Awareness Campaign for Journalists Covering Coronavirus Launched

Jordan’s Centre for Defending Freedom of Journalists has launched an awareness campaign for journalists covering the Coronavirus outbreak in the country. The media for combating Coronavirus campaign has been launched with the media department and Health Ministry. The posts can be found on the Centre’s social media accounts. All the posts are approved by the Health Ministry before being published. It focuses on ensuring truthful reporting, protecting individual privacy and avoiding using terms which induce panic and protecting journalists while they work. Publishing the names or images of patients are a violation of individual privacy as medical files are protected and cannot be made public. In terms of protecting themselves, journalists are being urged to keep their tools clean, keep a safe distance in face-to-face interviews and ideally carry out interviews remotely. They should also keep sanitisers, masks and gloves with them all the time. In addition, they should be selective with their sources and particular races or groups of people should also not be stigmatised. Finally, journalists should notify the authorities of what they are doing when in public, even if they have permits. Full story

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