In times of coronavirus, it is incredibly easy for the wrong information to go viral. As the COVID-19 pandemic is rapidly evolving, breaking news on time, accurately and with the latest data has become a major challenge for news publications and reporters from around the world.
Consulting the right organisations and experts is vital, especially when covering health. At the moment, there are governments, academic institutions, toolkits and engines that have proven helpful when reporting on this new virus.
The Interhacktives team compiled a series of examples on how publications are finding credible sources to write accurate stories about coronavirus:
Governments and multilateral organisations
Having a database with official sources, government departments and international agencies are crucial when reporting on the countries affected by coronavirus, especially when rumours about the number of fatalities are causing distress to citizens. Luckily, most governments provide official and up to date information on the pandemic.
In The Korean clusters: How coronavirus exploded in South Korean churches and hospitals, Reuters uses information published by the Korean Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) to elaborate a data story on how patient 31 spread the disease in the city of Daegu.
The Guardian has also taken a closer look at the statistics on the pandemic in China in an attempt to answer the question of how many people could die of coronavirus in the UK. The newspaper’s data team analysed the data provided by the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention and built graphics that show clearly how kids and teenagers are less affected by the virus, as well as the fatality rates amongst patients with chronic conditions.
In How epidemic like covid-19 end (and how to end them faster), Washington Post’s third most-read story today, the authors compare the coronavirus spread with previous pandemics, incorporating data from the World Health Organization, the US National Center for Biotechnology Information, the American Journal of Epidemiology, and more.
Universities and academic papers
Information on the new COVID-19 is still very limited, but scientists and researchers from around the world are not only dedicating time to finding a cure, but also to surveilling and studying the virus. Bulletins, academic articles and papers have proven to be useful to news organisations when reporting on the pandemic.
One of the most relevant examples is the John Hopkins University’s Coronavirus Resource Center, which does live tracking on the number of infections, fatalities, and recoveries per country.
The information provided by the university has been used widely across newsrooms. The New York Times set up an interactive page with worldwide updates on coronavirus cases and fatalities based on information issued by local governments, the Coronavirus Resource Center and the World Health Organization. The official counts show that more 212,500 people have been infected and 8,845 have died in at least 147 countries.
Another great example of how news outlets are building bridges between academicians and audiences is the one performed by Spanish publisher Eldiario.es. The outlet has used a predictive model developed by mathematicians from two local universities to explain the risk of contagion in Spain.
Crowdsourcing
The practise of crowdsourcing has been implemented for quite some time. But in the middle of the coronavirus outbreak big publishers, such as The Guardian and ProPublica, are launching online forms on their platforms in an attempt to reach out to healthcare workers and write stories about their experiences in containing the pandemic.
“Are you a public health worker or front line medical provider? Do you work for or with a government agency involved in the effort to protect the public? Have you or your family personally been affected? Show us what we should be covering”, says ProPublica’s post on its website.
To reach out to doctors, nurses and healthcare workers, The Guardian took a step further and even included a phone number in its online form to chat more directly with sources via Whatsapp.
Social media
Social platforms have played a key role in reporting on COVID-19 and its effects. The hashtag #journorequests has flooded Twitter with messages of journalists trying to reach out to sources, wherever they might be self-isolating at.
Twitter has also proven to be one of the most efficient mediums to monitor people’s thoughts on the pandemic and official sources statements, such as the daily reports issued by the Department of Health and Social Care.
For more information, read: Top seven Twitter accounts to follow for coronavirus updates