“We Write to Dismantle Prejudices, Myths and Lies”: The Role of Journalists in the COVID-19 Vaccination Campaign in Romania

Abstract

ABSTRACT In Romania, an important role in the dissemination of scientific information, decisive for increasing confidence in the vaccination against COVID-19, was played not only by official communication,, but also by media professionals who covered this subject extensively. The present research analyses the opinions of 33 Romanian journalists, from the national and local press, aiming to find out their professional attitude regarding the vaccination campaign. The opinions were collected through the structured interview, applied through electronic communication channels, between February 20, 2021 and March 1, 2021. Several research questions were the basis of this article: how professional journalists understand the role of the press in a pandemic crisis, in which disinformation, fake news, and deceptive information, decreased trust in vaccination; how journalists relate to the state of balance and what they consider to be the role of the journalistic act, also in relation to the authorities. The most important result of this study is that many of the interviewed journalists believe that, in the context of the national and global health crisis, the correct information is based on scientific evidence and the coverage of official communication, with the role of professional journalism being to combat misinformation, pseudoscience, conspiracies, and fake news.