Ken Kurson has served in the media industry for decades. His experience has included the opportunity to serve as a contributing editor at Esquire magazine. It has also included a years-long opportunity as the editor in chief of Observer, which included overseeing The New York Observer and Commercial Observer. Kurson has also had the unique opportunity of spending a considerable part of his career working in politics, at the crossroads of the worlds of media and politics. This has provided him with a unique perspective from which to view the ways in which the media has been covering health and wellness, and more specifically, the ways in which the media has been covering the Coronavirus health pandemic.
Many media observers similar to Ken Kurson agree that it is during pandemics of this scope and magnitude that the role of a journalist is especially needed and of course, valued. Indeed, it is so important and vital to public health that accurate information be transmitted and broadcast to members of the public during these challenging and perilous times.
So what are the ways in which the media can ensure that this process runs as efficiently and seamlessly as possible? Certainly the facts of the intensity of the disease and the potentially fatal consequences of not complying with the social distancing guidelines and other protocols that have been put into place by federal, state and local governments are apparent.
There’s no doubt that the media’s role in ensuring the public has access to real and accurate information about the dangers this virus causes, is real and of great public importance. The public interest certainly outweighs any other considerations that might exist in the process of reporting this information. To put it bluntly, reporting on this important and substantive information can and will continue to save lives.
Indeed there are few scenarios or news events that I can think of, thats reporting on could possibly have a greater effect and value than reporting accurate information about the nature of the pandemic; the devastation it has wrought; and medically responsible advice about how to mitigate the risk one might have in exposing themselves to the virus. Indeed, there has been some outstanding reporting in both print and broadcast outlets on the part of medical analysts that have been featured.
These medical and science analysts have and continue to play an important role in ensuring the risks associated with being exposed to the Coronavirus are made known. The media for the most part has also done a good job of broadcasting these risks in a way that ensures that as maximum an audience as possible is keenly aware of the associated risks with the Coronavirus. This of course is of great import and of great value to viewers, readers and the like. There is an extraordinary public interest in ensuring that information that is accurate concerning the risks associated with contracting the virus are real and substantial. These elements should therefore outweigh the equity of any other interests or costs that might exist.
Ken Kurson has an understanding of this situation that is worthy of sharing in the form of commentary and through other means. The media’s role in reporting the news couldn’t be any more important and of vital interest to the public during the Coronavirus health pandemic.