The coronavirus pandemic and the resulting COVID crisis represent one of the biggest global economic crises in recent years. This paper deals with the topic of how four Croatian online news media reported on the mentioned topic. The hypothesis that they contributed to the spread of panic among the public was partially confirmed. The thesis consists of seven interconnected chapters, a conclusion, and a list of references. At the beginning, the author introduces the reader to the content of the work, the subject, purpose, and goal of the research. The second section of the thesis defines online reporting theoretically and in terms of content, and key data on four Croatian online media is presented: index.hr, jutarnji.hr, večernji.hr, and 24sata.hr. Reports of these online news media are the subject of this thesis's research. The third part deals with the theoretical and content definition of the pandemic and provides an overview of the pandemic throughout history, including the coronavirus pandemic, which is the topic of the thesis, and its course from the beginning of the epidemic until April 2022, in Croatia and in the world. The fourth part of the thesis is dedicated to reporting on the coronavirus pandemic; the most important terms on the subject, recommendations, regulations, and reporting guidelines, as well as the results of previously conducted research on reporting on the pandemic in Croatia and the world. The fifth part of the thesis presents comprehensive research on the reporting of four media during January and February 2022 on the coronavirus, analyzing the published headlines of the media articles, their textual content, and photographs. All this is compared between the four media. The sixth part of the thesis presents the results of the conducted survey in which respondents shared their experiences and views about media reporting on the coronavirus. The research partially confirmed the initial hypothesis about how the media contributed to the spread of panic among the public, and the results are analyzed in the Discussion of Results chapter. In the final part, the conclusions of the research were presented and solutions were adopted in order to better understand the role of the media, especially in crisis situations like the coronavirus pandemic. Offered solutions include increasing the level of media literacy among journalists and also consumers of media content.