Should we ‘publish less’ on the pandemic?

Yesterday, Neal Rothschild and Sara Fischer, of Axios, shared some troubling data from NewsWhip, a social-media analytics firm. “New coronavirus cases in the US have never been higher,” they wrote in summary, but “online interest in the pandemic has never been lower.” In the last two weeks, news stories about covid-19 saw their lowest level of engagement on social media (likes, shares, and so forth) since early March, when interest in the pandemic was on an upward trajectory. That’s not...