Disclaimer: The note/s given below is/ are a compilation of information taken from various sources. The references to the sources are provided at the end. The views expressed in the note/s are those of the concerned student/s/ intern/s. The blogger or the compiler will not be responsible in any manner whatsoever regarding the authenticity of the information provided in the note/s.
These notes are being compiled to help the students for educational purposes during Covid-19 pandemic.
1) Covid-19 In Media
During a pandemic, news media play a crucial role in communicating public health and policy information. Traditional newspaper coverage is important amidst increasing disinformation, yet uncertainties make covering health risks and efforts to limit transmission difficult.
Tools previously validated for pandemic-related news records allow measurement of multiple indicators of scientific quality (i.e., reporting that reflects the state of scientific knowledge) and of sensationalism (i.e., strategies rendering news as more extraordinary than it really is). COVID-19 reporting had moderate scientific quality and low sensationalism across 1331 sampled articles in twelve newspapers spanning the political spectrums of the three countries.
Newspapers oriented towards the populist-right had the lowest scientific quality in reporting, combined with very low sensationalism in some cases. Against a backdrop of world-leading disease rates, U.S. newspapers on the political left had more exposing coverage, e.g., focused on policy failures or misinformation, and more warning coverage, e.g., focused on the risks of the disease, compared to U.S. newspapers on the political right. Despite the generally assumed benefits of low sensationalism, pandemic-related coverage with low scientific quality that also failed to alert readers to public-health risks, misinformation, or policy failures may have exacerbated the public-health effects of the disease.
2) Misinformation About Covid-19 In Media
Misinformation about COVID-19 has proliferated widely on social media, ranging from the peddling of fake “cures,” such as gargling with lemon or salt water and injecting yourself with bleach (World Health Organization, 2020a), to false conspiracy theories that the virus was bioengineered in a lab in Wuhan (Andersen et al., 2020; Cohen, 2020), or that the 5G cellular network is causing or exacerbating symptoms of COVID-19 (BBC News, 2020).
The conspiracy film “Plandemic” appeared online on May 4th of 2020, garnering millions of views and quickly becoming one of the most widespread examples of coronavirus-related misinformation (Cook et al., 2020). The video promotes dangerous health advice, for example, falsely suggesting that wearing a mask actually “activates” the coronavirus. Fake news about the virus has also been actively promoted by political elites, such as President Trump and Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who falsely claimed that hydroxychloroquine is “working in all places” as a treatment against the virus (Constine, 2020). But misinformation about COVID-19 is not limited to information that is blatantly true or false, which widens the scope of the problem. For example, although the harms and benefits of hydroxychloroquine as a potential treatment are indeed being studied, there is currently no scientific consensus on its effectiveness (Geleris et al., 2020; Meyerowitz et al., 2020). Thus, even deciding what counts as misinformation about COVID-19 is a complicated matter, as insights into the causes of and treatments for the virus develop over time.
Nonetheless, it is becoming increasingly clear that misinformation about COVID-19 is a common problem. For example, a poll by Ofcom in the United Kingdom found that almost half (46%) of the United Kingdom population reported exposure to fake news about the coronavirus (Ofcom, 2020). Similar results (48%) have been reported by Pew in the United States (Mitchell and Oliphant, 2020). In particular, amongst those exposed, nearly two-thirds (66%) reported seeing it on a daily basis, which is problematic as repeated exposure is known to increase belief in fake news (Pennycook et al., 2018).
3) Risks Caused By Misinformation
Inadequate scientific quality in news coverage of past pandemics has posed risks and limited capacities to disseminate public-health guidance and coordinate responses. Reporting on the state of scientific knowledge during a novel, evolving pandemic is challenging. Low-quality scientific reporting of pandemics may overstate or understate disease risks or the efficacy of protective measures for different individuals or fail to communicate the nature of the evidence. Such reporting may constrain the feasibility or effectiveness of options for policymakers directing government action, miss opportunities to inform individuals making health decisions, and increase the exposure of health professionals to disease. It can both exacerbate disease outcomes and generate unnecessary fear, in combination with other factors shaping perceptions among the public.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, media representations of complex, rapidly evolving epidemiological science shape public understandings of the risks, measures to limit disease spread, and associated political and policy discourses. Traditional newspaper media coverage may have particular importance given simultaneous misinformation and disinformation, social fragmentation, political polarization, and failures of policy coordination, and national newspapers influence how other outlets cover the same subject across media platforms.
4) Covid-19 And Indian Media
While the enormous scale of the coronavirus infection merits the coverage that it received, health journalism – the medium to place these ever-looming public health issues on the national public agenda and inform action – has rarely been accorded comparable importance by our media. As a second wave of the pandemic swells, the past year’s developments indicate why the health beat deserves more, year-round importance than most media organisations usually give it.
Marked by sensationalism
Around the world, the time and space devoted to coverage of health and medical news has usually been low. Unless accompanied by immediacy, and in some cases, fear and panic, articles about health rarely make it to the front pages. Studies on health coverage in the mass media, both in India and other countries, show that the health beat is sidelined by beats such as politics, crime and the economy. Newspapers published the bulk of their health coverage on their inside pages, which are considered to have fewer readers and less importance than the front page.
In covering health news, the approach by a large section of the Indian media has been event-driven, focusing on the publicity of a current public health risk. Coverage of healthcare policy or the medical research process to improve public knowledge about health and medicine is uncommon. Health stories in the news tend to mirror changes in numbers of a population affected by the disease and its associated seasonal variables.
The quality of health reportage in India has also been an area of concern. A 2013 study in a publication called Journalism analysed H1N1 news coverage in The Times of India in 2009 and concluded that the English daily’s stories focused on framing the virus as “a deadly disease”, did not provide contextual information, and “its coverage presented death in such a manner as to produce fear and panic”.
It noted that the H1N1 coverage moved from the front to the inside pages of the newspaper “once its firstness began to fade and the toll began to mount in the state”.
Needless to say, much of the Indian media followed a similar pattern while reporting on the coronavirus pandemic. Many reports during the initial days of the spread of the coronavirus infection relied on sensationalism, with news anchors peddling controversial claims about the origins of the virus and access to vaccines.
5) Why Health Beat In India Needs More Attention
Quick-hit stories
An increasing fast-paced environment of the news and the practice of journalism being influenced by political considerations and commercial interests means explanatory, long-form reporting, associated with health and science news is overlooked. Quick hit stories that do not involve much research are preferred over enterprise journalism. “Softer news” that aligns more towards fitness and exercise, a topic that is the least policy oriented, gets prioritised to fill the news hole.
The increasing reliance by journalists on public relations firms to provide content for health stories also contributes to the diminishing line between health news and advertising. This means new medical interventions or devices are portrayed successful by the media, and potential harms and costs are often downplayed.
The gender skew
The health beat has also traditionally been reserved for women reporters, even as purportedly “prime” beats such as foreign policy, military, politics are male bastions
The gender skew in health reportage also hurts coverage of health issues. Several studies have found that journalists tend to quote men in medicine and allied professions more frequently in their articles, leading to a one-dimensional view of public health.
Lack of training
A poor understanding of medicine and science among journalists has contributed to public confusion during the coronavirus pandemic. Reportage in the time period revealed the lack of trained health journalists in the country.
Reporting on public health requires a set of skills that differ from those that journalists on other beats usually have. It requires a basic familiarity with research, science and clinical medicine and being able to look at the beat in a broader policy context. Yet, there is barely any training that news organisations or journalism programmes in the country provide for health reporters. Journalism institutes do not provide specialised training in the field.
The Covid-19 pandemic calls for a re-evaluation of the importance of specialist reporters in the news industry. A beat as important as public health needs long-term investment and specialised reporters who explain, investigate and question. To sustain and enhance the coverage of developments in health, what is needed is resources, networks, training and fellowships. The response to the pandemic should be improvements in health journalism and perhaps, a different kind of journalism.
6) Journalists In Covid-19
While thousands of employees work from home during the pandemic, many journalists have no other choice but to head into their studios, newsrooms or out to the field.
“I have not stopped since lockdown. A journalist’s job is of course to cover what makes the headlines, and to do so, you have to be on duty,” explains Leslie Rijmenams, a presenter at French-speaking Belgian radio station Nostalgie.
Reuters Chief photographer for the Benelux, Yves Herman, covered the pandemic almost daily for several months, reporting from hospitals, retirement homes, funeral services and morgues while wearing full protective gear.
“Despite the risks, I felt it was a really important subject to cover. To my knowledge, it is one of the only stories in the world, except perhaps the Second World War, which affects absolutely everyone,” he tells UNRIC.
7) Sites To Disseminate Covid-19 Related Information
Sites reporting on Covid-19
It is a government portal of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare that reports on the total active cases, discharged, deaths and vaccination count.
This is a portal specifically reporting on vaccination coverage in India. It reports the same data in three different ways, i.e. age wise- vaccination data, vaccination effectiveness on mortality and vaccination coverage.
3) covid19india.org
This was a site which stopped its reporting on 31st October 2021 after reporting daily for 18 months from January 2020 to October 2021. It presented the data in a bifurcation manner reporting the number of cases reported, active cases, deaths, vaccination rate and testing data separately for every district in the state.
8) Examples Of Covid-19 Reports In India
India becomes first country in the world to report over 4 lakh new cases on April 30, 2021
With 4,08,323 new COVID-19 cases recorded until 11 p.m. on April 30, India became the first country in the world to register over 4 lakh infections in a single day. As many as 3,464 new deaths were also reported on the day.
Maharashtra reported 62,919 infections, followed by Karnataka (48,296), and Kerala (37,199). Maharashtra also recorded 828 casualties, followed by Delhi (375) and Uttar Pradesh (332). The country has so far reported a total of 1,91,63,488 cases and 2,11,778 deaths.
Around 22.24 lakh vaccination shots were given in the 24 hours ending 7 a.m. on April 30, which is only 31,267 doses more than what was recorded in the previous 24 hours. The daily vaccination rate has decreased significantly in the second half of April compared to the first. Between April 1 and 14, India administered 35.26 lakh doses on an average every day. However, between April 15-29, the average daily doses given fell to just 25.16 lakh. Cumulatively, 15,00,20,648 vaccine doses had been administered until 7 a.m. on April 30.
India continues to register the highest number of average daily cases in the world, according to Our World in Data. Until April 28, the country recorded 3.49 lakh daily cases. With 52,679 average daily cases, the U.S. was a distant second. Three other countries in the list included France (27,250), Germany (20,788) and Canada (7,980).
References-
Compiled and Edited by
ANUSHA MALHOTRA
Batch of 2024
B.A. (Hons.) Journalism
Lady Shri Ram College for Women, New Delhi
No comments:
Post a Comment