Trump reacts to a question during a news conference in the Briefing Room of the White House on September 27, 2020 in Washington, DC.  Credit: Joshua Roberts/Getty

President Donald Trump is responsible for nearly 38% of coronavirus misinformation in traditional media around the world, according to a new study by researchers at Cornell University. (emphasis added)

The study looked at what the World Health Organization has termed the “infodemic” of misinformation about the new coronavirus across 38 million traditional media articles published between Jan. 1 and May 26 in English-language media around the world.

“We found that media mentions of U.S. President Donald Trump within the context of COVID-19 misinformation made up by far the largest share of the infodemic,” the study said, noting that Trump mentions comprised 37.9% of the overall misinformation conversation.

“The biggest surprise was that the president of the United States was the single largest driver of misinformation around COVID,” Sarah Evnega, the study’s lead author and director of the Cornell Alliance for Science, told The New York Times. “That’s concerning in that there are real-world dire health implications.”

The researchers looked […]

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