How have quality newspapers covered the microbiome? A content analysis of The New York Times, The Times, and El Pais

The microbiome has captured the attention of researchers and newspapers. We studied how the subject is covered in The New York Times, The Times, and El Pais via DowJones Factiva (2007-2019), analyzing aspects that included article type, word count, authorship, topic, and citation of researchers, organizations, and journals. We found that 87.6% of newspaper articles (409/467) were news articles and most were longer than 300 words (396; 84.8%), with The New York Times devoting the highest proportion to newspaper articles over 1000 words (99; 45.4%). While basic science findings received the most attention from newspapers from 2007 to 2015, topics related to medicine and nutrition attracted increasing attention from 2016 to 2019. Newspapers showed a domestic preference for their respective researchers, organizations, and journals.