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Covering bird flu from an ecological angle
Coverage of bird flu should not be limited only to what’s happening in birds, cows and humans. Reporters can also start looking at local angles on environmental contributors to this current public health issue and to pandemics broadly. Since 2022, bird flu in the U.S. has infected not only poultry, dairy cattle, cats and wild birds,…
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Covering the ongoing bird flu story: Identifying appropriate sources
In our first post, we provided a very broad overview of the ongoing bird flu situation. This post will focus specifically on stories reporters can do on ecological health issues, including veterinary, agricultural and wildlife angles — areas that have been underreported by health journalists but are particularly important at the local level. Identifying the…
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Bird flu: Background and data overview for reporters
As with covering any outbreak or other type of ongoing, developing story, it’s helpful when writing about bird flu to provide context throughout your coverage for those who have not been following it all along. Consider including some of the news developments from the list of resources at the bottom of this post in your…
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Covering the ongoing bird flu story as it unfolds
This story is the first in a four–part series. The next article will look at the history and background of bird flu, including H5N1 and provide key resources for reporting on this topic. It was challenging enough to cover the COVID-19 pandemic in real-time as it developed, but how do you cover an almost-it-could-happen-but-we-don’t-know-yet pandemic…
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Trump’s data purge: What to know about federal infectious disease sites
Even in the rapidly evolving environment created by the new administration, it was hard to miss the news last Friday that more than 1,000 pages on the CDC website had disappeared last Friday. In the days since, some pages have been restored, in varying degrees of their former completeness. Going forward, it’s unclear how much…
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