Ebola coverage reactions (week 7)

Coverage on Ebola this week included the usual suspects: the call for more assistance, rates of infected people, schools and borders opening in Liberia.

It also included some unusual suspects. Craig Spencer, the NYC doctor who contracted Ebola in Guinea, wrote a piece about his experience as an Ebola caretaker turned patient for the New England Journal of Medicine. Naomi Campbell held an Ebola Fundraiser in which she auctioned off her old clothes and donated the money to the Ebola fight. The Guardian questioned whether this sort of activity helps or hurts Africans. Al Jazeera ran an opinion piece from a man who believes aid and adoption agencies hurt communities more than they help them. He said the article in the New York Times about an orphan named "Sweetie" would prompt couples to try to adopt Ebola orphans, but that type of thinking only perpetuates the stereotype of the helpless African victim. Communities need to be empowered to raise their own orphans through strengthened education programs and public health centers. Swooping in and rescuing a victim does not help a community.

I've been monitoring Ebola coverage with a daily Google Alert, and his week, after about a month of reading those alerts, I was able to identify outlier coverage. I'm going to focus on this coverage because I think it adds an element of complexity to the coverage. In his article for the New England Journal of Medicine, Spencer berated the media and the politicians. He wrote that the media, rather than informing the public, inflamed fears with "flashy headlines." They "fabricated stories about my personal life and the threat I posed to public health, abdicating their responsibility for informing public opinion and influencing public policy," he wrote.

According to Spencer, the media failed in its duty to inform and educate the public about Ebola. I think it's interesting that he included influencing public policy as part of the media's duties. Is that part of our job to influence policy? I suppose if policies are flawed, good reporting will bring that to light and change them. So question is: What is the media supposed to communicate about Ebola? It seems in this case, our job was to quell fears, not prompt them. As gatekeepers, we should have made the story less about Spencer and more about the thousands of people who have Ebola in Africa. But it seems the proximity news value got in our way. Spencer asserts that the media should have quelled fear through public health-focused reporting. I wonder what the national conversation would have been had the media done that.

The other two articles are fascinating because the authors point out the way we frame Africa in our everyday thinking. Africans as victims. Africans as dispossessed and unfortunate. Africans need saving. These are all tropes that we need to actively resist, as Sommers et. al. pointed our in our reading last week. I think James Kassaga Arinaitwe brings up a fascinating human reaction that we don't consider when we use anecdotal leads: People will be compelled to help the main character. Stories like the one about Sweetie uses an orphan to show the plight of thousands of orphaned children. One natural response is the desire to help. But Arinaitwe argues that adopting Sweetie does not help. It introduces the possibility for corruption and leaves other orphans feeling bad about themselves because they were not chosen. He asserts that strengthening communities and mobilizing them to care for their own orphans is more powerful than adoption or any other type of aid. The way we write stories affects the way people act. It's good remember this. It doesn't necessarily mean we need to write stories differently. Bringing awareness to a new group of orphans is good. The story starts the conversation. It is the community's job to act appropriately.

Why do we cover war? (week 7)

In 2012, NPR correspondent Kelly McEvers turned the microphone on herself and asked some good questions of her profession. Why do people go into war zones? It turns out, reporting from a conflict zone is not just about shining a light into a dark place. Reporting is also about the challenge, the thrill, the escape and the story.

I thought the honesty in McEvers' piece was both intense and refreshing. Journalists do what they do because they have a calling. But answering the call comes with costs. Leaving behind a family is selfish. Watching people die is traumatic. Grieving fellow journalists means holding a mirror up to your own life and the risks you are taking. Dying with children exacts an emotional cost on that child's life. They may never forgive you for choosing to tell that story over being with them.

I like to think that journalism as a profession is held in high regard in our country. It is a service profession like teaching and medicine. Sadly, I'm not sure the average American thinks about journalism that way anymore even though they ought to. War correspondents, in my mind, are public servants in extreme situations. I believe they are taking chances to bear witness and potentially alter the outcome of a grisly situation. This is what I have always thought.

But there's more to the situation than just what meets the eye. It's like the aid world. It's not just about bringing hope to people who have been through famine or drought or disease. After five years in the aid world, I saw that there is an inherently selfish element in the act of this international service. It turns out, this same element of selfishness also exists for war correspondents. I believe that service is usually the original motivator, but soon other secondary elements emerge. Higher levels of dopamine, thrills, clarity of thought in chaos and awards for brave work all keep a war journalist coming back. But does that discount the work? Absolutely not. It is just as valuable. To say that we make decisions for completely unselfish reasons runs counter to human evolution and thinking. I joined the Peace Corps as much to serve my country as to challenge myself and to say that I have done something that matters. The decision was also about me. Any choice, however service-oriented, possesses some level of selfish motivation.

It's why people always write on their college applications: I went to change the world and when I came back, I realized it was me who was changed. It almost sounds cliche at this point. It's as if we are self-conscious about our own internal motivations. We shouldn't be. The complexity certainly grows when children or spouses are involved.

To me, the most interesting question in all of this analysis of motivation is: What if all the witness bearing in the world does nothing to stop the evil? What does the work mean? Whom did it help? Where does all that haunting trauma go to live?

Does the story matter?

I think that it does. Maybe I'm a die hard journalist and will go to my grave protecting the sanctity of the story, despite the risks involved in getting it. Maybe there are stories that are not worth dying for. I think it is up to the individual person to decide the risk. What McEvers concludes is not that people should stop going, but rather that they should stop deluding themselves that they are somehow protected. Having a press pass does not offer an invisible cloak of protection. The press are just as vulnerable as the rest of us, and at this point in our history, perhaps even more so. Why?

Because the story does matter.

It may not move mountains or stop the shelling. But I believe that being heard is what validates our existence. That's why we tell each other stories. That's why we love good storytelling. When I lived in Turkmenistan with a family who only spoke Turkmen, what I missed most at night was sitting around the family room telling stories. God knows I tried to share them with my intermediate-level Turkmen. I muddled through without much satisfaction. The weekends were the time when I would get together with five or six other Americans in my region to drink beers and tell stories. That's the time I loved most. The rest of the week was really just about working, communicating basic needs and self-reflection.

Ebola story on resilience (week 6)

This multimedia piece from NPR: Life After Ebola is beautiful act two story. I love the interview with the psychologist about how communities define and develop resilience. It's fantastic to see that the media is taking the opportunity to cover Ebola post-epidemic. The piece addresses the sorrow and the loss felt in the village. People are traumatized and the recovery will take time. It felt really honest and authentic and using audio interviews of the people's own voices is really powerful. The photos are stunning. It's effective because it gives me a sense of what people are doing now, how they are rebuilding and how they are processing their grief. Unfortunately, many are in survival mode so it will take even longer to process the emotional pain. 

Ebola coverage - Week 6

I interviewed Lenny Bernstein, a health blogger at the "Washington Post," yesterday about his experience covering Ebola. It was insightful, and I learned a lot. To prepare, I read several of his articles and looked at the accompanying photographs. He traveled with Michel du Cille twice last fall, so I also read an article du Cille's wrote about covering the epidemic. I noticed that because I had seen the photos and read the coverage already it was easier to imagine the stories as he told them. Usually in interviews, you have to imagine a lot yourself. But because I had seen so much for what he saw, it helped me to immediately visualize his experience. I guess that's the sign of good reporting and writing.

I thought for my blog this week, I would take a look back and analyze the coverage Bernstein wrote for the Post.

Interestingly, Bernstein said his post "Reporting on Ebola first rule is you don't touch anyone," received much more coverage than he would have liked. He stressed that the situation needed and still needs to focus on Liberians, not the journalists.

His other articles include Why you're not going to get Ebola in the U.S., Out of control: How the world's health organizations failed to stop the Ebola disaster, With Ebola crippling the health system, Liberians die of routine medical problems and Surviving Ebola. (There are dozens more, too.)

Overall, the coverage is gripping. I got a sense that Bernstein wanted action from governments and NGOs. There is desperation in the tone. He told me that he did feel the stories needed to be told so that our government would act. He said the media woke the world to the Ebola epidemic and prompted the response. I sensed his urgency in his writing.

The frequency of his posts was fantastic. He had a lot of material and then was able to sift through it and produce a lot of copy quickly.

His frame tended to focus on the dire situation and the need for more resources. Many of the stories were heartbreaking. He also broke away from the people with Ebola and focused on people who had other health needs. It wasn't a story he had planned to write, but once he got to Liberia, he said it was painfully obvious that it needed to be written. I also liked how his articles varied in their purpose. Some were in-depth looks at individual lives and others offered an analysis of how the epidemic spread so rapidly. Within the articles he had a nice balance of expert and non-expert sources.

The social response to the work was equally emotional. People projected their own experiences onto people with Ebola. There was lots of controversy in the comments section. People were clearly stirred up and thinking about Ebola. Unfortunately, many of the responses were too hysterical and extreme. One comment read: "As the winter flu season develops, hospitals will be overwhelmed by panicking people with fever and headache and some cases of Ebola will be misdiagnosed. Health care workers will be infected. Too late, the US will ban flights from Africa. Then again too late, the US will ban all international air travel." What the hell? Strong words and not what happened. 

I really enjoyed reading these articles. Most of the coverage I read on Ebola came from the "New York Times" (trying to make that subscription pay off!). So it was really interesting to read news from the Post and get a sense of the differences in tone, style and writing. I'm not sure I've read enough to make an assessment, but I did notice some differences. I think the post might lean toward being more conversational. The graphics have a different feel as well.

Reading response - Week 6

I grew up surrounded by white people and learned without every discussing it that race was a dangerous topic. I saw that it was taboo and could get you into trouble.

So I just lumped it in with religion and politics, and I decided early on that discussions of race were better left alone. Unaddressed and unacknowledged.

Fast forward a few decades and I found myself living in New York City. The experience taught me that my thinking was a defense mechanism and a cop out. The only way to root around and discover my biases was to talk about them. I was ill-equipped for the discussions I would have because I'd never learned to have them. But at 30, I decided it was time.

I learned a lot that year. Acknowledging my own racial biases was actually pretty painful. There were moments when people would call me out publicly and my face would flush. But most of my learning came slowly. Friends would bring up observations in conversation or recommend I read articles or certain books.

Most of those conversations were helpful, but they were anecdotal. Living and working with Prospero allowed me to walk around and experience the world as a black man in America does. He was my best friend that year and we were hardly ever apart. What I learned is that being a black in our country is exhausting. The racism is subtle, but sometimes not. People would follow us around stores and one time a security guy asked to see his receipt just seconds after he bought something. Even with a master's degree it was difficult for him to get job interviews, while our white friends got jobs seemingly instantly. It made me mad and it made me sad and made me realize that these conversations are crucial. Our country is at a breaking point, which is exactly how I would characterize the Ferguson response.

But the reason for this is that talking about race is multi-level tough. The first layer involves acknowledging your own racism. Then you have to build up the vocabulary and a contextual understanding. Then while you're talking about it you have to be able to handle feedback, which probably brings up even more issues you didn't notice. And then there's the anger people have about it when you bring it up. You have to address that, too. I think the response wouldn't be so pronounced if we had a more socially acceptable way to talk about race, rather than just avoiding it out of fear.

So I guess this is my really long way of saying I'm glad we read "Race and Media Coverage of Hurricane Katrina: Analysis, Implications, and Future Research Questions." It's an important piece of research and I'm curious what kind of response it got.

My hunch is that before the media can talk about racial biases in reporting on a structural and professional level, we need to begin by looking inward. It takes years, and it can be really humbling. But starting the conversation is the only way to make it better.

The heuristics discussion was most fascinating to me. People are not (sometimes) consciously racist in their language, but the most recognizable construct could be. So they reach for it instinctively. In order to overcome this inbuilt racism, we have to change our default frames. That's why it's hard. It takes both recognition and a change in the way we think. So this research is really helpful because it helps raise awareness and begins the first step of the recognition process.

The Unthinkable conclusion (week 5)

I just saw the questions on the syllabus for "The Unthinkable." I'll add a little amendment to my reading response for this week.

Prompt: How has "The Unthinkable" altered your thinking about yourself? About journalism? What might we do better?

I think the most fascinating part about this book is that people who believe they can will survive. It's all about confidence and willpower. Of course there's always a freak accident. But living through a disaster is possible and your odds are strengthened by preparing — just like training for a race. This kind of optimistic thinking puts the control back in my hands. I am responsible for my survival. It takes work and planning and mental agility, but it's possible.

The wake-up call for me as a journalist is that I need to integrate this knowledge into my reporting. My assumptions will be challenged, but they need to be. I will judge less and extend more grace. I'll put myself in their shoes before making a judgment call.

Journalists need to read this book — both for their own survival as well as building empathy for interviews. The science-y stuff I learned in this book as well as the anecdotal wisdom has changed the way I think about traumatic events. Hopefully, I'll be more understanding and adept with handling interviews and writing stories. And if a traumatic event ever happens to me, instead of being frightened or frozen, hopefully, I will act decisively and wisely.

As the Turkmen say, nesip bolsa and hudah shukur (God willing and with God's blessing). Such talk always commands a knock on wood..

Epidemics coverage - Week 5

I read a lot of Ebola coverage this week. There was an outbreak in fishing village in Sierra Leone, violence broke out in Guinea as children returned to school, researchers from Montana found that the virus can survive for up to seven days in a dead body, Liberian officials reported that $3.1 million in Ebola funds are missing, and the CDC released a report on Dallas' county's response to the Ebola outbreak last fall.

The tone of many of the articles I read included some frustration on the part of experts. It seems doctors and other health care professionals and government officials are concerned that Ebola is becoming less of a pressing issue for people. But, doctors are warning that the disease will continue unless the number of victims drops to zero.

This is my first week using a Google Alert, so I'll get a better sense of the volume soon, but it seems that there are about 10 news articles a day on Ebola. The main players such as the New York Times, NPR and ABC show up, but there are also many smaller outlets running articles on the Montana study, for example.

All of the articles I read this week used an expert frame. The Detroit Free Press picked up an AP video/story that included an interview with a local Red Cross worker. He lamented the fact that local families believe all the rumors and don't trust the experts; however, the reporters did not include any interviews with local families. Many of the articles include sources such as doctors, donors (Paul Allen) and responders (Red Cross, WHO, Liberian government). It would have been nice to have read a story that included a voice of someone who had experienced Ebola first- or second-hand. I did read a lot of stories on the New York Times about the burial teams, children who recovered and families torn apart, but this week didn't see any coverage like that.

The word that really stuck out to me this week was in the New York Times story about the missing $3.1 million in Ebola funding in Liberia. The sentence read: "The country of six million has had almost 11,000 Ebola cases and 3,363 deaths during the epidemic, which has raged in West Africa for nearly a year." I like the use of the word "rage" here. It's strong and effective and characterizes the tenor of the epidemic.

I didn't see much of a social response on the stories this week. Not even the NYT article had a comment.

My own response to these articles is that the epidemic is still a great threat, but the level of panic in the U.S. and around the world seems to have lessened. I wonder how this will affect coverage. I think it'll result in fewer infographics, less in-depth reporting and more stuff on the wire. It also seems like people will rely more on the expert frame, like I saw this week, and that people on the front line will continue advocating for more assistance. They will continue sounding the warning beacons, but the question is: Will people listen? Will they take a proactive or reactive approach and only throw money after it's too late?

Reading reflection - Week 5

I just finished reading "The Unthinkable." I thought it was a really fantastic and thought-provoking book. Amanda Ripley did a great job. I thumbed through the appendices, and they're instructive for learning how the sausage is made. I really appreciated how transparent and verified her reporting was. Since people who live through traumatic situations are not known to have the most reliable recall, she hedged her bets and cross-checked everything using multiple eyewitness accounts, coverage of the event if it was available and follow-up reports.

The chapter on heroism was really well done. She kept it on topic when it might have been really easy to just tell hero stories since people adore the hero narrative. I mean, who doesn't? It's just so damn inspiring and heart-warming to hear about people who save the day. Again, she spoke with researchers who have tried to categorize and dissect the particular traits of heroes. The researchers found that religious conviction, political leaning or economic status are not significant predictors of heroes. But they did find that heroes tend to have strong relationships with their parents, they have friends from different classes and ethnic groups, and they are likely to be empathetic. Heroes also have confidence and an internal locus of control. The bystanders, who are the majority, concentrate "on their own need for survival." This makes since because of natural selection.

I also thought it was really interesting how some of the heroes said they did the "heroic" thing because they didn't want to face the alternative of being a coward. In other words, they couldn't not act. I think this was actually one of my main motivators for joining the Peace Corps. I wanted to join, but I also wanted to do lots of other things such as go to grad school and live in New York City. I chose Peace Corps because I didn't want to be the person who didn't do it. Not that I'm a hero, I just thought it was interesting that my paradigm was similar. When people asked me why I joined, I said on more than one occasion that I didn't want to regret not going. It's a strange reason, but it was true for me.

The story about Roger Olian was gripping because of the way he helped the survivors. He originally jumped in the water to save them, which he indeed did. But he didn't save them in the way he imagined. He never actually reached them. He only got halfway. But the fact that he was trying to help motivated the survivors. It was all in their minds that they were getting rescued. The guy who kept saying he was going to die, did. Again, it's back to the internal locus of control.

I also think it's good that Ripley mentioned the fantasy surrounding our hero narratives. Some of those disaster situations create strange realities, including people getting in the way or wanting to be a hero but making a mistake. It's good to be aware of this type of person in a disaster.

I thought Ripley's conclusion was fantastic. The key takeaway here was that we need to train our minds and our muscles to react a certain way. I actually just practiced rolling out of my bed in the event of a fire and found that it was way more uncomfortable than I remember. When I was a kid we would stop, drop and roll for hours in the backyard. I'm a bit bigger now. Training the hands to not follow the eyes is also really tough. The woman who realized she was driving toward pedestrians made the right choice in seeking training. It also shows that we are not naturals behind the wheel. I had kind of less serious experience with that after a guy rear-ended me at a crosswalk. I had stopped for a pedestrian and got hit. After that, I would always look in my rear-view anxiously expecting a thud. It got kinda of distracting because I was looking for that person instead of focusing on the road ahead. I had to retrain my brain to not expect the outlying situation. Getting rear-ended is not the norm.

Finally, the story about Rick Rescorla was really inspiring, but so sad. He trained the Morgan Stanley staff for years for a disaster and even predicted correctly (twice!) that the World Trade Center would be attacked. He saved so many lives and then ran back into the building to save more when the towers collapsed. I thought about myself in this situation, and I don't think I would have been able to go back into the tower after escaping it. What he did was incredibly brave and completely selfless. 

Epidemics coverage (week 4)

I took a small break this week from Ebola coverage and paid attention to the reporting of the measles outbreak in the U.S. While this outbreak isn't a full-fledged epidemic, I thought it would be useful to read and analyze some of the coverage because it is so close to home.

A New York Times article on Jan. 30 discussed the vaccination debate and included a California pediatrician who has urged parents to vaccinate their children and several parents who have not immunized their children. The headline was "Vaccine critics turn defensive over measles."

The story was reported from California, but included sources in Arizona as well. Some of the words and phrases that jumped out at me in this story were: anti-vaccine moment, public-health crisis, measles anxiety, scares, urging calm, public backlash, and alternatives. These words are compelling and catchy, and I think they will grab readers' attention. Measles is a serious public health threat, so I don't think the language is too strong. However, I would bet that in addition to getting people to think, some of this alarmist-type language and "us vs. them" language might have unsettled some readers.

The article includes many anti-vaccine voices, a doctor (the expert source), but in my opinion, doesn't include enough people who disagree with the anti-vaccine movement. The article included one mother who believes in vaccines for her own children, and is sympathetic to people who choose not to inoculate.

As of Feb. 7, this article has 2,278 comments. I read through a few dozen and found that many people were asking for a more nuanced discussion that included more complexity. The issue is not as black and white as people make it sound, many comments said. Some people were clearly pro-vaccine and used the terrible side effects of diseases such as polio, measles and whooping cough as examples of why people are stupid not to vaccinate. It was a generally respectful comment section, which is how the NYT tends to be, I think.

My own reaction to the article was that it did an excellent job of providing the statistics and explaining how the outbreak happened. It was framed for someone who needs to learn more about the anti-vaccine movement because it included many of those voices. I felt outrage at some of the quotes about how one mother would prefer her daughter miss six months of class to getting the measles vaccine. The infographic about how herd immunity works was also very good.

I also listened to some NPR coverage on the outbreak. One story discussed the situation a 6-year-old boy is facing in California. He is in remission from cancer and can't get the vaccine yet, so his parents are asking people to get vaccinated to protect their son. The other article discusses what lawmakers are doing in California about the low vaccination rates.

Both of these reports had an educational-type frame. They taught people about the vaccination rates, philosophical exemptions and how people are coping with the reality that the herd immunity threshold has not been met.

Generally, I think the frequency of the coverage was appropriate. The only media type I didn't check was broadcast. With more than 100 cases, the outbreak received much less coverage than Ebola did when it came to the U.S., so I think that's interesting. The coverage is also taking a public service- and education-type frame, which is great. It's teaching people about vaccines, coverage and what parents are doing. The word choice veers into alarmist in some cases, but I think that this illustrates the level of fear people have with this public health situation. I'd like more voices from the families who are dealing with measles and from the doctors. What are the long-term ramifications for people who contract measles?

Reading reflection - Week 4

Wow, "The Unthinkable" just continues to amaze me. I've started underlining interesting passages in pencil because Ripley makes so many notable observations. This week's chapters were on groupthink, panic and paralysis. As I read through, I noticed myself laughing at some of the situations, especially the one about the panic at the pizzaria after a water heater exploded. Of course people getting trampled is not funny, but the way Ripley describes how humans behave in certain situations is comical. It's irrational and to a person not experiencing it, it easily sounds ridiculous.

Key takeaways:

I didn't expect people to maintain their hierarchy in a disaster. The scenes I see in movies show that people just start panicking and don't observe any type of order or hierarchy. It was fascinating to read that the woman who was getting married acted as the leader during the fire. She felt responsibility because it was her wedding.

I thought the section about reciprocity made sense. It's really fascinating to see that we maintain our ties to the natural world even though we live pretty separate from it. The millenia of survival traits matter more than the changes from the last century, which is essentially just a second in human evolution. Our decisions are ultimately selfish, even if we are saving other people's lives. I haven't consciously thought about it as selfish, but it really does make sense.

One of the most shocking observations Ripley made is that our disaster models don't mimic human behavior. The line about the EXODUS model developed by Ed Galea being too complex and containing too much human behavior is ridiculous. I don't understand why planners don't take this into account until after the disaster has struck. Seems that the concept of using the easiest possible solution (heuristics) to a problem is costing lives.

The section about fire scared the shit out of me. I am not prepared for a fire at all. I went around our house and checked the batteries in the smoke detectors and found that most of them had dead batteries. I'm also planning to figure out the best escape routes with my boyfriend this week. I had no idea that standing up out of bed would likely kill me. We learn stop, drop and roll, but I honestly haven't thought about it in years. It's also terrifying to read that the materials in homes are much more deadly than they were just 25 years ago.

I would have liked Ripley to talk more about why the animals sought higher ground hours before the tsunami struck. How did they know something bad was coming? Did they sense something in the air? Is this instinct something that humans could learn and mimic?

In the panic chapter, I was fascinated to read about the stampedes around the Jamarat. I didn't know about this particular ritual in Saudi Arabia and realized I need to read more about it. I have been in many crowds before during concerts, at rush hour in New York and while traveling through Indian streets, and I've felt the powerlessness that occurs when the one-square yard of space rule is violated. You lose control of your movements and are vulnerable to the whims of the crowd. It's both exhilarating and terrifying. I also learned that people can be killed without ever having fallen. I actually thought the true danger was falling but learned that pressure can also be a risk.

Enrico L. Quarantelli tried to quantify panic, which I think is a useful and enlightening subject. I love how Ripley notes that these studies are tough to get past the IRB. Useful but way understudied as a result. Quarantelli found that there must be three conditions present for people to panic:

1. People must feel that they may be trapped
2. Panic requires a sensation of great helplessness
3. Panic requires a profound sense of isolation.

Ripley concludes that panic is "what happens when human beings glimpse their own impending mortality — and know that it didn't have to be so."

It's so dark and terrifying. It's also fascinating that people are measuring and attempting to quantify a reaction that seems like it is so instinctual. As a result, city and building planners are able to foresee problems and adjust spaces so that panic is less likely to ensue.

According to Ripley, there are two types of anxiety and these can help predict the chance of inexplicable decision-making in a high-stress environment. State anxiety describes "how a person reacts to stressful situations," while trait anxiety describes "a person's general tendency to see things as stressful to begin with." What I learned from the experiment William Morgan ran is that people with higher trait anxiety should probably try to avoid putting themselves in high-stress environments like diving or firefighting without lots of preparation and self-awareness.

When an animal is paralyzed by fear, its heart rate drops, its body temperature drops, its respiration goes up, its body becomes numb to pain and it stares it an unfocused gaze. I don't think I've ever seen an animal or a person freeze in fear. But after reading this chapter, I have more respect for the response. I also have a much greater understanding of rape survivors. Researchers found that 40 percent of rape survivors remember feeling some sort of paralysis and 10 percent reported being completely immobile. As Ripley pointed out, this reaction makes it much easier for perpetrators to say they gained consent and for people to prosecute because the person was unable to fight back. Including this type of research in reporting, especially in longer-form reporting would be incredibly beneficial to readers. It would help people understand the response and hopefully, be less likely to blame the victim.

The evolutionary response for paralysis is also really interesting. It's actually a strategy used by animals because predators are less likely to eat sick or rotting prey. It's a hard-wired way to avoid food poisoning.

The bummer is that paralysis doesn't work in certain situations when the predator is actually a burning plane or a sinking boat. But seems to be more effective in human-on-human attacks such as rapes or shootings. So we have to train ourselves to assess the type of situation quickly, practice various responses to each and then hope we respond appropriately when the time comes.

Reading reflection - Week 3

"The Unthinkable" continues to be one of my favorite books of grad school. Amanda Ripley finds such compelling characters and her writing really just flows so naturally. I can tell she is in love with her topic.

The chapter on resilience is fantastic. I like how she breaks down resilience into different parts and acknowledges that there is no one recipe or measurement for success. Just like a genetic predisposition to a disease, the size of the hippocampus or the level of neuropeptide Y or the circle of friends a person has can predict relative risk but not with any complete certainty.

I underlined the three underlying advantages of people who are resilient: a belief that they can influence life events; a tendency to find meaningful purpose in life's turmoil; and a conviction that they can learn from both positive and negative experiences. She's onto something with these elements.

People who have an internal, rather than external locus of control, believe they can change outcomes. I used to live in a culture that would constantly explain good fortune or hardship by saying, dine Hudah bilya (only God knows). The outcomes of their lives were dependent upon the dictates of God. God controlled their lives, past, present and future. I noticed that people with this fatalistic outlook often felt apathetic about the position in life. If God is in control, nothing can be done to change it because it's God's will. Turkmen society, as a result, doesn't protest human rights offenses, it doesn't ask for changes; it accepts what happens even if it means suffering for everyday people.

I raged against this worldview because I have a strong internal locus of control. I believe that things can be changed. Maybe not everything, but certainly some things. I don't think I ever lost that sense of injustice at not being able to affect change, but other Americans did. They adopted the Turkmen thinking as a defense mechanism, which I definitely understand. It's less exhausting.

Near the end of my service I went with another Peace Corps Volunteer to buy tickets to India. The man at the ticket counter said that we had to buy our tickets in U.S dollars because we are American. We were paid our salaries in local currency, manats, so this required us to change money, which was a big hassle and cost us for the conversion. It was also a made up rule. The guy just wanted dollars.

I refused and started to make a scene. I told him it wasn't fair. I thought I should stand up for us as well as the Americans who would follow. Kera was shocked at my reactions. Some things aren't fair she said. Get over it. She told me I needed to stop overreacting. It was fascinating. She didn't think we could change that corruption, but I did. It came down to a belief that we could alter the outcomes. I adopted some of her thinking to see how it effected me and noticed that I while I became more accepting and more calm, I lost some of my optimism.

Second on the list is a tendency to find meaningful purpose in life's turmoil. Again, it's all about perspective and it's highly likely that this can be altered throughout life. Challenges can become lessons rather than something to suffer through. I think I experienced this one in a big way as a young adult. I had reconstructive jaw surgery to fix a malformed jaw when I was about 17. Years before that, I suffered with arthritis and chronic pain. It wasn't until I was in my early 20s that I saw that experience in my teens as a character-building exercise. I used to view it as a detraction from my life, but as the years passed, I saw it as something that helped me become stronger. It definitely took some things from me: I couldn't play the clarinet, I had to quit soccer, I would never be able to feel my lower face again. I mourned those things and reframed it. It made me stronger and not weaker. This one can years of struggle to finally realize. I think it did for me. But the larger lesson is to start with small stuff and work up.

The final aspect is a conviction that a person can learn from both positive and negative experiences. Again, I agree. Learning from all experiences is healthy. It creates a more resilient outlook, but it's hard. Sometimes negative experiences are easier forgotten. But I think the thing to realize is that nothing is ever truly forgotten. Bad experiences and negative emotions lurk in the dreamspace and subconscious thinking. So, it's healthier to face them head on and acknowledge that something can be learned. School is a little microcosm of this lesson. I notice that I easily remember  mistakes I make while reporting, writing and editing. I store them away and save them for a future experience. With non-school or work-related stuff, this can be a little harder. Finding the lesson in my Papa's death is hard. Mostly I just miss him. But the conviction that something can be gained is what makes that loss easier to comprehend and process.

Other comments about the readings. I liked the lecture from George Bonnano. I'm really glad I took quantitative research methods because it helped me understand what he was talking about with the study types. Key takeaway is that the majority of people continue along the same path and have the same mental outlook even after life-changing events. The study on spinal cord injuries was especially fascinating to me because I've always just assumed that I'd become permanently depressed after an accident like that.

Chapter 5 in "Covering Violence" is fantastic. Thinking about the interview itself is great advice. I've never consciously thought about the considerations the writers discuss: where to stand, how to make first contact, what to think about for a follow-up interview, how gender plays a role, getting consent, setting ground rules, bringing up the name of the media outlet multiple times and how to listen. I also underlined appropriate sentiments: I'm sorry this happened to you, I'm glad you weren't killed, It's not your fault. The second one would not probably cross my mind as something that would be appropriate to say, but it seems like it would ring true for people who have just witnessed trauma.

My topic for the semester: epidemics (week 3)

I've always been fascinated with epidemics. When I was about 13 I read Richard Preston's "The Hot Zone" one Sunday afternoon. I couldn't put the book down and then asked my dad if we could watch Outbreak (a Hollywood film about an outbreak in the U.S.). It starred Dustin Hoffman and included a romantic plotline, which, on a side note, I remember thinking was completely beside the point (ha - prepubescent self!).

I'm not entirely sure I actually know or can identify the reason I'm so drawn to this topic, but I think it has something to do with health, teamwork and behavior change.

I'm looking forward to analyzing news coverage of epidemics. Seems like my best bet this semester will be coverage of Ebola, but I'm also going to look for flu coverage and other contagious outbreaks. Last summer and fall, I read every article, viewed every infographic and watched every video the New York Times produced on Ebola. So, I think I have pretty good context of that one media outlet. The problem is that I didn't really view coverage from anyone else. So, I'm going to need to widen the scope and see if I can watch some news coverage, listen to some radio shows and look at other news websites. It's a good challenge and will definitely help me get a better sense of the range of coverage.

Reminder to self, focus on: frequency, framing, word choice, social response and my reaction to the coverage.

Prompt response - week 2

I've never been much of a TV person, so I naturally gravitate toward online news articles during times of duress and conflict. During the ISIS upheaval last fall, I read about the beheadings of journalists and opted not to view the videos. But about a week after news of the beheadings started, my Global Journalist professor asked us to watch a new documentary from VICE news about the rise of ISIS. I was amazed how much I learned by watching. So, while I think it can be jarring and difficult to watch conflict either on TV or in online videos, I think that it's always going to be beneficial to strive for a moderation of words, pictures and video. The key is moderation and variety.

Without moderation, coverage of crises can quickly sap a person's energy and leave them more pessimistic. I am reminded of this reality constantly by my Nana who watches broadcast all day long and thinks the world is going to hell in a hand basket. She lives in fear for me and others in my family because she doesn't temper her broadcast viewing with long-form nonfiction writing from the New York Times, etc. I try to remind her that we live in one of the most peaceful times in human history, but she can't comprehend what I'm saying because she sees the blasts, the wars and the catastrophe.

So, I guess what I tell myself when I'm reading or viewing tragedy is that it's important to keep it in context, look at the big picture and if it becomes too much, to take a break. After some especially disturbing coverage of ISIS, I noticed that I was having nightmares more often. I did yoga and I consumed fewer ISIS coverage. I read op-eds and the Daily Show and remembered to laugh. I think it's easy to get caught up in the coverage, especially as a journalist, but like Amanda Ripley cautioned, tunnel-vision can be deadly. It's crucial to take a step back and look at the big picture.

I am newer to Twitter, so I'm not sure I've experienced the Twitter echo chamber before. I believe it's what happens when people just keep saying the same thing about a topic and no one brings a fresh perspective. Again, I think the key to this issue is to step back, take a wider look and explore the wider landscape.

Moving across fault lines is a great way to escape this narrowness. A small example would be when I Skype with my Turkmen students. I always like to ask them their take on situations. I spoke with one student named Bahar (Spring) earlier this morning. She studies in Minsk, Belarus, which borders Ukraine to the north, so I asked her what people there are saying about the conflict in eastern Ukraine. I was surprised to hear that people in Minsk don't really talk about it. Belarus has a tightly controlled media and is ruled by an authoritarian government, so she said discussions about politics are not common. Her wording was that it's "very tight here." This is fascinating. So different from our 24/7 CNN coverage. Anyway, conversations like these help me take a wider view of the world and give me things to chew on when I'm pondering the whys and the hows.