How Should Scientists Speak During a Crisis?
When the COVID-19 pandemic arrived in the United States in spring 2020, political leaders, state officials, and media pundits struggled to explain what was happening and how members of the public could protect themselves from this deadly disease. There was widespread misunderstanding of the scientific method among the American public, and recommendations from government officials were muddled and sometimes contradictory. While hindsight is always 20/20, how scientists communicate in a crisis—and how the public receives that information—can be a matter of life and death.
To remedy that, Christopher Reddy, senior scientist in the Department of Marine Chemistry and Geochemistry at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, and faculty member of the institution’s joint oceanography program with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, wrote a book called Science Communication in a Crisis: An Insider’s Guide. He recently spoke with YES! Racial Justice Editor Sonali Kolhatkar on Rising Up With Sonali about navigating these essential but complex communications during a crisis.
The views expressed here and on Rising Up With Sonali do not necessarily reflect the opinion of YES! Media.
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Sonali Kolhatkar
joined YES! in summer 2021, building on a long and decorated career in broadcast and print journalism. She is an award-winning multimedia journalist, and host and creator of YES! Presents: Rising Up with Sonali, a nationally syndicated television and radio program airing on Free Speech TV and dozens of independent and community radio stations. She is also Senior Correspondent with the Independent Media Institute’s Economy for All project where she writes a weekly column. She is the author of Rising Up: The Power of Narrative in Pursuing Racial Justice (2023) and Bleeding Afghanistan: Washington, Warlords, and the Propaganda of Silence (2005). Her forthcoming book is called Talking About Abolition (Seven Stories Press, 2025). Sonali is co-director of the nonprofit group, Afghan Women’s Mission which she helped to co-found in 2000. She has a Master’s in Astronomy from the University of Hawai’i, and two undergraduate degrees in Physics and Astronomy from the University of Texas at Austin. Sonali reflects on “My Journey From Astrophysicist to Radio Host” in her 2014 TEDx talk of the same name.
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