The timeline below shows the total seconds of daily airtime since the start of last year that depicted some form of "personal protective equipment" (PPE). While the specific definition used here includes all forms of protective gear, from masks to eyeglasses to sports equipment, it shows how daily depictions rose from around 500-700 daily seconds on each channel pre-pandemic to 1,000-2,000 seconds during the pandemic. The only exception was around the US election in which such imagery dropped to around 150-300 seconds.
Video: A Look At Mask Imagery On Television News
