No matter the day or the time, news about COVID-19 has taken over our daily lives. We are constantly receiving updates about this virus that has brought the world to a standstill. Data traffic has increased significantly, news programs are drawing larger audiences, and many newspapers have made their COVID-19 coverage freely available.
We are facing a major global crisis, and Uruguay is no exception. We want to know everything instantly, to be the first to hear the latest news. Social distancing, on the other hand, encourages and facilitates the constant consumption of information.
What does all this entail? How can we stay properly informed? What role do the media play, and what is the role of social media? How can we distinguish quality information from fake news? In this unique context, Ana Laura Pérez, Digital Product Manager at El País and Academic Coordinator of Journalism and Digital Content at ORT, answered the following questions:
What role do you think the media is playing in relation to the COVID-19 situation in our country? What challenges is it facing?
I believe that the role played by the press in Uruguay, as elsewhere, is crucial in a situation like this. The press and journalism in general—which is more than just the press—have a duty to inform, and at a time like this, that duty is even greater. What do I mean by this? Journalism must move away from the typical obsession of journalists—which is to be the first to report—and replace it with an obsession to report better, with quality, fact-checked information. It’s better to wait than to be the first to break the story. At a time like this, it’s crucial to provide information with context and depth, to explain, to move beyond the immediate and contextualize, and to delve deeper into concepts.
Journalism must also strive to reach as many people as possible, so it needs to consider formats and storytelling approaches that maximize the audience capable of absorbing the information it provides. It’s important to synthesize, simplify, move away from difficult terminology and the jargon used by experts, and act as a buffer that helps people understand the language of experts, who are sometimes not prepared to speak in a way that’s easy to understand. As for the challenges we face, they relate to what I’ve been saying: we need to move away from that “hit first” mentality.
Furthermore, we must address the challenge that health journalism is often overlooked and undervalued in Uruguayan newsrooms. It’s a field with a very steep learning curve, requiring journalists to spend considerable time covering the subject to grasp the concepts and fully understand certain phenomena. Epidemiological phenomena are particularly complex because they combine two things that are very difficult for Uruguayans in general—and for Uruguayan journalists as well—namely science and mathematics, right? Understanding these phenomena from a numerical perspective.
What do you think is the role of social media amid this health crisis?
To begin with, talking about social media is quite complex because—what exactly is social media? By asking me this, you’re asking me what role social media plays as a platform, what role it plays as a business, what role it plays for the people who participate in it, and what role they play as citizens or as users of a platform with the level of impact that social media has—and what role the media or people play on social media.
So, it’s quite complex. If the question is about the role of social media platforms as businesses, I think I expect a lot more from them than what they’ve been doing so far: posting a link, as Facebook does, to government websites where quality information is available is the bare minimum—or even falls short of that.
Honestly, given the sheer volume of data they handle, the level of access to our private lives they’ve gained, and the money they have to invest in technology and skilled personnel, they really should be playing a much more active role in helping to develop solutions that can at least somewhat slow the spread of the pandemic.
As for people, I don’t expect much: people are a collective. The famous “public opinion” is a group of people. Some do very good things: there are doctors, journalists, scientists, and data analysts doing great work on social media and using those platforms to bring quality information to people, and there are plenty of people doing horrible things—some with bad intentions and others without realizing it. Those people are spreading messages that aren’t fact-checked and aren’t of high quality.
What “problems” or challenges does information overload pose in this context?
First of all, it depends on what kind of information overload we’re talking about. If we’re talking about information overload involving quality information, that’s one thing; but if we’re talking about the same phenomenon involving information that isn’t even information—but rather rumors, speculations, opinions, predictions, or delusions—that’s something else entirely.
When we’re talking about overwhelming amounts of high-quality information, on the one hand it’s a good thing, but on the other hand it can lead to negative consequences. There’s a very interesting study, published a few days ago in the journal *Science*, on the consequences of quarantine, and part of the issue is this: information overload can lead to severe anxiety, hypochondria, distress, fear of the future, and so on—even when the information is high-quality.
When it comes to rumors, the problem grows exponentially. What’s more, decisions are made, opinions are formed, and ideas about how the world works are built on foundations that are flawed.
How do you think people can distinguish between reliable information about COVID-19 and false or unverified information?
I think the easiest thing to do is turn to trusted media outlets. This isn’t new; it’s a relationship. People build relationships of trust with the media and journalists over the course of their lives. Most of us have specific media outlets that we follow, that we trust, and that we’ve come to believe provide quality information over time. I think the best thing is to stick with those sources and not fall for conspiracy theories suggesting that the media isn’t providing the information I receive via WhatsApp because, in reality, COVID-19 is a conspiracy by three governments to destroy the third, or whatever.
The truth is that Uruguay has a huge range of media outlets across the ideological spectrum, in terms of ideology, thought, and economic structure. So, honestly, to think that none of the media outlets are reporting on a particular issue because they’re all in on some conspiracy together would strike me as a bit “conspiracy-theory-ish.”
So, the best thing to do is to continue consuming the media sources you trust. Ideally, you should consume as much media as possible and construct your own reality based on that broad spectrum we mentioned, because reality isn’t found in just one of them, but in the collective perspectives on a phenomenon. Perhaps that’s the best approach. I understand that some people may not have the time, but that would be the best course of action.
What do you think is the “right amount” of information we should consume to stay properly informed about the spread of COVID-19, without causing undue concern?
I think that, as with many other things during a time like this, the best thing is to stick to routines. Just as we set up routines for exercising or working from home—so that work doesn’t take over the rest of our time—and just as we have routines for leisure, spending time with family, and so on. We should establish a routine for consuming information and try to avoid the addiction that comes from having our phones in our hands all the time and constantly trying to find something else. It seems to me that in that case, it’s the phone that’s controlling the situation, not us. We’re being controlled, and we’re not consuming information responsibly. Let’s imagine what it would be like if we did the same with food, if we consumed it all the time without any discernment. When we think about it in terms of food or alcohol, we realize that the relationship we often have with our phones—and the levels of information consumption we engage in—cannot be healthy.
So, I recommend that we establish routines that include a few minutes in the morning for news consumption, about half an hour of reading the media and social media—half an hour or an hour, but no more than that, in my opinion. The same goes for the afternoon. In this regard, it helps a lot that the government is holding press conferences almost every day at roughly the same time, between 7:00 and 8:30 p.m. We can wait for that press conference, watch it, follow it online on the media outlets’ websites that are broadcasting it, or read about what happened in an article.
Another thing that’s really helpful—and that media outlets in other parts of the world and in Uruguay are doing (El País and La Diaria, for example)—is offering the option to subscribe to a newsletter dedicated to this topic, so we can have all the information in one place in our inbox and read it first thing in the morning.
With students in the Communication degree program in mind (and especially those studying journalism), do you think this is an opportunity to learn how to communicate effectively?
Of course. We were talking about this with some teachers the other day. There’s something wonderful about crises: they present you with all kinds of extreme examples and pose highly complex scenarios. Normally, in real life, it takes years for so many extreme cases to occur simultaneously and for them to be visible up close.
I think it’s a wonderful opportunity to learn and to observe what’s happening. It reminds me of when I was a journalism student at ORT and the Twin Towers were attacked—a tragic event in which many people lost their lives, but it was also a very interesting learning experience for me as a journalism student. It was invaluable in teaching me how certain situations should be handled.
This is also a time to recognize that journalists make mistakes, and that’s actually quite interesting. At a time like this, mistakes should be seen as an opportunity to learn. So it’s worth making a mistake and apologizing—I think that’s something people appreciate, and we can all learn from it.