Science Alliance
The New York Academy of Sciences
eBriefing 
Reporting the Science of COVID-19
Reported by
Posted August 25, 2020
Presented By
Science journalists have a unique opportunity—and responsibility—to help educate the public about COVID-19. Reporters and writers who specialize in science can dig deep and get the facts about clinical research, epidemiology, therapeutics, and vaccine development. They also have the right skills to communicate the underlying science to readers. Find out how three accomplished writers and journalists communicate the underlying science of the coronavirus pandemic to diverse audiences.
In this eBriefing, You’ll Learn:
- How science writers and reporters use profiles, narrative techniques, and other approaches to engage their readers.
- How stories about individual nurses, doctors and patients from the inside of hospitals can shed light on larger questions about the spread of COVID-19.
- How early leads on scientific and medical developments can be found through networks of expert sources, and sometimes through social media.
- How science writers and reports combat anti-science bias and misinformation, and how they fact check early reports on research, including results distributed in preprints.
Speakers
Sheri Fink, MD, PhD
New York Times
David Quammen
Author
Amy Maxmen, PhD
Nature
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Science Journalism & COVID-19
Speakers
Sheri Fink, MD, PhD
New York Times
Sheri Fink is a correspondent at the New York Times where her in depth reporting on COVID-19 includes stories of impact on patients and healthcare workers from the inside of hospitals. Fink is a former relief worker in disaster and conflict zones, and a Pulitzer Prize recipient for medical and healthcare reporting. Her work includes articles on the West Africa Ebola crisis, and books about the healthcare consequences of Hurricane Katrina and medical professionals under siege during the genocide in Srebrenica, Bosnia-Herzegovina. Fink received a PhD in neuroscience and an MD from Stanford University before transitioning to a career in science journalism.
David Quammen
Author
David Quammen is an author and freelance journalist whose 16 books include Spillover: Animal Infections and the Next Human Pandemic and, most recently, The Tangled Tree. He writes about science, exploration, conservation, and culture for National Geographic, Harpers, Rolling Stone, The New Yorker, and other magazines. His most recent article in The New Yorker was titled, "The Warnings: Why we should have known to prepare for COVID-19." He travels widely for field research and returns to a home in Montana.
Amy Maxmen, PhD
Nature
Amy Maxmen is a senior, California-based reporter for Nature. She has reported extensively from Sierra Leone and the Democratic Republic of the Congo on frontlines of Ebola outbreaks, and from Southeast Asia on malaria. Her reporting on the coronavirus pandemic includes failures in programs to test for the disease, and how countries with less resources, including Nigeria, Peru, Kenya and El Salvador, tried aggressive measures early on avoid coronavirus disasters. Other stories include treatment with blood from coronavirus survivors, and the spread of the disease in homeless shelters. Maxmen’s work has also appeared in Wired, National Geographic, the New York Times and Newsweek. She received a PhD from Harvard in evolutionary biology.