ABSTRACT
Chapter 1 News in crisis: Responding to the pandemic: The COVID-19 pandemic had a devastating and multifaceted effect on the world’s mass media in 2020. While governments worldwide grappled with the medical and economic ramifications of the pandemic, the media was beset with its own set of ethical challenges. Many of the issues that have dogged the media in recent decades (and are covered in Chapters 3–6) were there in the darkest days of the pandemic. The economic impact saw accelerated media closures and journalists sacked, laid off temporarily or have their pay cut. Most journalists were working from home with little prospect of returning to ‘the office’ before 2021. This chapter also looks at the impact of President Donald Trump’s mishandling of the pandemic and the challenges reporting on COVID-19 posed for press freedom. It also touches on the physical dangers of covering the pandemic and its implications for reporters’ mental health. It ends with two ‘ethical lessons’ from the pandemic – a discussion of when to demand accountability from authorities and the case of the naming and shaming of three girls who were labelled ‘Enemies of the State’ by Australian media for trying to avoid quarantine on their return. The case study in this chapter poses the question: Could Bob Woodward have saved lives?
