To me, the big thing that feels missing is a clear sense of what, concretely, individuals can do about global health and foreign aid. There’s so much (often depressing) news right now, and I think journalism tends to cover global health and foreign aid as distant problems that feel hard to relate to. From my experience, what motivates people is the sense of connection: knowing that their actions can actually make a real difference to people. I think it helps to frame this more as a shared societal problem — things that anyone could face if they were in that situation — and to be clear about the fact that people really can help, and exactly how they can do that. (Maybe I should shout out my recent blogpost on why I decided to sign up to the 10% pledge and where I donated to.) But that feels like it’s missing to me.
What gaps do you see in the mainstream media’s coverage of global health in this moment, and what would you like to see more of?
To me, the big thing that feels missing is a clear sense of what, concretely, individuals can do about global health and foreign aid. There’s so much (often depressing) news right now, and I think journalism tends to cover global health and foreign aid as distant problems that feel hard to relate to. From my experience, what motivates people is the sense of connection: knowing that their actions can actually make a real difference to people. I think it helps to frame this more as a shared societal problem — things that anyone could face if they were in that situation — and to be clear about the fact that people really can help, and exactly how they can do that. (Maybe I should shout out my recent blogpost on why I decided to sign up to the 10% pledge and where I donated to.) But that feels like it’s missing to me.