Welcome to Journalism Courses' special section featuring resources for journalists covering COVID-19

Since the beginning of the pandemic, the Knight Center's Journalism Courses program has benefited thousands of journalists from around the world with training and resources to help their news coverage of COVID-19. In this special section, you can find some of the resources we have offered to reporters and editors covering the pandemic, including regional briefings, self-directed courses and a webinar in multiple languages.

Special regional briefings

With support from UNESCO and funding from the World Health Organization, the Knight Center published a series of briefings written by science/health journalists who offer best practices and insights on covering COVID-19 in five different regions of the Global South: Latin America and the Caribbean, the Arab States, West Africa, Eastern Africa, and Southern Africa. In this piece, you can learn more about the briefings and access additional multilingual resources. Below, you can find individual links to each briefing:

• Latin America & the Caribbean briefing:“How journalists can avoid ‘the hype’ when covering COVID-19 developments in Latin America,” by Federico Kukso, an independent science journalist from Argentina who is a member of the board of directors of the World Federation of Science Journalists. This briefing is available in Spanish, Portuguese, and English.
• Arab States briefing: “Tips for covering COVID-19 issues in North Africa and the Middle East,” by Khalid Bencherif. This briefing is available in Arabic, French, and English.
• Southern Africa briefing: “Need and greed: Reporting on COVID-19 in Southern Africa,” by Mandi Smallhorne, a Johannesburg-based freelance science journalist who is president of the South African Science Journalists Association and vice president of the World Federation of Science Journalists. This briefing is available in English and French and will soon be available in Spanish and Portuguese.
• West Africa briefing:“Pitfalls to avoid during the COVID-19 press conferences in West Africa,” by Kossi Elom Balao, an award-winning science journalist who is community manager of the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) Global Health Crisis Reporting Forum in French, and president of the French-speaking African Science Journalists Network (RJSAF). This briefing is available in English and French and will soon be available in Spanish and Portuguese.
• Eastern Africa briefing: “Reporting on vaccination developments and low vaccination rates in Eastern Africa,” by Rosalia Omungo, an award-winning journalist who is chief executive officer of the Kenya Editors’ Guild. This briefing is available in English and French and will soon be available in Spanish and Portuguese.

Self-directed courses

The self-directed courses are based on two Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs).

In March 2021, we offered the MOOC Covering the COVID-19 vaccine: What journalists need to know, which is now available as a self-directed course in English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Russian and Guarani, and will be available in more languages soon.

In May 2020, at the very beginning of the pandemic, the Knight Center launched the MOOC Journalism in a Pandemic: Covering COVID-19 Now and in the Future, in English, Spanish, Portuguese and French. The course attracted nearly 9,000 students from 162 countries. The pedagogical materials from the MOOC were later repurposed into a self-directed course available now in eight languages: Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Hindi, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish. You can access these self-directed courses for free at any time.

This project was made possible thanks to support from the Knight Foundation, UNESCO, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the World Health Organization (WHO). UNESCO played a critical role in the creation and translation of the Arabic, Chinese, Hindi, and Russian self-directed courses, and these courses were supported by the European Union as well.

Webinar

In January 2021, at the very beginning of the global vaccination campaigns, the Knight Center's Journalism Courses program launched yet another a pioneering global initiative to help journalists cover the COVID-19 vaccines: a live webinar titled: "Covering the COVID-19 Vaccines: What Journalists Need to Know."

The webinar was held in five languages and organized by the Knight Center, in partnership with UNESCO and the World Health Organization and with funding from the European Union. It offered up best practices for journalists covering the vaccines, with a focus on vaccine distribution and the science behind the vaccines.

If you missed the live webinar or if you want to check it out again, the recording is now available in 13 languages: Arabic, Bambara, Chinese, Dari, English, French, Guarani, Hindi, Pashto, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish and Wolof, and you can see all of the recordings here.

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We encourage you to take the 2020 self-directed course, "Journalism in a Pandemic: Covering COVID-19 Now and in the Future," in one of these eight languages: