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Dear Media, Some Breaking News from Your Anxious Audience…
We need informed, not inflamed, news in a time of global fear. The old rules of reporting don’t serve us now. This is a pivotal moment to reimagine the role of the press in a new world of threat and uncertainty where ‘back to normal’ is no longer an option.
By Lu Hanessian, MSc
It’s hard to fathom where we are. A virulent pathogen has invaded all fifty states, and hundreds of millions of Americans are living in a social and economic recession for collective survival. For the nation’s psyche, it’s an open-ended experiment in coping with uncertainty and fear on a scale we’ve never experienced before. And when we most need connection for comfort, we must physically retreat from each other for safety.
We have no roadmap. We have models. Medical experts warn us to steel for a staggering loss of life in the coming weeks and months, potentially more than the Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam and South Korean wars combined.
Nobody knows what lies ahead, or when and how we will re-animate our lives, but it’s dawning on us now that there’s no getting ‘back to normal’.
The world has changed.
And, your audience has changed, too.
We’re not the same viewers as we were before city streets became deserted, schools…