The unprecedented upheavals to daily life caused by the myriad uncertainties inherent in Covid-19 have triggered torrents of confusion, discriminatory behavior, bigotry and selfishness everywhere.

These deplorable trends are being magnified by the politics injected by leaders in many countries, including the United States, who are trying to look like grand wartime statesmen but are being mean-spirited posers instead.

Their pretentious behavior, including that of President Donald Trump, is facilitating rumors, misinformation and conspiracy theories designed to shove the blame on to others for their own muddled decisions.

Journalists in all democracies but especially in the US are greasing the wheels of confusion, political division and blame games.

This is understandable to some extent in light of the demands of 24/7 news at a time when entire populations are under acute stress from existential threats like loss of livelihoods and live-or-die risks to health.

But the unprecedented fog of this pandemic should convince journalists to take a hard look in the mirror to acknowledge their flaws, gather their courage and adjust their performance. They, too, must be answerable.

Even-handed and truth-seeking journalism is ever more necessary to confront the simmering cauldron of ambitions and beggar-thy-neighbor behavior of political leaders. If it comes to a boil, relations among people within and among countries could worsen irretrievably.

The world is no longer as it was before Covid-19. The distressing months ahead will impose dire choices between saving lives and the massive social and economic costs of moving forward.

The witches’ brew of turmoil and change caused by this microscopic scourge will aggravate the harms of recent years when journalists hemorrhaged public trust.

Journalists are the time-honored first chroniclers of cataclysms like wars and mass tragedies. The future value to people of our profession depends on how we perform during and after the heroic combat with this zombie virus, which uses human hosts to come to life for a lethal mission of destroying them.

Fear and helplessness have forced people to see governments as saviors and accept heavy-handed measures for protection. But their current rush to devour the reporting of journalists does not signal new trust in our profession. That has not yet been earned.

Regaining public trust will require a new kind of journalism, of which Covid-19 is an incubator and accelerator. People in democracies tend to disdain journalists for elitism, cozying up to politicians and failing to hold institutions to account.

Now, journalists will have to find new resources of mind and heart to avoid becoming apologists of reduced civil liberties, unreliable health protection and economic inequity.

Winning public hearts and minds in the Covid-19 world will necessitate journalists who are much closer to people’s lives and bolder in challenging rulers and corporate titans.

The choice is between exploiting people’s anxiety for media profits or narrating without fear or favor the harrowing human experiences of this peril and the subsequent exhilaration of rebuilding life.

Journalists will have to step ahead of the turmoil to carve a new long-term space of public trust. Risks are increasing because Covid-19 is being used to mask assaults on people’s confidence in democratic systems of government. The ominous corollary is less freedom of the press.

Hungary, a European Union member, has already declared an emergency law that would jail journalists deemed to publish “falsehoods” about government measures against Covid-19. Muzzling of government mistakes, albeit more discreet, has also arrived in other democracies, including the US, Europe and India.

It is a mistake to see Covid-19 as only a scientific and medical concern. It is also a political hammer humbling presidents. Trump may be ousted in the November 2020 elections if he fails the pandemic’s attack.

China’s Xi Jinping could risk his legacy and be discredited around the world if he used his dictatorial powers to hide the damage Covid-19 caused to his people.

The European Union is in such profound disarray over Covid-19 that it could be unraveled. Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte of Italy, a founding EU member, complained recently, “If Europe does not show itself to be up to this task, the whole European project risks losing its raison d’être in the eyes of our own citizens.”

Fear is driving people into the arms of governments. That places freedom in jeopardy. It also puts journalists on the front line in democracies because protecting people’s freedoms is their core responsibility.

The challenges and opportunities for journalists arise from the changes Covid-19 is imposing on every inch of our lives. It will alter how we think about who we are, how we work, how we relate to others, how we are governed, how we entertain ourselves and how we travel. It is sharply disrupting social and economic life.

Its distinguishing feature is the burden on each person to accept constraints to protect the health of the collectivity, including family, community, nation and world.

Journalists have vital roles in ensuring that the constraints do not violate human rights.

Stuck at home, people are gaining increased familiarity with how interesting digital technologies can be. Their attraction for consumers will be unbeatable with faster broadband connections using 5G and later technologies.

Navigating the digital world of Covid-19 will demand a lot of iconoclasm and much better training for journalists especially in maintaining close proximity to individuals, families and local communities.

Journalists will have to feel what the people feel and ensure that politicians and business leaders give respect to people’s voices especially in democracies. The intellectual aloofness often prized by traditional journalists as objectivity will have to come with empathy.

In addition to filtering information from top to down, as in the past, they will have to filter from bottom to top. The beneficial capacity of digital technologies cannot be fully used without filtering upwards from below.

Traditionally, print, radio and television have worked in silos each staffed by journalists with specific skill sets. The Covid-19 journalist will have to be skilled in all three domains to build interesting stories through creative use of technologies, without descending into entertainment or compromising accuracy.

To produce captivating content for digital platforms will require critical thinking minds rooted in artistic hearts filled with curiosity about how people live every day.

The variety and depth of opportunities open a bonanza for high quality journalism but they are also a quicksand if journalists cling to the ways their profession was practiced before Covid-19.

Image by Gordon Johnson from Piabay