Good news in the news about COVID
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The recent resurgence of COVID has a depressing familiarity: cases, hospitalizations, and deaths are rising; a new vaccine is being rolled out, to some confusion; anti-vax and other conspiratorial voices are getting louder, doing their best to turn the rebound of the virus into a right-wing talking point.
But, lucky for all of us, the media response this time seems better—avoiding disinformation, saying honestly what we know and what we don’t, and sidelining the fabulists rather than centering them in the national conversation.
That is not only the right way to cover this COVID moment, but a model for how the press should think about other sprawling, interconnected stories, such as climate change: connect the dots, don’t turn your stories over to fringe conspiracists, and bring all the talents of the newsroom into telling the story in innovative ways.
This week, for instance, the Times treated the rise of COVID skepticism not as part of its central coverage but as a separate story, worthy of note but rightly on the sidelines.
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