FluPortal.org

Simon Owens, an associate editor of PBS’s MediaShift, recently posted an assessment of the H1N1 blogosphere. He touches on the benefits of H1N1 blogs (rapid spread of information) and their drawbacks (rapid spread of misinformation) — and the difficulty, for a general reader, of judging their validity.

So how do you figure out which bloggers to trust? One obvious answer: check out their backgrounds. Owens profiles one named Vincent Racaniello — of Virology Blog. Racaniello is a professor of microbiology at Columbia University, so it’s pretty safe to assume that he’s on the right track. Racaniello himself says, “You don’t know who to believe. So I’m trying to tell people, ‘I’ve been working on viruses all these years, and I’m trying to tell you what I think is right.’” You’ll find Racaniello’s flu explainers here.

Professional background isn’t everything, though. Smart, careful lay bloggers can be great sources, too. Owens gives the example of Crawford Kilian of H5N1 — who has no biology degree but who wanted to learn about influenza and share the knowledge. Kilian says he wants “to be judged by [...] the quality of people I link to.” He explains that he tries “to find the most reliable, scientifically minded people that I can, possibly the most reliable journalists who also understand what the heck is going on, and present at least the highlights of what these people are turning up.”

Owens’s entire piece is well worth reading and doesn’t simply champion blogs. In fact the article ends, quoting Racaniello, on an ambiguous note about their utility vis-à-vis H1N1: “Thirty years ago [...] all the false stuff [on vaccines] would not be out there, and so in this regard I think in some ways we’re going backwards.”

For a list of H1N1 bloggers recommended by the Harvard Nieman Foundation Guide to Covering Pandemic Flu, click here. (We just profiled the full guide here.)

Harvard’s Nieman Foundation — which offers a fellowship program to mid-career journalists — launched a terrific Guide to Covering Pandemic Flu earlier this autumn. Reporters, producers, editors, and news directors: this site, written “by journalists, for journalists,” is for you.

Stefanie Friedhoff, the guide’s editor, describes it as a “one-stop resource to help reporters, editors and newsroom managers get up to speed in reporting on pandemic influenza.” Why did Nieman think this was important?

History shows that the flu story presents major hurdles for those who cover it—from dealing with common misconceptions about influenza to newsroom tendencies to either hype or ignore the story to the challenges of providing context and clarity on a subject rife with uncertainty, change and confusion.

At the same time, journalists play a crucial role in keeping people informed during an outbreak.

The site provides advice from seasoned flu reporters (whose ranks are thinning) to help those learning the beat on-the-go with H1N1.

The advice and other resources are broken down into topics in the left-hand sidebar. You’ll find everything from science explainers to ideas for local angles on pandemic flu to tips on keeping your newsroom flu free.

Check it out. If you’re chronically busy and on deadline, there’s no need to read it all at once — it’s easy to scan it for one or two choice pages at a time.

Friedhoff notes that if you’d like to contribute an article to the guide, or if you have other suggestions, you can contact her at stefanie_friedhoff[at]harvard[dot]edu.

Screenshot of Google Flu Trends taken on 7 December 2009

If you’re looking for a map of H1N1 cases across the US, you have several choices — each one with caveats because the data on H1N1 cases aren’t straightforward. In fact, there are no precise data on H1N1 specifically — only best estimates of “influenza-like illness,” which includes both H1N1 and seasonal flu. (The CDC aggregates several data streams to come up with its estimated flu numbers.) This limitation is reflected on all the maps: each one tracks influenza in general — not swine flu in particular — and is based on estimated numbers.

CDC offers FluView, which tracks “influenza activity” and generally has a time lag of a week or two. NPR, also using CDC data, recently created another map of national “influenza-like illness.” (Get the embed code here.) Flu.gov, in collaboration with HealthMap, offers its own best guess at general influenza levels. (For more on their data collection, see this post.) Finally, there’s Google Flu Trends, whose data might appear the most speculative: it bases its flu map on Google search data — essentially, on the number of flu-related searches.

We’ve been wondering how to assess the validity of Google Flu Trends. Google says that historical data correlate well with their Flu Trends results: “estimates based on Google search queries about flu are very closely matched to traditional flu activity indicators. Of course, past performance is no guarantee of future results.” But what about an outside opinion?

You might know Nate Silver from his blog FiveThirtyEight, which commanded a lot of attention during the 2008 election for its predictive power. Silver is a numbers lover. He made his name interpreting baseball statistics and then shifted his focus to politics. Occasionally he goes farther afield and just writes about some stats that intrigue him — as he did recently about Google Flu Trends. He seems rather bullish on it:

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to speak with a couple of engineers from Google who are working on a product known as Google Flu Trends. This is a very simple, yet elegant and important application of what might be termed predictive analytics; if there were awards given out for such things (the Jameys?), it would be a good candidate to win one.

Silver goes on to explain the advantage of Flu Trends, as he sees it, over the CDC-based maps:

The advantage of this is that whereas the CDC typically works on a 10 to 14 day lag before new flu statistics are published, the Flu Trends numbers can be turned around literally overnight. Flu Trends does not predict the future per se, so much as it “predicts the present”, as the engineers describe it.

Silver’s stamp of approval is of course no guarantee that Google Flu Trends is a perfect or even good current estimate. But, for what it’s worth, Silver offers a smart, independent opinion — which could be fodder for an interesting interview.

[ghinson / cc (usable on your site) / Flickr]

Although much of the country is still restricting the H1N1 vaccine to high-risk populations, a few areas have started offering it to everyone. For example: several counties in North Carolina and Kansas and Tennessee. Also the entire state of Alaska.

In Tuesday’s CDC briefing, a reporter asked when the vaccine would be fully available more widely:

Beth Galvin: [...] I’m Beth Galvin with Fox 5. [Can you] talk about when it may be easier for people who are healthy and not in one of these risk groups to get the vaccine? How much longer do you think they’re going to have to wait and let other people go first? And is it going to be around Christmastime? Or do you have any idea on that?

Thomas Frieden: It’s hard to predict with certainty when there will be widespread availability. We’re a lot closer to that than we were a couple weeks ago. It’s a lot of different activity in different parts of the country based on how much demand there is, how much supply there is, including how much disease there is and how well we emphasize to people, particularly with people with underlying condition, that it’s important to get protected.

If you need to keep track of how many doses of vaccine have been ordered and delivered across the country, this CDC chart is updated regularly.

KETC, the public television station in St. Louis, MO, is using social media to keep its audience informed about H1N1. Specifically, it has put a blog front and center on its H1N1 page. Dale Berenc, KETC’s director of education and community engagement, explained to me why the station is blogging and what it’s learning.
 
When the mortgage crisis began, KETC experimented with blogging as “a way to get information out to the community” during critical situations, Berenc said. The station’s mortgage-crisis blog (which is still up and running) “proved highly successful,” she told me. It generated lots of audience comments and drove traffic to KETC’s site.
 
So when swine flu emerged, Berenc said it was a no-brainer to create another blog “as part of an overall strategy to connect people to information on-air, online, and in the community.” To get started, KETC “convened a group of community organizations that have a stake in H1N1,” she explained, to solicit advice on “how to connect people to trusted resources.” The group included people from the city and county health departments, regional school districts, the United Way of Greater St. Louis, and the American Red Cross, St. Louis Area Chapter. Using their input, the station created a WordPress site and started a group blog. KETC’s web coordinator vets posts written by staff, interns, and the Red Cross.
 
Although KETC doesn’t have stats yet on the success of the H1N1 blog, Berenc assured me that the station will continue it until H1N1 is no longer an issue. She believes the H1N1 page as a whole is “a prime example of what happens when public media organizations collaborate with trusted partners — the community wins.”

HealthMap(*) is best known for its maps that track infectious diseases internationally — but it also publishes a useful blog offering weekly roundups of global H1N1 news. Think of the HealthMap blog as a concise one-stop shop for swine-flu developments around the world.

Its most recent post, for example, documents among other things H1N1 deaths of Hajj pilgrims, an eastward spread of the flu in Europe and Asia, and a study of U.S. Army personnel that suggests the 2008 seasonal-flu vaccine offers some protection against H1N1.

The blog looks like a helpful addition to the sources of international information we posted a while back. We’ve included it in our list of international resources on our “Reporter and Program Resources” page.

(*)The HealthMap maps use a variety of data streams “of varying reliability, ranging from news sources (such as Google News) to curated personal accounts (such as ProMED) to validated official alerts (such as World Health Organization).” You’d have to do your own analysis to judge the accuracy of the aggregated numbers, but both Flu.gov and Harvard Med School’s H1N1 iPhone app use HealthMap data. You can contact HealthMap directly at info[at]healthmap[dot]org for more information.

ECHO Minnesota, a Twin Cities based nonprofit organization that ensures people with limited English proficiency receive life-saving health and safety information, has created video, audio, print and other resources on H1N1 in multiple languages. The material is available free of charge to all public media outlets.

The PSAs and other resources are available in Amharic, Arabic, English, Hmong, Karen, Khmer (Cambodian), Laotian, Oromo, Russian, Somali, Spanish and Vietnamese.

In addition to the PSAs, ECHO Minnesota has made available a comprehensive 20-minute video program in seven languages. The video provides information about symptoms, vaccines, risk factors, care suggestions and common misperceptions.

The audio, video and written material, produced in partnership with Twin Cities Public Television and the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH), is available in website and broadcast versions. The ECHO Minnesota H1N1 page is here, and it includes tips on how to “localize” the resources for your particular audience.

Additional information is available from Executive Director Lillian McDonald at 651.789.4342 and McDonald@echominnesota.org.

Facebook is the most popular social network in the United States, and according to a recent survey, nearly half of pubic media audiences are using the service. Many stations have already created Facebook profiles and are connecting with their fans on the site. Facebook also offers a set of tools that makes it possible to integrate social networking features directly on your station’s website.

FluPortal has published a guide to using Facebook in your H1N1 coverage. Facebook can enhance your H1N1 reporting and online capabilities in numerous ways, from helping you crowdsource story ideas to facilitating online discussions about the pandemic. And placing your content within Facebook’s social stream can dramatically expand the reach of your H1N1 coverage.

During crisis situations, Facebook can be a vital link to your audience to communicate critical, time-sensitive information. Social media is most effective during crises when organizations have an established and active presence on websites like Facebook. The online relationships you build today will pay off when you need them most.

Whether you’re just getting started with Facebook, or looking to expand your station’s use of the service, FluPortal’s guide to using Facebook can help you assess the tools and options available.

If you’re reporting on the “voluntary hold” on GlaxoSmithKlein’s H1N1 vaccine in Canada, here’s a creative-commons photo you could use to illustrate a story. It’s free; all you have to do is credit the photographer properly.

Max Plante, an IT analyst from Quebec City, took the picture just last week. He says — though you’d have to confirm it — that this is “where the H1N1 vaccine is produced for all of Canada.”

[MaxPlante / cc (usable on your site) / Flickr]

For tips on how to find other free H1N1 photos for your site, try this post.

The FluPortal blog will be quiet over the Thanksgiving break. Check back for new posts starting Monday November 30th.

American Public Media’s Public Insight Network is leading a pubmedia charge into collaborative journalism. It taps into the wisdom of 70,000+ volunteer sources by letting them share expertise and news tips. We invited Joellen Easton, a public insight analyst for APM, to explain the Network’s usefulness for H1N1 coverage.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________

A story like H1N1 can be tricky for journalists. Sound the alarm too loudly and panic sets in. Give the issue too little attention and people don’t take the threat as seriously as they should. Even health officials are struggling with how much information is too much information. For newsrooms, that balance comes from accuracy, context, explanatory reporting, and smart sourcing. We need to know what’s happening in the schools, the workplace, and at home. We need to hear what people are experiencing and how they’re coping. And to make sure our coverage reflects the reality on the ground, we can engage our audience editorially: it’s community engagement for your station with newsroom impact.

At American Public Media and other public media newsrooms that use Public Insight Journalism, journalists are gathering insight into H1N1 community impact from listeners and readers, and incorporating new ideas and new sources suggested by the audience into reporting.

MPR News asked its Public Insight Network and listeners:

• A general query: What questions do you have about H1N1? The questions people shared with the MPR newsroom influenced the content of an H1N1 FAQ page.
• To workers: What do you know about flu-related absenteeism and other workplace concerns? A hardware store owner provided insight into the world and worries of small business in this Web commentary.
• To health care pros: Will you get a flu shot? MPR News had sources in hand for a story about health care workers planning on skipping the flu shot.
• To pharmacists: How are you coping with demand? A pharmacist shared how he is making his own Tamiflu at his pharmacy to meet demand, and MPR’s Lorna Benson broke the story.

Public insight has become a part of how the newsroom chases and tells the H1N1 story, and how it prospects for new story leads. We always ask targeted questions, but leave the door open for news tips and related leads.

One of APM’s partners, the St. Louis Beacon, asked its readers “How are you getting ready for a major flu outbreak?”, collected responses, and then reported a fresh angle on the swine flu story. Other partner newsrooms at Colorado Public Radio, SCPR, and NHPR are also collecting insight and creating H1N1 source lists.

Public Insight Journalism’s particular method of partnering with the audience involves a database of 77,000 volunteer sources, on-air and online promos, email, web questionnaires, and social media outreach, as well as dedicated journalists who comb through responses, distill insights, identify sources, and work with reporters and editors to use that insight in coverage. You can learn more about PIJ here.

Meantime, you can create a mini version of PIJ using free online survey tools. I like Google Forms because it doesn’t scream “marketing,” you can customize it, and it integrates smoothly into Google Docs for exporting responses, maintaining source lists, etc. Every form you create will have a unique link, which you can email, post on your Web site, tweet, post to your station’s Facebook fan page, and call out to on the air. (You can find tutorials for Google Docs and Google Forms online.)

However you editorially engage your community, the important thing is to listen to what people are telling you, and use their insights to guide your reporting. If you do, your stories should be richer, deeper, and more relevant.

Joellen Easton is a public insight analyst in American Public Media’s Public Insight Journalism division, where she adds mojo to Marketplace‘s reporting by engaging the Public Insight Network. She also works with news directors and public insight analysts at eight public media partner organizations around the county to help them integrate public insight into their reporting.