Newsworthiness versus alarmism

When I reported that two potential measles exposures occurred at Carroll Hospital's emergency room in a span of eight days, it generated some Facebook comments pretty quickly.

Some readers were glad to see the reporting; they gave it a “Like,” shared it with others, or commented. But not everyone came down on that side of things. One reader said I was “hyping” the story, “sounding an alarm,” and that it was “silly and unnecessary.” Another said it was “Nothing but fear mongering.”

I answered most of those comments one by one, but I want to step back and talk about what was actually going on in that thread, because the disagreement goes beyond measles.

It was only a small number of people who pushed back, but I’m sure this won’t be the last time it happens, and I want to share my perspective on the news and what it means to report it.

The general theme of the objections I got was some version of "why post this and spread fear?" The reasoning was that if a story might cause unnecessary panic for some people, publishing it does more harm than good.

That instinct is understandable, but it quietly swaps two different things. Whether a story is worth reporting does not depend on whether it makes people comfortable. What really matters is whether the news is true, whether it affects people here, and whether you can act on it.

A notice that a specific hospital waiting room was a possible exposure site on a specific afternoon checks all three boxes. Discomfort and awareness are not alarmism.

Here’s another way I think about this. When I reported on the fire at a battery store in town, I did not sit here worrying that the story might make people anxious about battery explosions; I simply reported the news, just as I did when covering a bomb scare at a Westminster Sheetz and a murder-suicide on upper Main Street.

This time, the state health department issued two public alerts about our local hospital in eight days for a disease that had mostly disappeared from Maryland. It is textbook local news. Measles carries more feelings (and sometimes some politics) than other topics, but that's no reason to leave people uninformed.

It can go the other way, too. For each person asking why I posted the story, someone else could just as easily come at me from the other direction and say, “The state is seeing more measles cases than it has in years, two exposures happened at our hospital in eight days, and you didn't say a word?”

Covering the news means I have to try not to skip stories that might ruffle feathers in either direction. I had information and knowledgeable sources — from the state, county and hospital — to provide perspective. I reported the news.

When it comes to “hype” or “fear-mongering,” let’s look at what the headline actually said: "State reports second measles exposure at Carroll Hospital ER in less than two weeks." It names the state as the source and shares a plain fact with a timeframe.

A trustworthy headline often tells you who is making a claim, which invites you to weigh the source for yourself. Compare that to the kind of headline nobody actually wrote here, something like "MEASLES OUTBREAK IN WESTMINSTER." That one asserts a vague catastrophe and names no one. The first is reporting. The second is built to trigger a feeling; that’s not what I was after.

Some social media users clearly react to Westminster Wire headlines or subheadlines without ever reading the stories. But the headlines are just pointers to something more; the additional facts, sources, and context are in the articles.

Many of my replies to commenters are some form of: “Your question is answered in the article,” or “Here’s a screenshot of a section of the article where that’s explained.”

Here is a subtler thing I noticed in the Facebook discussion. The questions from some commenters drifted. They started at "Is this real news?" and slid toward "Where are these cases really coming from? Is it people who crossed the border illegally?" or said it’s “antivaxers infecting others.”

That is a move worth naming, because it happens everywhere. It is the pivot from evaluating a piece of reporting to hunting for a story that fits what someone already believes, whether it’s proven to be true or not.

The literal fact is, we only know that the first person who visited Carroll Hospital with measles was one of “five confirmed measles cases in Central Maryland residents who recently traveled together to a location in the United States experiencing an active outbreak,” and that additional information on the second person with measles to visit the hospital is not being released, “to protect the individual’s privacy.”

This is also about media literacy and our ability to judge the information in front of us, rather than just reacting to how it makes us feel. I am not going to hold back a story like this because it might make some people uneasy or because someone thinks facts might stir up some sort of hysteria.

I would rather give you the information and trust you to decide what it means for you than decide that you are better off not knowing and withhold the news.

That is really all this is. Something happened. Here is what is known. You get to decide what it means for you. I would rather you get that from an article with sources attached than from a rumor with none.

Thanks for reading and for participating. Building Westminster Wire continues to be a huge thrill for me, and I appreciate everyone’s interest.

Mike Holden, Publisher
Westminster Wire