Abstract
COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy has reportedly been rising in polio-stricken Pakistan. Prior research reports a variety of contributing factors including information sources, particularly the newspapers readers generally consult to stay abreast of vaccine roll-out developments. This viewpoint article argues that three commonly practised journalistic routines – as explicated by Tandoc and Duffy – are promoting COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy among Urdu-language newspaper readers in Pakistan. The first is a distinctive news sourcing routine, in which extracts of news items reporting COVID-19 vaccine campaigns from across the globe are combined in one news story, which is useful to keep readers updated but compromises the journalistic principle of completeness. Second, news values, which may determine the newsworthiness of a vaccine-related event, might reduce public trust in ongoing vaccine roll-outs. Third, an innovative news structure with striking headlines is used to make a newspaper visually appealing but may also support generalised impressions of the adverse effects associated with COVID-19 vaccinations.
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