SPRING 2020 REPORTS NIEMAN REPORTS NIEMAN REPORTS VOL. 74 NO. 2 The N�eman Foundat�on for Journal�sm TO PROMOTE AND Harvard Un�vers�ty ELEVATE THE STANDARDS One Franc�s Avenue OF JOURNALISM Cambr�dge, Massachusett s 02138 VOL. NO. 74 2 SPRING 2020 MEET COVERING THE CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC THE CORONAVIRUS COVERING YOUR NEW BEAT HOW THE CORONAVIRUS IS IMPACTING THE NIEMAN FOUNDATION AT HARVARD UNIVERSITY HARVARD AT THE NIEMAN FOUNDATION 2020 CAMPAIGN COVERAGE MEDIA TRUST IN EUROPE THE ECONOMICS OF LOCAL NEWS cover_spring2020_final SHIPPED 5-14.indd 1 5/21/20 3:25 PM Contributors The Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University www.niemanreports.org Casey Quackenbush Joan Donovan (page Brian Friedberg (page 4) is a Hong 8 and 22) is director (page 8 and 22) is the Kong/New York-based and lead researcher of senior researcher of the journalist whose the Technology and Technology and Social work can be found in Social Change Research Change Research Project Time magazine, The Project at Harvard’s at Harvard’s Shorenstein publisher New York Times, The Shorenstein Center. Center. He holds a M.A. Ann Marie Lipinski Washington Post, Al Her research focuses on in cultural production Jazeera, and Aperture. media manipulation. from Brandeis. editor James Geary senior editor Jan Gardner editorial specialist Eryn M. Carlson Gabrielle Lim (page 8 Mattia Ferraresi Andras Petho (page and 22) is a researcher, (page 12), a 2019 18), a 2020 Nieman design Dan Zedek focusing on media Nieman Fellow, is Fellow, is a co-founder misinformation, with a correspondent and editor of Direkt36, editorial offices the Technology and for Italy’s Il Foglio an investigative One Francis Avenue, Cambridge, Social Change Research newspaper. His work journalism center in MA 02138-2098, 617-496-6308, [email protected] Project at Harvard’s has appeared in U.S. Hungary. Previously, Shorenstein Center. publications including he was a senior editor Copyright 2020 by the President and She is also a fellow with The New York Times Origo, one of Hungary’s Fellows of Harvard College. Citizen Lab. and The Boston Globe. leading news sites. Periodicals postage paid at Boston, Massachusetts and additional entries subscriptions/business 617-496-6299, [email protected] Subscription $25 a year, Catherine Buni (page Jakob Moll (page 28) is Claire Wardle (page $40 for two years; 24) is a freelancer and co-founder and CEO of 34) is the executive add $10 per year for foreign airmail. Type Investigations Zetland, a membership- director of First Draft, a Single copies $7.50. Back copies are available from reporter covering online based digital newspaper nonprofit dedicated to the Nieman office. content moderation, in Denmark. He began fighting misinformation risk, and security. Her his career as a political worldwide. Previously, Please address all subscription work has appeared in reporter and feature she was a research correspondence to: The Atlantic.com, The writer for major Danish fellow at Harvard’s One Francis Avenue, Verge, and elsewhere. newspapers. Shorenstein Center. Cambridge, MA 02138-2098 and change of address information to: P.O. Box 4951, Manchester, NH 03108 ISSN Number 0028-9817 Postmaster: Send address changes to Nieman Reports P.O. Box 4951, Eryn Carlson (page Oliver Roeder (page Mary Louise Manchester, NH 03108 36) is the editorial 40), a 2020 Nieman Schumacher (page 44), Nieman Reports (USPS #430-650) specialist at Nieman Fellow, is a journalist in a 2017 Nieman Fellow, is published in March, June, Reports, where she has New York. Previously is an independent September, and December by worked since 2015. Her a senior writer at journalist and critic. the Nieman Foundation work has also appeared FiveThirtyEight, Previously, she was the at Harvard University, in The Boston Globe, he holds a Ph.D. in art and architecture One Francis Avenue, The Patriot Ledger, and economics with a focus critic at the Milwaukee Cambridge, MA 02138-2098 elsewhere. on game theory. Journal Sentinel. cover_spring2020_final SHIPPED 5-14.indd 2 5/21/20 3:36 PM COVER: Covid-19 coronavirus particles seen through transmission electron micrograph ABOVE: Quarantined in São Paulo, Brazil Contents Spring 2020/Vol. 74/No. 2 Features: Covering the Coronavirus The Path of the Pandemic 4 The Antidote for Authoritarian 22 What Role Should Newsrooms 34 Is the New Campaign Trail Overreach Play in Debunking Misinformation? While Covid-19 has derailed the 2020 By joining forces across national borders, When conspiracies pass a tipping point, presidential campaign, it may actually news outlets can better counter censorship newsrooms must work to slow the spread improve coverage of it by shifting focus to and misinformation By Claire Wardle a crucial issue — access to the ballot By Brian Friedberg, Gabrielle Lim, By Casey Quackenbush and Joan Donovan The Future is Now 36 Speculative journalism helps readers grasp Covering Voter Suppression 8 The Funding Crisis 24 future scenarios, but is it responsible? During the Coronavirus Pandemic Covid-19 is fueling bold proposals to By Eryn Carlson Journalists must cut through rampant fund local media disinformation around the pandemic By Catherine Buni Journalism and Prediction 40 to report on efforts to suppress voting When reporting on a pandemic, By Brian Friedberg, Gabrielle Lim, Government Funding Props Up 28 responsible predictions are essential and Joan Donovan Dying Business Models in Denmark By Oliver Roeder The Danish government’s funding structure A Trust Test for the Media 12 obstructs innovation The Meaning of Milwaukee 44 How coverage of the coronavirus pandemic By Jakob Moll The “This is Milwaukee” deep listening in Italy, Spain, France, and Germany has project helps people reflect on democracy impacted trust in news outlets By Mary Louise Schumacher By Mattia Ferraresi Recognition for Nieman Reports Nieman Reports is the 2019 recipient Departments Covid-19 Brings Threat and 18 of the Bart Richards Award for Media Opportunity to Hungarian Media Criticism, presented annually by From the Curator 2 The free press is under threat in Hungary, the Donald P. Bellisario College of Ann Marie Lipinski but coverage of the coronavirus pandemic Communications at Penn State. The demonstrates its value magazine also received the 2014 award. Sounding 48 COVER: NIAID-RML/NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY PHOTO LIBRARY INSTITUTES OF HEALTH/SCIENCE COVER: NIAID-RML/NATIONAL TIMES/REDUX NEW YORK MORIYAMA/THE TOP: VICTOR By Andras Petho Carrie Johnson inside-pages-spring2020 SHIPPED 5-14.indd 1 5/21/20 12:58 PM from initiatives, such as “Nieman to Nieman,” the online sessions that united our global curator network of fellows for conversations with newsworthy alumni, programming we will continue no matter the path of the virus. Fellows would have preferred their “Courage is Contagious” physical proximity and the easy access to Nieman isn’t waiting for the coronavirus the classrooms, libraries, museums, and more that make up the Harvard campus. to grant permission to do our work. Moreover, news of friends and colleagues who had fallen ill from the coronavirus We are reimagining the fellowship — including the Harvard president and his wife — introduced worry that preoccupied experience to help journalists emerge many of us throughout the spring. But stronger from this historic crisis in these ways Nieman was not unique. by ann marie lipinski Wherever you are as you read this, you have been impacted by the unforgiving virus. The challenge for Nieman going forward is not a two-month reprogramming effort but a response that anticipates the galloping changes taking place in journalism. In mere oenawan Mohamad, the journalism and educate persons deemed weeks, everything from where you make Indonesian journalist and poet, especially qualified for journalism” — is your office to how we report the story of had considerable impact on the more urgent. What would it say to the a lifetime while avoiding infection has Gmembers of my Nieman class. legions of journalists who experience birthed more newsroom transformation His parents had suffered exile to hardship not as an interruption but as a than we’ve witnessed in years. Like the an internment camp; his father was later condition of their work if we did not persist? changes forced by 9/11, we are absorbing executed for political activism. Tempo, the As we work on defining what adjustments to our lives and our work that magazine he founded, was denounced, fellowship will mean this fall and consider will not be reversed. Against the backdrop shuttered, then banned by the Suharto other initiatives to expand Nieman’s of the industry’s twin truths — a soaring government. Yet Goenawan was among the impact, we are influenced by our earlier reliance on news and fewer and fewer most stoic men any of us had ever met. experimentation. First we disrupted people paid to provide it — this is as “Courage,” he would say, “is the academic-year model by offering consequential a challenge as journalism contagious.” short-term Knight Nieman Fellowships has confronted. I have been thinking of Goenawan and for innovative projects. Then we added While we look forward to the day our Nieman year conversations. As the the Abrams Nieman Fellowships in local we again may gather a new fellowship sobering threat of Covid-19 emerged and investigative journalism, extending the class on campus and await the university Harvard closed its campus, I was asked traditional model with an additional nine decisions that will guide that timing, if there was precedent for the disruption months of fieldwork. Those projects have we are not waiting for the virus to grant faced by the class of 2020. No; in the 82-year given us new tools and confidence to meet permission to do our work. Encouraged history of Nieman, there had never been rapidly-changing industry needs.