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Primary Submission Category: Public Health Communication and Trust
Coverage of fentanyl in nationally-circulated United States news media, July 2022–June 2025
Authors: Craig Caudill, Erin Annunziato, Evan Eschliman,
Presenting Author: Craig Caudill*
The ongoing fentanyl-driven overdose crisis in the US requires interdisciplinary intervention and remains a topic of interest in national media. We characterized the coverage of fentanyl in nationally-circulated United States news media content from July 2022–June 2025. We used the ProQuest U.S. Newsstream database to identify news media content related to fentanyl from all four nationally-circulated US newspapers (i.e., The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and USA Today) published from July 2022–June 2025. We analyzed a random sample of 20% of articles using a directed content analysis characterizing articles’ overall framing, content elements, and sources quoted/cited. We summarized results and trends by calendar quarter using descriptive statistics. Of the 283 included articles across 12 quarters, 29.7% had international relations framing, 26.2% had public health framing, 24.4% had domestic politics framing, 17.8% had crime framing, and 2.1% had another framing (e.g., movie reviews). We observed an overall increase in the number of articles from July 2022–June 2025, peaking at 48 articles (17.0% of our sample) in Q1 of 2025. Articles mentioning immigration/border security and cartels/gangs also peaked in Q1 of 2025 (35.4% and 20.5% of mentions, respectively). Stigmatizing content was present in one-third (33.2%) of all articles, half of which (49.5%) were articles with public health framing. Non-public health solutions (e.g., increasing border security, tariffs) (70.3%) were mentioned more often than public health solutions (e.g., harm reduction, expanding access to treatment) (38.5%). Nationally-circulated news media coverage on fentanyl commonly mentions immigration/border security and cartels/gangs, covers non-public health solutions, and contains stigmatizing content; this coverage may influence public perception of fentanyl and the efficacy of policies and public health interventions intended to mitigate fentanyl-related harms.