The Epidemic of Misinformation

Last week, this country received a grim wakeup call when the CDC updated its mask guidelines, removing the illusion that Covid-19 had lifted its scourge from this country. And this disillusionment also showed that the fight against coronavirus has morphed more into a battle against misinformation rather than against a mere virus. And fighting that misinformation requires addressing the decline of local media.

Chief among the changes the CDC made last week was the recommendation for fully vaccinated people to begin wearing masks in areas that the CDC has deemed to have “substantial or high transmission.”

This comes as a response to the Delta variant spreading across the United States, a strain which is reported to be more contagious and more deadly than all other versions of the virus. Described by World Health Organization Executive Director, Mike Ryan, as “the fastest and fittest coronavirus strain yet.” The Delta variant has spread like wildfire across the country, now accounting for 83% of analyzed Covid-19 cases in the United States, up from the 50% estimated weeks ago.

Despite the new recommendations regarding people that are fully vaccinated, and despite some risk of transmission to those vaccinated, the Delta variant doesn’t pose much danger to those that are vaccinated. Director of the CDC, Dr. Rochaelle Walensky, stated during a press briefing that “preliminary data from several states over the last few months suggest that 99.5% of deaths from Covid-19 in the United States were unvaccinated people.”

With the prospects of achieving herd immunity a far-off dream at this point, the new CDC guidelines are meant to protect those unable to receive vaccines for medical reasons and, strangely, those who choose not to receive the vaccine despite being medically fit to do so.

Unlike in many other countries, vaccines are readily available in America to whomever wants to them, meaning our lower than expected vaccination rates are a product of people choosing not to take the vaccine, rather than because people are unable to. The fight against coronavirus has morphed more into a battle against misinformation rather than against a mere virus. Obtaining the resources needed to fight a virus is a straightforward endeavor, but needing to change minds in order to do so is a trickier beast. A reinvention of distributing public health information is going to be needed.

In an opinion penned in The Hill, William A. Hastline, known for his groundbreaking work against the HIV/AIDS epidemic, stressed the importance of grassroots approaches to combating vaccine hesitancy. He writes,

“No outreach program or vaccine incentive will ever be large enough to overcome that central barrier [of vaccine hesitancy] without concrete data and information about the real dangers that exist to each of us... But local information tailored to each of us in our own communities can and would… In absence of clear data, local newspapers and media outlets have tried to deliver in the government’s stead. But while an outlet like the New York Times may have the resources to do it well, a small town or community often does not.”

Hastline recognizes the importance of community-level approaches to combating this new wave of Covid-19, and the failure to connect with those communities playing a large part in vaccine hesitancy. And while he is spot on in identifying the weakness of our community outreach, he fails to take into account the effect of decades of local news deterioration - a pandemic in itself that has been spreading unbeknownst to many of us for years.

The spread of news deserts has been known and documented by those who follow it for many years, but hasn’t yet trickled down to the general population. A Pew study in 2019 found that 71% of people believed their local news was going well financially with only 14% giving money to them in the past year. Their beliefs couldn’t be further from the truth.

Even before the pandemic came and decimated businesses around the country, local newspapers were on their last legs. During the 15 years that preceded Covid-19, more than one-fourth of all newspapers in the country had closed down and many of the surviving newspapers were left as ghosts of their former selves. Between 2008 and 2019, employment at newspapers was cut by more than half. The national weekday circulation dropped from more than 55 million in 2000 to around 24 million in 2020, a reduction of more than fifty percent.

Defined by the University of North Carolina’s Hussman School of Journalism and Media, who have been tracking the decline of local news since 2016, a “news desert” is a “community, either rural or urban, with limited access to the sort of credible and comprehensive news and information that feeds democracy at the grassroots level.”

The arrival of Covid-19 and the ensuing pandemic accelerated the decline of local news. As the pandemic swept the nation, around 37,000 workers were laid off in the industry while many outlets hanging on by a thread were forced to shut down. At the same time, visits to local news sites were up by 89%. The virus dismantled an industry essential to its defeat.

The world becomes a more dangerous place when there are dark spots in reporting. National media outlets don’t report on small communities, but it’s essential for somebody to do so. Local news outlets are a vital pillar of community outreach and raising public awareness. Beyond outbreaks of the virus, crime, events, and other general happenstance are things that, if not reported on by a trusted outlet, are spread through fickle word of mouth. And when that information is related to crucial vaccine and virus transmission information, the processes by which information is disseminated to the population become complete anarchy, allowing misinformation and conspiracy to become prevalent.

This reliance on word of mouth for their immediate news is also coupled with a general sense of mistrust toward the media. In 2021, the percentage of Americans who trust traditional media plummeted to a record 46%. People just don’t trust the mainstream media anymore.

No matter what side of the aisle a person may fall on, they likely have qualms with the way reporting is done in this country. For people that don’t have the time or energy to vigorously ensure their media is accurate, many of them opt to abstain from trusting large outlets altogether. The distance the average person is from national media means that the figures in media are easier to mistrust, especially compared to someone that might live only a couple of streets away.

Haseltine understands this dilemma when he asks later in his article, “Whom do you trust more knocking on your door — a nameless stranger with a pamphlet or your doctor or church leader or local community leader?”

Local news, however, is free of many of the negative associations that hang on mainstream media outlets. A Knight Foundation report found that local news was perceived to be more trustworthy, more unbiased, more caring, and more accurate. What national media has failed to provide in terms of Covid-19 information might be better dispatched by local news.

This recent epidemic of skepticism is a consequence of our neglect toward the state of local news in this country. The chickens have come home to roost, so to say.

There is hope, however. The alarming 71% of Americans that believed their local news outlets were doing well might mean that our neglect towards local news might be a consequence of ignorance rather than apathy.

It’s important that the crisis of local news is made known to the general public. The University of North Carolina Hussman School of Journalism has constructed interactive maps to better visualise the spread. They’ve also constructed an exercise that can be completed to assess the health of a community’s local news in order to help consumers make informed decisions about the need to support local news in their communities. UNC is one of the loudest and most persuasive voices championing a revival of local news and amplifying their voice is one of the best ways to raise awareness for local news.

Another great resource for information regarding local news is the Knight Foundation. Besides aiding local news monetarily and developing strategies for combating news deserts, they have a page dedicated to amplifying lesser known organizations that support local news concurrent to themselves. Donating to these organizations is a great way to help local news from an area blessed with a healthy local news environment.

If people begin understanding how important local news is for the health of this country - not just in terms of individuals, but as a whole - people might start readily supporting their local news outlet. No matter how difficult, decades of decline can be reversed very quickly. All it takes is for people to take notice.