Coverage of Ebola in West Africa

Pho­to: WHO/L. Toure

WHO plas­tic buck­ets for hand wash­ing in Guinea

There is a cliché in the news busi­ness which says, ‘if it bleeds, it leads.’ It’s a reporter’s frame of mind when deal­ing with big news sto­ries and events of the moment.

By this max­im, there is a ten­den­cy for crises, and dis­as­ter-like events to gar­ner much atten­tion to the detri­ment of every­thing else. So, we have seen how much resources, mon­ey, and per­son­nel, media orga­ni­za­tions have poured into the Ebo­la cov­er­age. To a cer­tain extent, this is good news. We need to know what is hap­pen­ing so every­one is prepared.

But there is con­cern that some of the infor­ma­tion may not be trust­wor­thy. How best to report about Ebo­la is a new chal­lenge for jour­nal­ists. In Ebo­la Cov­er­age: Inform­ing Vs. Over­hyp­ing CNN’s Reli­able Sources exam­ines the subject.

“But there is con­cern that fear and mis­in­for­ma­tion is mak­ing the cri­sis worse,” says Reli­able Sources host, Bri­an Stelter.

In the rush to report the news, well-mean­ing reporters some­times may over­sim­pli­fy or per­haps exag­ger­ate reports about things that are tak­ing place. That may be the case with reports about the cri­sis that has gripped Liberia, Guinea, Sier­ra Leone, and Nigeria.

The Entertainment Industry Can Make Things Worse

Report­ing about Ebo­la also comes with a dread factor.

Rob Stein, a reporter with Nation­al Pub­lic Radio (NPR) says, ‘The Ebo­la out­break has set off an alarm around the world. Pub­lic health lead­ers say the intense con­cern is appro­pri­ate, giv­en the unprece­dent­ed size of the out­break and the dead­li­ness of the virus.’ He adds some caveats to the report­ing by U.S. media

“But experts say the out­break has also pro­duced a lot of unfound­ed fears. Even just the word Ebo­la is kind of ter­ri­fy­ing,” he says in this August 22 report for NPR News.

Stein thinks Hol­ly­wood has a lot to do with the dread fac­tor, based on plen­ty of movies that bor­der on the sub­ject. “There are huge dif­fer­ences between those movies and what’s hap­pen­ing right now with Ebola.”

‘Now, no one is say­ing Ebo­la isn’t a dan­ger­ous virus. We need to take it very seri­ous­ly. But if peo­ple start to pan­ic, it might trig­ger so much tur­moil that it starts to take a toll of its own. It might also divert atten­tion from the ter­ri­ble human suf­fer­ing already hap­pen­ing in West Africa — and the efforts to stop it.’

In Ebo­la. A Bit of Per­spec­tive, for­mer CNN reporter Gina Lon­don thinks ‘there is a ten­den­cy for the media to over­sim­pli­fy. In spite of our 24-hour-news-cycle, there is some­how not enough time to pro­vide deep con­text or a broad­er per­spec­tive on a giv­en sto­ry. Instead, what we get are dra­mat­ic head­lines designed to cap­ti­vate view­ers – and the notion of a virus-like Ebo­la is cer­tain­ly one that lends itself to fear.’

Writ­ing on her blog, from Nige­ria, Lon­don gives a sta­tis­ti­cal break­down, by coun­try, of the report­ed cas­es by the World Health Orga­ni­za­tion (WHO).

She cau­tions, “that this ill­ness is a very seri­ous thing. As the news con­tin­ues to say, this is the dead­liest Ebo­la out­break in record­ed his­to­ry. Liberia is par­tic­u­lar­ly struggling.’