Journalism in the Age of Pandemics: Newsroom Guide

"In the face of bewildering developments such as the pandemic, made worse by the viral spread of fake news, our communities will increasingly look to us for help in making sense of their world." - Warren Fernandez, Editor In Chief, Straits Times President, World Editors Forum

This newsroom guide is designed to help journalists, editors, and newsrooms improve their skills in reporting on the COVID-19 pandemic and other future health crises. It covers newsgathering, storytelling, innovation, and issues to consider in preparation for the future. Produced with support from the Temasek Foundation, the guide includes steps and tips to improve health reporting, which are accompanied by voices from experts in the fields of reporting, storytelling, and science.

As explained in the guide: "Our newsrooms have been challenged like never before in 2020 with a complex, fast-moving story of a global crisis demanding all our focus and journalistic skill. COVID-19 struck at a time when science reporting skills, and indeed general newsroom capacity, had been eroded in many newsrooms by resource constraints. The economic fallout risks further weakening newsrooms, but the pandemic has shown the need for, and value of good journalism, not least by authoritative science correspondents."

The handbook is a distillation of expert views and advice, drawn from the Science in the Newsroom project, which works to upskill newsrooms and boost journalism focused on addressing major science-related challenges facing the world today. It was initiated in 2018 by the World Editors Forum, the global network for editors within the World Association of News Publishers (WAN-IFRA), in response to the need for improved engagement around issues of health, science, and climate change, both within newsrooms and within the communities they serve.

The book contains the following sections:

1. Newsgathering - offers guidelines on how to read science papers, how to deal with science sources, and how to fact-check and verify health-related claims and content.
2. Storytelling - includes seven building blocks of storytelling, tips for writing complicated science stories that everyone understands, guidance on how to use data in stories, and an explanation of what solutions journalism is and how to develop solutions stories.
3. Innovation - discusses collaboration between journalists, including case studies (Zero Canada Project and Australian Academy of Science), and visual storytelling as innovations in science journalism.
4. Preparing for the Future - looks at how journalists can prepare for further crises through: technology, evolutions in the way newsrooms work, a focus on newsroom mental health, and a shift in coverage of topics that are reported on.
5. Takeaways - features a list of key points that emerge out of the guide.

Representatives from the news media, academia, and international science and health agencies came together in November 2020 for the Science in the Newsroom Global Summit 2020, organised by the World Editors Forum. The discussions covered much of what is covered in this handbook, including best practices of news coverage on health crises, smart collaborations between news organisations and scientists, and methods for newsrooms to build their science and health journalism expertise. Click here to access the video recordings of these discussions.