President-elect Donald Trump’s controversial nomination of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as United States health secretary presents new challenges for how media will report on health matters. Kennedy is an anti-vaccine activist and believes in various conspiracies about the COVID-19 pandemic. His nomination landed with a thud among health experts and the mainstream media.
This appointment, coupled with Trump’s frequent complaints about a liberal bias in the mainstream media that he claims exaggerate and distort the world around us, will make it difficult for media trying to maintain credibility when reporting health news. The pandemic provides a good place to draw some lessons.
