On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic.
Since the outbreak of the epidemic, journalists around the world have played an extremely important role in providing the public with information about the pandemic and anti-epidemic efforts by governments.
To fulfill their mission, they are regularly present on the front lines in the hot spots of the COVID-19 pandemic. This means that journalists always face the risk of infection through business trips, interviews and even at their locations. At the same time, they also cope with the pressures of reporting, the risk of losing their jobs, problems such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) when exploiting stories, anxiety, stress and exhaustion. These issues have been documented by media support organizations following interviews with journalists around the globe.
To help operational journalists in the coronavirus magnetic crisis, the Article Press Network
The GIJN and the Committee for the Protection of Journalists (CPJ) have continually collected and shared documents and experiences on operations, investigative journalism techniques and pandemic data.
MDI, as a member of the network, selects and translates some of the GIJN and CPJ guidelines, based on the unique disease situation and press environment in Vietnam.
Together with prevention recommendations from relevant agencies such as WHO and the Ministry of Health, we hope this guide will assist journalists and newsrooms in Vietnam to ensure safe operations, quality and responsibility in pandemics in general and coronavirus diseases in particular.
This manual is not a substitute for professional training, and is not intended to update disease information. Always keep an eye on information from WHO and your local public health agency to stay informed of the situation of Covid-19.
