Picture by Obi – @pixel7propix by way of Unsplash
Over the previous three years, I’ve regularly looked for recent, up to date info and sources to assist improve your COVID-19 protection.
A brand new one which lately caught my consideration is the COVID-19 Misinformation Playbook (2023), produced by the Online News Association, which represents digital journalists and media professionals.
The playbook, edited by Chicago-based freelance reporter Meena Thiruvengadam, is well-researched and straightforward to make use of. It goals to assist new reporters rise up to hurry on their COVID protection and serves as a information for journalists protecting public well being emergencies sooner or later. The tip sheet is constructed upon a earlier model revealed by ONA in 2021, and was created by a bunch of journalists to assist reporters decide which public well being companies had probably the most dependable details about the pandemic.
“For this replace, I did plenty of reporting — reaching out to specialists, gathering solutions from stakeholders, Google sleuthing, and so on.,” Thiruvengadam mentioned. “I additionally approached the useful resource as I might from a neighborhood newsroom. If I’m a newish journalist eager to cowl a bit of this story, what would I have to really feel in control?”
I appreciated that the tip sheet begins with a reminder that the pandemic story isn’t over and that there are three questions reporters ought to preserve asking it doesn’t matter what story they’re writing:
- “Is this example actual and vital, or am I shopping for into framing of sources who could have ulterior motives?
- Am I assured within the accuracy of my reporting or speeding to get one thing out forward of the competitors?
- Am I legitimizing one thing I shouldn’t simply by protecting it?”
Different good sources within the information embrace find out how to decide a dependable knowledgeable, a COVID-19 Diverse Sources Database, fact-checking instruments and viewers literacy sources. If a reporter is in search of concepts on find out how to tailor tales for his or her area people, the information factors to the Chattanooga Instances Free Press and their technique for conserving readers concerned with COVID protection.
There’s additionally a useful resource for protecting lengthy COVID, which Thiruvengadam thinks isn’t getting sufficient protection. (Full disclosure: Included in Thiruvengadam’s information is the tip sheet Tara Haelle and I co-authored for AHCJ on protecting lengthy COVID on the finish of 2022.)
“I feel the most important shock is how little protection I’m seeing on lengthy COVID, notably from native newsrooms and concerning the folks affected,” she wrote. Check out this vital April 20 story co-authored by STAT’s Rachel Cohrs and COVID-19 Knowledge Dispatch’s Betsy Ladyhetz known as: “The NIH has poured $1 billion into long Covid research – with little to show for it.”
And to finish this put up, I needed to place out a request to AHCJ members: I’m updating my 2021 COVID-19 reporter’s essential toolkit, and I’d recognize enter from you. What sources am I lacking? Please ship your concepts to infectiousdiseases@healthjournalism.org.
