│By Leila Marhamati, Associate Editor, Gale Primary Sources│
Through their daily, on-the-ground coverage of current events, newspapers continue to be a rich resource for understanding key societal issues. In March 2025, Gale released a supplement to its digital archive of the major British newspaper The Independent, bringing coverage up to 2021.
The additional 190,000 pages of material offered in this supplement provides a unique opportunity for users to reflect back on events they have lived through as a matter of scholarly interest, such as the COVID-19 pandemic. Using this archive, we can paint a retrospective of this major recent event, thinking about questions of hindsight, bias, and personal experience.
Early Days
The Independent began reporting on an outbreak of a virus causing respiratory illness in early January 2020. This article from 10 January explains that the virus was thought to be a novel strain of coronavirus. At this point, the virus seemed contained to the Wuhan region of China.
By 25 January, however, The Independent was reporting about fears of the coronavirus outbreak spreading to England.
News of the virus caused some panic in the UK even early on in the year – a late January article reporting on the acceleration of the disease and another on the Health Secretary’s calls for Britons to self-isolate illustrate this. Perhaps because of this unease, The Independent’s lineup of articles seemed careful to avoid sensationalizing the virus.
In an analysis piece from 2 February 2020, Health Correspondent Shaun Lintern explained the possibilities behind the outbreak. Yes, it could mutate into a more deadly form, but it could also change into a less harmful strand, as the swine flu did in 2009.
In some instances, there was even a flippancy to the paper’s coverage of the virus. In this article, for example, a reader asked travel correspondent Simon Calder if their airline should refund their upcoming trip to the Canaries. Calder advised them not to cancel their trip due to coronavirus, writing, “it would make more sense to cancel your trip because you fear being struck by lightning”.
A Pandemic Proper
On 23 March 2020, the UK government initiated a nation-wide lockdown to combat what was now characterized by the WHO as a global pandemic. Lizzy Buchan’s ominous article published the following day quoted government officials threatening stricter measures if Britons did not follow the lockdown guidelines. Buchan’s article hints at a resentment among the British public for losing certain freedoms.
Home, Minister Says.” Independent, 23 Mar. 2020. The Independent
Historical Archive, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/NNPYUW959249177/INDA?u=webdemo&sid=bookmark-INDA&xid=f81a58c3.
Subsequent news coverage on the virus was abundant, and, taken together, the journalism worked to emphasise the seriousness of the pandemic while simultaneously highlighting the ability of British society to alleviate the worst of it.
We see titles like: “Idiots Ignoring Isolation Need to Know What a ‘Moderate’ Case of Covid-19 Feels Like”, “Risk of Death from Virus Is Double in Deprived Areas, with Women Worse Affected”, and “’Worst yet to Come’ WHO Warns – and Only Minority Have Developed Antibodies”.
But we also see these: “Radical Collaboration Is Vital to Defeat a Global Pandemic”, “Third of People in England Have Covid-19 Antibodies”, and “Life-Saving Covid-19 Drug Cuts Risk of Death by a Third”.
The overwhelming tenor of The Independent’s journalism in this period is not upbeat. Rather, the message reads as: this will be much worse if we don’t do what we can to stop it.
COVID’s Many Ramifications
Searching “COVID-19” in Gale’s database allows a visualisation of just how many sectors of British society were impacted by the pandemic. There are multitudes of articles available showcasing the issues journalists responded to day after day, from politics to the arts.
In the realm of sport, the paper of course reported on the cancellation of sporting events, from Premier League football to the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. But articles also considered more deeply how the pandemic shone a light on sport as an integral part of society.
For instance, this 25 June 2020 article exposed criticism heaped on tennis player Novak Djokovic (among others) for organising a tennis tournament and disregarding social distancing guidelines. The article invites concerns about the impact of sports on the pandemic, as opposed to the pandemic on sports, and the difference between the expectations placed on famous sport stars versus the public.
COVID-19 also provided a new framework with which to view the UK government and its leaders, such as then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
Even in the beginning phases of the pandemic, The Independent’s journalists were sceptical of Johnson’s plans to tackle the outbreak. This article from 24 March 2020, for example, criticised Johnson for his government’s confused communications about its response to the outbreak.
This criticism of Johnson’s government continued for the duration of the crisis. Deputy political editor Rob Merrick wrote in May 2020 that the Johnson government may have been intending to adopt a policy of herd immunity, despite denying this in official communications.
A common theme that interested the paper was the relationship between COVID and Brexit, which the UK electorate had voted in favour of in 2016. This story from May 2020 reported that Johnson’s government was considering bringing Brexit into effect without a European trade deal. The author picks apart Johnson for using the pandemic as a way out of these tough negotiations and possibly initiating further economic recession while the country was reeling from COVID.
Economic Cover for a No-Deal Brexit.” Independent, 22 May 2020.
The Independent Historical Archive, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/PZGNJA288635914/INDA?u=webdemo&sid=bookmark-INDA&xid=6849336c
COVID in Retrospect
In many ways, there is some humour to be found in looking back on COVID through this archive. I couldn’t help but laugh while reading news articles from early 2020 in which experts were advising not to panic and that it was even safe to travel. But it has also made me reflect on how I remember my own experience of living through the pandemic. I remember in February 2020 not feeling particularly worried, thinking that I would be able to study abroad come September.
In this way, this archive can help us to understand the recent past from a broader perspective – one of hindsight and an abundance of archival material – but also to think about ourselves and how we connect to the world.
If you enjoyed reading about the COVID pandemic, check out these posts:
- The Mirror and Women: Female Readers, Female Writers
- Using Newspaper Articles to Uncover the History of Eating Disorders from the Nineteenth to the Twentieth Century
- Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century Burney Newspapers Collection: Part II
Blog post cover image citation:
“We Are Not ‘At War’: Treat This Virus like Any Other.” Independent, 6 Mar. 2020. The Independent Historical Archive, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/FNAJUA217981962/INDA?u=webdemo&sid=bookmark-INDA&xid=754f7e41.
