Investigative journalist Ani Mejlumyan recalls the onset of COVID-19. The day after Armenia declared a state of emergency in mid-March, the government censored the media to prevent them from reporting on the pandemic. Restaurants, meanwhile, remained open for ten more days.
As COVID-19 spread across Europe, countries like France, Italy, Spain and the U.K. faced high rates of cases, hospitalizations and deaths due to the virus. Germany, meanwhile, eluded similar levels of transmission and suffering among its citizens.
As the world focuses on combating the novel coronavirus, some governments are making it even more difficult for journalists to write about the impact of the global pandemic. In Romania, where the government severely limited access to public information, two investigative journalists went undercover to track the country’s supply of dysfunctional masks. The two journalists, Ana Poenariu and Andrei Ciurcanu, spoke with ICFJ Director of Community Engagement Stella Roque to explain how they went undercover to carry out their reporting.
As the public remains focused on the global health crisis, pandemic profiteers are expanding their reach by whatever means necessary, journalists investigating crime and corruption across the globe said in an ICFJ webinar.
The COVID-19 pandemic had a major impact on the last school year for many students around the world. Now, experts are looking ahead to how ongoing outbreaks will affect education in both the near and distant future.
Haitian journalist Milo Milfort's mantra is to never accept authorities' words as the undeniable truth before questioning them. He is an active participant in the Global Health Crisis Reporting Forum, a project of the International Journalists’ Network and their parent organization, International Center for Journalists. He is the author of an article about the impact of the pandemic and mask wearing on Haiti's deaf population, which was chosen as one of the Forum’s top stories in its monthly story contest.
The chief of Taiwan’s Centers for Disease Control credited the centralized response to contagious diseases that the island democracy developed in the wake of the 2003 SARS outbreak with containing the spread of the novel coronavirus this year to fewer than 500 people in its population of nearly 24 million.
In Latin America, where the global pandemic has brought mass layoffs to newsrooms just when trustworthy information about the COVID-19 pandemic is crucial, the region’s only news site devoted exclusively to health reporting is providing unparalleled coverage of the health crisis.
To fight false information about potential COVID-19 vaccines, newsrooms must place collaboration ahead of competition, fact-checking experts said during a panel discussion this week produced by ICFJ and the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN).
Reporters covering scientific topics such as the COVID-19 pandemic sometimes struggle to find the right sources. Meanwhile, many of the scientists sharing valuable insights on social media lack a wide audience. A new digital tool developed in Brazil aims to bring these two groups together.
