CASW board members on the century's biggest public health story
“Reporting the news in an accurate and timely way is the primary responsibility of reporters and [with the coronavirus] science reporters are the ones sifting the messages from public health agencies and scientists worldwide to deliver this news in a way that other reporters––unversed in virology and epidemiology, unschooled by other outbreaks, unable to ask informed questions, and disconnected from expert sources––can’t.”
––Dan Vergano, Buzzfeed News
“When a public health issue like COVID-19 arises, science journalists are well prepared to explain the science in a way that avoids inciting panic. There’s a lot of misinformation circulating, and science journalists are well trained to counteract it.”
––Christie Aschwanden, science journalist and author
“NPR has felt obliged to provide a live stream for these events. But it is also our responsibility to correct misinformation as rapidly and as adroitly as we can. I call on things I learned from as far back as the early days of the HIV epidemic, my time covering SARS in 2003, preparation for pandemic flu a few years after that, and of course a lifetime of thinking about biomedical science, epidemiology, the business of health care, the federal health bureaucracy and the scientific enterprise writ large. Suffice it to say I go to bed dead tired. Every night.”
––Richard Harris, National Public Radio
“The outbreak has turned all of us into science writers, frankly, although not everyone may know the ins and outs of R0 (the virus’s reproduction rate, a measure of how fast it can be spread) and such. It’s important for science writers who contribute to the public understanding of the outbreak to base their stories on the best information available, and to neither downplay the seriousness of the situation nor to whip up panic or hype.”
––Alan Boyle, GeekWire aerospace and science editor
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