COVID-19 vaccine strategy, news and political parallelism in Mexico. A comparative analysis of La Jornada and Reforma

A substantial body of research exists on the management of COVID-19 by governments and the news, especially in higher-income countries. Less is known about middle- and lower-income country contexts during the global pandemic. We address this important gap in the literature by comparing the frames, topics, and tone toward the government in Mexico’s La Jornada, a center left news outlet, and Reforma, a center right business news outlet, on the Morena government’s COVID-19 vaccination strategy. Analysis of frames in the news from April 2020 to October 2022 shows that the attribution of responsibility frame was most often used overall, followed by conflict, and economic consequences. Media party parallelism or political parallelism was evident in both the framing and the tone of the news. La Jornada was more supportive and less critical of the Morena government led by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador known as AMLO, while Reforma was more critical. Other results also show notable differences in the treatment of the issue in both newspapers, including the types of items (news vs opinion pieces) on the subject, criticism of the vaccination strategy and the government, and the optimistic or pessimistic perspectives in the headlines. In conclusion, we argue that ideological bias in the news on the government’s COVID-19 vaccine strategy can undermine the neutrality and objectivity of information. We discuss avenues for future research in conclusion.