Former CDC disease detective: “Newsrooms have not really been supporting scientist journalists adequately”
Dr. Seema Yasmin: “Misinformation, ... disinformation, pseudo-science, the anti-vaxx movements, really threaten democracies”
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From the March 1, 2020, edition of CNN's Reliable Sources
BRIAN STELTER (HOST): Are we living up to the task of trying to inform people about what's going on?
DR. SEEMA YASMIN (STANFORD HEALTH COMMUNICATIONS INITIATIVE AND FORMER CDC DISEASE DETECTIVE): Well, Brian, the science and health journalists of the world really have their work cut out. And unfortunately, newsrooms have not really been supporting scientist journalists adequately and there’s been such a pullback on just the workforce in terms of journalists in general. And in times like this, and unfortunately, we’re going to see so many more epidemics that are bigger and badder, more frequent, more urban, really show us how important the work of science and health journalists is in helping the public parse through all this information that’s being shoved at us every day and just trying to understand what’s real, what’s not, and what we need to do.
And I think it's great that we're highlighting some of the work of the World Health Organization, but it needs to be called out that WHO has been depressingly slow to the table in terms of addressing misinfodemics. It's great that they're using the term now, but they've been so slow in addressing the fact that misinformation, the spread of disinformation, pseudo-science, the anti-vaxx movements, really threaten democracies and threaten the public health efforts to stop contagion and it's only now we're starting to see WHO step up to that. And we need journalists to keep holding this agency, the planet's health agency, and other officials as well to account to make sure they're doing all they need to do to stop the spread.