Since 2016, Your Voice Ohio and partnering newsrooms have listened to the concerns and priorities of thousands of Ohioans through our community dialogue series exploring Ohio’s addiction crisis, economic revitalization efforts, upcoming elections, and more. While the topics may seem highly varied, they overlap in key ways that help journalists think about how to represent diverse voices and community problem-solving in their coverage. In each, journalists, people and leaders have seen how our collective knowledge and philosophy of the issue shapes our treatment of it at every level. At a time like this, the role of journalists and communicators are more important than ever.
So, Your Voice Ohio spent some time combining the feedback and insights generated by these community dialogues with additional research to demonstrate how our past work applies to the coronavirus pandemic:
Combatting an infodemic & Dispelling myths
In the age of connectivity and personalized digital feeds, misleading or deliberate hoaxes can cross international boundaries in a matter of minutes. At a critical time like this, when the information we share can mean life or death, that can become a serious problem. Since February, The World Health Organization (WHO) has described the over-abundance of information on the Coronavirus pandemic as an “infodemic”. The primary concern of this being, that if false or misleading rumors or hoaxes circulate at speed among a population that is already scared, it might lead to offline behaviours that could lead to even more harm.
To counter this challenge, First Draft has designed ‘Covering coronavirus: an online course for journalists‘ to help journalists understand and tackle the infodemic. “The course sets out to: explain how and why false information spreads; provide tools and techniques for monitoring and verifying information online, including images and videos; share best practice around reporting on coronavirus; and offer advice on how those covering the crisis every day can protect their own mental and emotional wellbeing.”
Additionally, the WHO offers advice to the public and a list of busted myths surrounding the coronavirus. ARTICLE 19, an international human rights organization, published a briefing on how states, the media, and social media companies can help with understanding of COVID-19 “by committing to transparency, tackling misinformation, and promoting authoritative health advice.” The briefing also describes the role that news media should play in addressing intolerance and hate speech, directed at individuals of Chinese or Asian descent; stating: “Media outlets and journalists should proactively report on disinformation, propaganda and discrimination by state or non-state actors in the context of the COVID-19 outbreak.”
Humanizing Coverage
From our dialogues on addiction and economic vibrancy, to our listening sessions on race & representation, we consistently heard a call for more “humanized coverage”. This was described as people-centered reporting, rather than label-centered. Meaning, centralizing personhood in your coverage, describing what someone is experiencing rather than what they “are,” thus emphasizing their humanity above all else.
Some examples we heard were:
- A person struggling with chemical dependency, rather than “an addict”.
- People experiencing homelessness, rather than “the homeless”.
When shortcuts/labels are used, they imply that your subject is abstract, and not read as human, that they are the “other.”
While it is clear this lesson should apply to all coverage areas, it is of particular importance during a pandemic; which historically, tends to activate a wave of xenophobia. COVID-19 has been no different, as an increasing number of news reports document instances of stereotyping, harassment and bullying directed at people perceived to be of Asian descent, following the spread of the novel coronavirus.
The Asian American Journalists Association (AAJA) recently put out a call “urging journalists to exercise care in their coverage of the outbreak in China to ensure accurate and fair portrayals of Asians and Asian Americans and to avoid fueling xenophobia and racism.” One of the issues they discuss is the use of images of people of Asian descent wearing face masks, without providing the proper context. An article published by Vox explains why Asians in masks should not be the “face” of the coronavirus and the importance of applying what we know about the history of xenophobia and public health into our editorial decisions.
In American Psychological Association guidelines for combating COVID-19-related xenophobia, they recommend portraying different ethnic groups in public information materials. Additionally, they recommend “amplifying the voices of people with lived experience with coronavirus” and “correcting myths, rumors and stereotypes, and challenging those whose language promotes bias.”
Getting down to basics
In July 2019, City Bureau posted an article entitled: Is your journalism a luxury or necessity?. They argue that journalists should think about their communities’ information needs and prioritize their work using Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. At Maslow’s foundational level, people need information about food, shelter, transportation and economic opportunity.
When Your Voice Ohio asked in more than a dozen Ohio communities, “What does a community look like where people can live happy and fulfilled lives?” The response we heard in every community consisted of “access to basic needs: healthcare, quality public education, fresh/healthy food, clean air, clothes, shelter, green space, safe place to congregate with community”.
More recently, the Center for Media Engagement conducted a survey about what information people want from local news organizations regarding Coronavirus specifically. They found that people most want local health updates and information about local entities that provide critical services, such as hospitals, grocery stores, and local government.
When thinking ‘basic needs’ also try to think ‘basic info’ — or, as Fiona Morgan describes it in her article ‘7 ways to get your COVID-19 reporting to those who need it’, breaking down your “essential reporting”.
Throughout our addiction crisis community dialogues, we got feedback from the community that the stories they wanted included basic information like how addiction works and happens. One journalist, Katie Wedell from The Dayton Daily News, describes this realization: “We came out of those [community dialogues] with a big, long list of things people wanted us to write about…Some of it was things that I hadn’t even really thought of,” she continued. “Some people were still confused about what opioid is.… We forget sometimes that when we’ve covered something for so long that some people are new to the story and don’t know what we’re talking about.”
We know the COVID-19 pandemic is a rapidly changing story with a lot of moving parts, so we broke down some of the “basics” of COVID-19 in our blog last week. Check it out here!
These are unprecedented, challenging times for us all, but especially for local journalists who are working hard to keep their communities informed while staying safe and confronting serious economic headwinds. But now, more than ever, it’s necessary for people to have reliable, accessible and engaged local news and information available to them. It’s especially in times like these that collaboration can help. Contact us to let us know how we can best support you and your newsroom.
