Poll: In your opinion has “Long Covid” journalism improved over time?

[Jaybee00]

Seems like recent LC articles I’ve read in prestige publications like the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times have not bothered to mention ME/CFS in their articles and have generally obtained quotes from LC researchers like Peluso and Iwasaki and not OG ME/CFS researchers like Ron Davis, Ian Lipkin, Fluge etc.

Even long “scientific” LC review articles by Al-Aly barely mention ME/CFS.

So to me it seems like the journalism is getting worse, not better.

 

[Trish]

I think the answer is 'it depends'.

Maybe there are fewer articles than in the early days overtly claiming Long Covid is psychosomatic, but from the ones I've read, there is still plenty of confusion over what LC is, what causes it, and whether there's any mention of ME/CFS.

 

[rvallee]

I really haven't seen much difference. Some articles are good. Most of the coverage is still bad. Still lots of censorship of the past, but it was there from the start. Even with the growing picture confirming what was there from the start, there's almost zero interest because COVID remains completely politicized, with the addition of 2 full years of being memory-holed with a giant "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED" banner floating about.

Same for academic papers and professional publications. Most are still garbage. Lots of censorship and willful ignorance. Everything is at a standstill. Same as it ever was. The profession is paralyzed into inaction and has no idea or motivation how to move from there. Cowardice from the top. Cowardice at the bottom and everywhere in-between.

News media is a for-profit business. The idea that they exist to inform the public is laughable. They don't care one bit about that. Same for academic publishing. And academics. They're almost all driven by self-interest and/or profit, with a handful here and there with some integrity or, more importantly, personal stakes.

For the in-between, on social media when people talk about their own growing health problems that don't have a clear cause, which I see more and more, I mostly see people eager to blame it on stress/lockdown/trauma from the social measures of years ago. Which probably explains why MDs do the same. It's the same flaw. Magical thinking still reigns supreme. Humans will go full sophistry 42 times over before they ever start using any logic.