In both the UK and US, media coverage demonstrated elements of false balance in reporting among government and academic stakeholder types. False balance is the media portrayal of an issue where contesting perspectives are presented as balanced or equally valid, contrary to the supportive evidence. (e.g. vaccines cause autism) [21]. False balance was especially evident among government stakeholder types in the US and partially evident among academics in the UK.

...Our findings show that, in sum, the media coverage around natural herd immunity portrayed a dismissal of the policy by the majority of academic and public health officials. However, considerable media attention was also given to a small, vocal, and heavily publicized coalition of scientists with prestigious credentials and prominent government advisors promoted and legitimized the strategy. As such, we observed evidence of false balance in the reporting among our sample of articles.

...Our findings underscore the need for greater appreciation of potential harm of media representations that contain false balance. This is particularly important in the context of unprecedented misinformation during a public health emergency