Dangers Journalists Face In Covering COVID-19

Oladimeji Daniels

It is not surprising that the world has been mainly focused on the health workers at the forefront of fighting the deadliest enemy the world has collectively faced in recent times.

The world probably seems not to be paying attention to journalists who are also on the go every day, bringing latest developments about the virus to people’s homes and internet devices from all sorts of places, including isolation centres, hospitals and people’s homes at an unimaginable risk to their own wellbeing.

Without journalists, the world would not know how covid-19 birthed in China and from there was exported to almost every corner of the world, bringing economies and the social structure to a halt.

And because journalists cannot cover from indoor, they have to be on the field, interacting with health workers, officials of governments and sometimes with infected people, they are exposed a great deal and can themselves contract the corona virus if they are not well-informed and equipped on how to protect themselves.

The likelihood of this has already been attested to in Pakistan where 3 journalists became infected covering the outbreak of the virus.

One of them was a producer who could have contracted it from a field journalist at the station as further tests revealed that 62 of the one hundred staff later tested were positive, as confirmed by Mian Tahir, Director of News of Channel 24, the affected outfit.

Journalists on the field must wear hand gloves and face masks, since they may not have access to soap and water on the field for regular handwashing. Should they visit hospitals or isolation centres, they should endeavor to wear body suit as well.

If visiting a medical facility, market or places where there is likelihood of infection, journalists should not drop their equipment on the floor and if they do, they should quickly decontaminate such equipment.

As the global economy is hit hard, the media industry is not left out, and with the possibility of some journalists losing their jobs should the economic contraction bites harder, journalists face a lot stress in their personal lives and the need to balance this with their responsibility to the public. This, coupled with the stress of having to continuously cover developments and emerging changes about covid-19, has put many journalists under a lot of mental stress. Unfortunately, in this part of the world, many employers either do not know or care about that.

At this time, journalists must ensure they sleep well, in spite of their need to constantly be up to date with the latest developments so as not to miss any story.

Journalists should comfort themselves by the fact that the importance of the job they do far outweighs whatever stress the repetitive nature this kind of ongoing coverage may put on their lives.

Above all, government should not only consider life insurance for health workers alone; journalists daily battle their fair share of risks covering covid-19, hence the need for government and other well-meaning individuals to support them to do a better job.

The security agents enforcing the lockdown order should also be enlightened enough to make the job of journalists easier at this time. This is not a time to brutalize or dehumanize journalists, who are as well at the forefront of battling the corona virus.