Description

Led by HGHI, Outbreak Week was a University-wide effort to commemorate the 1918 influenza pandemic that killed more than 50 million people around the globe.

At this symposium on “Media in the Age of Contagions,” journalists who have covered public and global health for print, television, radio, and digital media outlets including NPR, PBS, the New York Times, the Washington Post, STAT, and more discussed the role of the media when an outbreak occurs, and the dangers of rumors and disinformation.

This event was free and open to the public.

Other Outbreak Week Events at Harvard Law School

• Thursday, September 27: Vaccines for Outbreaks in the Modern World​
• Friday, September 28: Preventing Epidemics in a Connected World
• And check out other Outbreak Week events across Harvard University here!

Agenda

9:30 – 10:00am, Registration

10:00 – 10:10am, Welcome Remarks

• Alan M. Garber, Provost, Harvard University; Mallinckrodt Professor of Health Care Policy, Harvard Medical School; Professor of Economics, Harvard University; Professor of Public Policy, Harvard Kennedy School of Government; and Professor, Department of Health Policy and Management, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health
• Nicco Mele, Director, Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics, and Public Policy and Lecturer in Public Policy, Harvard Kennedy School
• Ashish K. Jha, K.T. Li Professor of Global Health, Harvard University; Senior Associate Dean for Research Translation and Global Strategy, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health; and Director, Harvard Global Health Institute

10:10 – 10:30am, Keynote Address

• Michael T. Osterholm, Director, Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP); Regents Professor; McKnight Presidential Endowed Chair in Public Health; Distinguished Teaching Professor, Division of Environmental Health Sciences, School of Public Health; professor, Technological Leadership Institute, College of Science and Engineering; and adjunct professor, Medical School at the University of Minnesota, and Science Envoy for Health Security, U. S. Department of State

10:30 – 11:45am, Panel 1: The Risk of Rumors and Disinformation

• Cameron Hickey, Technology Manager, Information Disorder Project, Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics, Harvard Kennedy School; Emmy Award-winning journalist, cinematographer, and hacker who has produced and shot content for the PBS NewsHour, NOVA, Bill Moyers, American Experience, WNET, PBS World, and the New York Times
• Aashka Dave, Research Reporter, Information Disorder Project, Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics, and Public Policy, Harvard Kennedy School; previously coordinated digital projects for the Associated Press
• Peter Canellos, Editor-at-Large, Politico
• Moderator: Heidi Legg, Director of Special Projects, Harvard Kennedy School Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics, and Public Policy

11:45am – 12:00pm, Break

12:00 – 1:00pm, Panel 2: Challenges and Opportunities in Covering Infectious Disease Outbreaks

• Karen Weintraub, freelance health/science journalist for the New York Times, USA Today, STAT and others; Lecturer, Masters Program in Science Journalism, College of Communication, Boston University, and the Harvard Extension School
• Lena Sun, Pulitzer Prize-winning national reporter for the Washington Post covering health, with a special focus on public health and infectious disease; Beijing bureau chief, the Washington Post, 1990 – 1994
• Michaeleen Doucleff, Correspondent, NPR Science Desk and Goats and Soda, NPR’s Global Health and development blog
• Helen Branswell, infectious diseases and public health reporter, STAT; formerly Canadian Press; 2010 – 2011 Nieman Global Health Fellow, Harvard University
• Moderator: Stefanie Friedhoff, Senior Editor and Assistant Director of Communications, Harvard Global Health Institute; Nieman Fellow ’01

1:00pm, Closing Remarks

• Carmel Shachar, Executive Director, Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics, Harvard Law School
• Setti Warren, Executive Director, Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics, and Public Policy, Harvard Kennedy School and former mayor of Newton

Slide Presentations

• Aashka Dave, “When to start freaking out: Audience engagement on social media during disease outbreaks”
• Cameron Hickey, “Information Disorder”

Recording

This session was sponsored by the Harvard Global Health Institute (HGHI); the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at Harvard Law School; and the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School.

Outbreak Week was organized by the Harvard Global Health Institute (HGHI), in partnership with the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at Harvard Law School, with support from the Center for Bioethics at Harvard Medical School and the Oswald DeN. Cammann Fund at Harvard University; the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health; the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School; the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School; Common Spaces | the Richard A. and Susan F. Smith Campus Center at Harvard University; the Harvard Museums of Science and Culture; the Center for the History of Medicine at Countway Library of Medicine; the Lakshmi Mittal and Family South Asia Institute at Harvard University; and the Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health.