COVID-19 conspiracy theory journalism is ethically fraught but ethically necessary.
Journalism holds, and has historically held, a massive weight in its ability to influence the public. In his article for The Conversation, Dennis Muller asserts the responsibility to convey factual information in a way that is sufficiently informative. Centred on the COVID-19 pandemic, Muller alludes to the way in which the Chinese government failed to do utilise journalism to do so – minimising the seriousness of the virus to the public in order to prevent anxiety and thus denying information that they were entitled to have. It is the role of journalists to, among other things, prioritise helpful and important news values over ones that will produce entertainment and attract fleeting popularity. Muller asserts the importance for journalists to keep their language low in rhetoric. He highlights the detrimentally of more outwardly innocent entertainment based stories, such as those covering toilet paper shortages, along with straight-up “beat-ups” which present stories that do little but cause outrage. Both these types of stories cause anxiety, but one may argue that those presenting purely the facts do too. However, without the justification of providing necessary and entitled public information, the former two do little to benefit the public in a time of such uncertainty.
In his story, Muller recalls a time where was a conspiratorial accusation was made against the Chinese government on live television. The comment made by Bronwyn Bishop on Sky News suggested an agenda behind the virus that included both intending to kill the weak, and be exported to the United States with the intention to infect its citizens.
Journalists cannot control the way each individual will react to a piece of information. Their extent of responsibility ends at a certain point, and they are not to blame for the actions of panicked responses to stories. This being said, mass individual response to something as global and fatal as the COVID-19 pandemic is highly dependent on the way in which journalists tread the fine-line between sharing necessary facts and causing anxiety.
Source: Muller, D. (2020), Coronavirus is a huge story, so journalists must apply the highest standards in reporting it. The Conversation, 12 March
