Ebola and Coronavirus newspaper reports

This dataset on newspaper coverge of ebola and coronavirus consists of quotes from two publications – The Sowetan, a daily broadsheet from South Africa and the Daily Trust, a Nigerian daily broadsheet. These newspapers are among the most widely read and distributed in their respective countries (Hassan and Azmi 2018; Cowling 2014). The newspaper articles were published over two 31-day periods: 1 August 2014 – 31 August 2014 for Ebola and 23 March 2020 – 23 April 2020 for coronavirus. These periods were chosen because they marked a significant development in the Ebola and Coronavirus outbreak, respectively, and thus marked growing media coverage in the countries being considered. The first period in 2014 was chosen because it came a week after Nigeria reported its first Ebola-related death, marking the beginning of the Ebola outbreak in that country (World Health Organisation 2014). The second 31-day period, which was in 2020, was chosen because on 23 March 2020, South Africa announced it would be going into a national lockdown to try and mitigate the spread of coronavirus.