Media and Journalism track

Media outlets and journalists are charting new territory when it comes to reporting during the COVID-19 infodemic. Participants in this track will dissect how COVID-19 and other health misinformation is experienced and countered through mass media and fact-checking organizations at both the global and local level. Participants will discuss the challenges and lessons learned since the beginning of the pandemic. Dialogue will identify how the infodemic is changing the future landscape of journalism and media. At the conclusion of the conference, media and journalism stakeholders will identify solutions and tools to prepare for the next infodemic while committing to actions that can effectively prevent infodemic ‘outbreaks’ in the media.

Track Participants

Track participants will include representatives from a number of local, regional and international media organizations. The list below provides a snapshot of organisations committed to managing infodemic outbreaks in news and media.

BBC Media Action
Internews
UNESCO
Magarat in Lebanon
BBC/BBC Media Action
Debunk Media
People’s Archive of Rural India
Science magazine
El Tiempo

Track Objectives

In two, two-hour main sessions featuring a plenary, moderated Q&A and breakout sessions, track participants will identify lessons learned since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in the field of media and journalism. They’ll use their shared knowledge to determine how to address sector-specific action areas outlined in the infodemic management framework, which was born out of the 1^st infodemic conference, and they will commit to taking concrete action.

Outputs

Participants in this track will create a video reel to capture their commitments and elaborate further on the roadmap for the future.

Available sessions

23 November 2020 – Into the Future: Getting Science Right for Future Health Crises

The Science in the Newsroom Global Summit 2020 contributed to our media dialogue with a session about how scientists are forecasting future pandemics and public health emergencies as the climate warms and diseases spread more frequently from animal to human. Media is an important player in any response and needs to prepare now to avoid worse crises and manage infodemics.

Watch the recording here.

Into the Future - Science in the Newsroom Global Summit 1

24 November 2020 – Countering Misinformation: How you can Make a Difference
The Science in the Newsroom Global Summit 2020 contributed to another dialogue on this track about the media’s role in providing accurate, evidenced-based information around COVID-19, and how newsrooms need to skill up to ensure their coverage is accurate and valuable for the citizens they serve.