A recent investigative report from NBC News highlighted the danger of our pursuit of false equivalency. As the Covid-19 vaccines have started to roll out across America, anti-vaxxers are increasingly getting the kind of mainstream news attention they’ve long sought from local news. Outlets reporting on the vaccine have described the anti-vaccination activists as … [Read more...] about Local news outlets should avoid false equivalency in reporting on Covid vaccine
Community news outlets should build on high voter turnout in presidential election
More than 160 million people voted in the US presidential election, more than any other election in US history. About two-thirds of eligible voters cast ballots, the most since 1900 when more than 7 in 10 eligible American voters cast ballots, according to numbers from the United States Election Project. The youngest voters, ages 18 to 29, were key to the surge in … [Read more...] about Community news outlets should build on high voter turnout in presidential election
Student journalists can help local media outlets cover the pandemic
Colleges and universities have become the new pandemic hot spots across the country. A New York Times study of more than 1,600 American colleges and universities — including every four-year public institution, every private college that competes in N.C.A.A. sports and others that identified cases — found at least 88,000 cases of Covid-19 by mid-September. For … [Read more...] about Student journalists can help local media outlets cover the pandemic
Community journalists should serve as fact-checkers on national stories
A few weeks ago a former elementary school classmate of mine shared a viral post on Facebook about how Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden was going to raise taxes for middle income families by 25 percent. I did a quick Google search and found that the post had been fact-checked already by reputable news outlets and was untrue. (For the record, my suspicion was not … [Read more...] about Community journalists should serve as fact-checkers on national stories
‘If the coronavirus is a war, Americans have picked a team’
There is a weariness about life at that moment that I haven’t felt since I was in Iraq reporting on the war. War reporters are used to risk calculations, and it’s an odd thing to get used to, but we do it because otherwise everything would feel too dangerous or nothing would. When nothing feels dangerous, it’s time to go home. That’s when reporters take risks they shouldn’t … [Read more...] about ‘If the coronavirus is a war, Americans have picked a team’