• An Ebola Quarantine Triggers a Riot in a Liberian Slum: This breaking news report was an example of covering a pivotal moment in the unfolding outbreak under a tight deadline. Our team comprised the only staff journalists of a major U.S. media outlet present to witness the riot. And I’m proud that in the midst of considerable time pressure and physical danger, I was able to pack in considerable reporting—interviewing people in the quarantined zone, tracking down officials responsible for the measures that led up to the riot, and following up on the likely aftermath. As I crafted the segment, I also made a point of explaining the larger context of public health policies that were imposing significant hardship.
• Why Patients Aren’t Coming to Liberia’s Redemption Hospital: This piece demonstrated both the larger public health impact of the outbreak—people with diseases other than Ebola were staying away from hospitals—as well as the reasons hospitals were becoming such hotspots of transmission. The story included the kind of scenes, playing out in real time, that can only be captured by reporting on the ground, and that make the case more compellingly than any statement issued by an official: A mother was discovered to be hiding the fact that the child she had just brought in probably had Ebola. And the corpse of a man who died, most likely of Ebola, was carried past the pediatric room with minimal effort at infection control.
• They Are The Body Collectors: A Perilous Job In The Time of Ebola: Though the outbreak had been bubbling for some time, the spread of the disease to such a populous urban hub was without precedent. Through a straightforward, sober account of what was fast becoming a commonplace ritual in Monrovia—the arrival of a body collection team to remove the latest Ebola victim from a neighborhood—this story drove home this new and deadly twist in the public health threat. The story was shared widely across social media. Sources in the White House told NPR that it was a must-listen there. And colleagues responsible for coverage decisions at another major media organization told me that hearing it prompted editors there to substantially expand their own coverage of the epidemic.
• A Deadly Chain: Tracing Ebola In A Sierra Leone Village: At the time the situation in Liberia had vastly improved, and many in the United States were under the impression that the outbreak had largely been contained. Yet Sierra Leone was experiencing a sudden surge of infections in its capital and areas to the North. This story aimed to highlight this unfortunate development and explained the dynamic driving it. Just as importantly, the story put the lie to claims by international organizations that makeshift “community care” centers then being erected were an adequate substitute for the lack of proper treatment facilities. Instead, one such facility was at risk of transmitting it by mixing people who likely did not have the disease with those who clearly did. Most poignantly, the piece includes an interview with a woman who was becoming increasingly sick. Two days after I spoke with her, she died.