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The authors conducted a content analysis of English-speaking media coverage of the COVID-19 crisis during 2020 as available through Factiva. The results show that the social and ethical challenge that lies at the origin of the crisis—the structural drivers of zoonosis as reported by the scientific literature—is all but unaddressed. These social drivers are to a large extent linked to how humans treat other animals. Our analysis of news coverage of COVID-19 strongly suggests that journalism played a largely facilitative and collaborative role, more aligned with a sort of human species-patriotic behaviour than to a radical commitment to mitigating the risks of future health crisis and to consider animal ethics. This quantitative research is an exploratory attempt to pave the way for a qualitative, ethically-oriented analysis of the media representation of zoonosis.