the lack of recent articles, cholera still threatens the innocent lives of Haitian civilians and poses great risks to the health of its people and nation.

Please click the below sources to learn what these sources are still saying about cholera in Haiti:

National Public Radio 

Partners in Health