The Ebola Virus, West Africa
Della and Aaron were ecstatic! They had both been chosen for Boston University’s Crisis Response Reporting program and a rumor had been circulating that of the eight students working in the Global Student Newsroom, two were being sent to Sierra Leone to report on the Ebola outbreak. It was so high profile, that the assignment could be a career maker.
The university’s goal in pairing students from the School of Communications with students from the School of Public Health was to strengthen relationships and promote greater collaboration between public health professionals and journalists. The two groups could not see eye to eye because the public health people could never depend on the journalists to get the facts right. They were more interested in humanizing the story, and trying to sensationalize the findings, rather than deal with dull statistics and study results. It had gotten to the point that public health officials would not even talk to journalists anymore.
“Della, if we get chosen, what we need to do is concentrate on one family’s story, really get to the heart of it. Find out how the first family member became exposed, then follow right through to the orphaned children. We need to really pull on the heartstrings, show how devastating this would be if it ever got into the US.”
“Aaron, this is specifically not what the University wants us to do, dramatize and sensationalize. Our goal is to simplify the story without distorting and confusing the real issues. We want to earn the trust of public health officials, so that we are sure to report actual statistical study results. We are not writing a script for a “Pandemic” movie. This is real life. We don’t need to create panic and make pariahs out of victims.”
Stay tuned for more prequels from the Lion’s Den coming soon!
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