Journalist shares struggle with covid-19—and a warning - Entrepreneur Generations

Jennifer P. Brown

The coronavirus pandemic hit unexpectedly close to home recently for Jennifer P. Brown, founder and editor of digital startup The Hoptown Chronicle in Hopkinsville, Kentucky.

Brown, the programming co-chair of the Institute for Rural Journalism's national advisory board, writes that she tested positive for covid-19 in July even though she took every precaution.

She had good reason to avoid getting infected: "I was motivated to avoid an illness that could put me in the hospital and maybe on a ventilator. I am 58 years old, the same age my mother was when she died on a ventilator. That awful fate didn’t seem like a remote possibility to me," Brown writes for the Chronicle. But she tested positive in early July after feeling exhausted for days.

The fatigue and brain fog were her worst symptoms, though she writes that she was also more sensitive to heat and humidity, and it took her much longer to feel back to normal than she expected. She notes that covid-19 doesn't always present with the classic symptoms; she only ran a fever for one night and never had the extreme respiratory distress many patients report.

"I’m writing about this now because it’s important to know that the coronavirus can reach almost anyone — including people who try hard to avoid it. Also, it seems odd for me to keep writing news stories about all the ways the pandemic is affecting my hometown without acknowledging that it has also affected me," Brown writes. "In community journalism, there are fewer degrees of separation between reporters and the stories they cover than there are in large media markets. Often it feels like there are zero degrees of separation, especially when the news happens to a reporter."

Brown writes that, for example, the Christian County Health Department and the Jennie Stuart Medical Center are both major information sources about the local impact of the pandemic for the Chronicle, but both also provided care and information to Brown while she was sick.

She shares other examples where her dual identities as a journalist and as a covid-19 patient (or potential patient) gave her conflicting perspectives on local health providers and agencies, public policy, and personal freedom. Read more here.

from The Rural Blog https://ift.tt/2XZfSrh Journalist shares struggle with covid-19—and a warning - Entrepreneur Generations

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