Summary: Since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, most media coverage has focused on the ongoing physical health disaster and the need to convince readers and elected officials to take action. But the coverage is also a chronic source of trauma. Now that there is some good news interspersed with the tragedy, we struggle to find a balance. Dr. Alison Holman is a health psychologist and professor at the University of California Irvine’s Sue & Bill Gross School of Nursing, whose work focuses on exposure to traumatic events such as Ebola outbreaks, the Boston Marathon bombing, and, most recently, Covid-19. On this week’s Kicker, Holman joins Kyle Pope, editor and publisher of CJR, to discuss journalism’s impact on readers’ mental health, and why traumatic coverage can fail to motivate change.
