The Headline

Artist Statement: At the turn of the year, a pandemic began to creep across the world. As we in the United States worried about World War Three with Iran, the impeachment process of President Trump, and the race for the democratic party’s nomination, COVID-19 was spreading in China. On February 2nd, coronavirus made the New York Times headlines for the first time. From March 10th through May 17th, with a single exception, every single daily headline was related to COVID-19 and the related shutdowns and economic fallout. But on May 30th, a different pandemic made front-page news: the pandemic of racism in the United States. Unlike the novel coronavirus, this disease was not a new one. And yet, for many Americans, the fight for Black lives seemed to just be beginning. Protests and marches, spurred by the violent murder of George Floyd at the hands of the police, spread like wildfire across the United States. This disease would not be cured by locking ourselves in our houses and practicing social distancing. The fight for Black lives required action. But the Black Lives Matter Movement didn’t capture headlines to the same extent the coronavirus did. Between May 30th, with the first headline, and July 31st, 18 front-page New York Times headlines dealt with the fight for Black lives. In the same period, 30 were related to COVID-19, 7 dealt with US politics and the forthcoming election, and 8 were categorised as “other.” This project began in April as an attempt to capture how COVID-19 took over the world, eclipsing all other news topics that would have headlined in normal years. But now, these calendars tell a story of two pandemics, and the media coverage they have received