Firsthand Look Inside Asia’s Busiest Wet Markets

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Jo-Anne McArthur / We Animals

Also see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPRkZbGvRsg

Unpacking COVID-19’s Visual Narrative 

According to a 2019 Pew Research Center study, over half of American adults consume the majority of their news from social media. Sentient Media analyzed the social media presence of three major news organizations to better understand how they’re portraying Asia’s wet markets to their followers. Here is what we found:

  • The New York Times has over 70 million followers across Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. NYT has covered wet markets on its website, but its social media platforms are lacking in photos that show Asia’s wet markets and more specifically, photos of the animals being bought and sold at these markets. In 2006, NYT actually suggested visiting wet markets as a tourist destination.
  • The Washington Post has 23 million followers across the same three platforms. Not only are images of wet markets neglected on WashPo’s social channels, but the website’s overall coverage of wet markets is thin. One article mentions the plummeting chicken prices in India, as many consumers are no longer purchasing meat from wet markets, but not a single photo of wet markets is present. An article about the Chinese food system’s role in pandemic prevention seemed promising, but instead of gruesome wet market photos, the article displays three grinning men holding live goats in their arms. This image far from captures the fear, confusion, and pain animals endure inside wet markets.
  • HuffPost has over 11 million followers on Twitter alone and more than 23 million across all three major platforms. Unsurprisingly, on HuffPost’s social media channels, there is a severe lack of multimedia reporting on wet markets. If you search “wet markets” on HuffPost’s website, the lack of search results is also concerning. One article mentions wet markets, and even provides a photo of seafood being sold—which is commendable—but the image does not fully capture the disarray of Asia’s wildlife markets.
These three news outlets have the combined potential to reach over 116 million people—around two-thirds of the U.S. population—across three social media channels. Why aren’t news outlets using their online reach to report the truth about the live animal markets behind COVID-19?

Mainstream media can reach millions, even billions of people around the globe each day through print and online articles, blogs, and social media. Viewers trust these outlets to report the whole truth and operate in their best interests, but that is not always the case. Sentient Media believes in reporting the truth and being accountable—values we expect to share with major media outlets.

As we have seen with COVID-19 coverage, mainstream media outlets are neglecting to show a main component of why we are in the midst of a pandemic in the first place. It is time to lift the veil on Asia’s wet markets and report the uncomfortable truth.

View the photo essay here
Covering COVID-19
With the worst global pandemic we’ve seen in over a century, it’s more important than ever to make sure the truth is reported in its entirety, not just what’s convenient.

Help us share the facts during these uncertain times and make sure the world knows our species cannot survive if we continue our exploitation of the planet and nonhuman animals.

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