International concern about the spread of Ebola has reached the USF St. Petersburg, which canceled the visit of 14 African journalists two weeks before their scheduled arrival.
The journalists, including two from countries that have been hit hard by the deadly virus, were coming for a five-day stay as part of the U.S. State Department’s Edward R. Murrow Program.
The university called off the visit Friday because of concerns about transmission of the virus, “which has proved fatal for more than 50 percent of the people who have been infected,” Han Reichgelt, the regional vice-chancellor for academic affairs, said in a letter to faculty, staff and students in the Department of Journalism and Media Studies. (See beneath article)
Two of the journalists who were scheduled to arrive on Oct. 31 are from Sierra Leone and Liberia, where Ebola is continuing to spread. The other journalists are from countries throughout Africa, including Botswana, Ethiopia, Ghana, Lesotho, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa, Republic of South Sudan, Swaziland, Zimbabwe and Kenya.
In an email to journalism faculty, Deni Elliott, chair of USF St. Petersburg’s Journalism and Media Studies Department, said that the decision to cancel the program was not easy.
“It may be that some folks think that the decision to cancel the program was over-reaction. It may be that some folks are relieved that they won’t be interacting with visitors who are from a region where the Ebola outbreaks are not contained or from countries that share borders with affected countries,” Elliott wrote.
USF St. Petersburg, which has hosted African journalists for the last four years, was to be one of seven universities around the country to welcome delegations that come to examine journalistic practices and principles in the United States.
“We hope that we will be able to welcome the Edward R. Murrow visiting journalists back to USFSP and St. Petersburg next year,” Reichgelt wrote.
Since it began in 2006, the Edward R. Murrow Program has brought more than 1,100 foreign journalists to the United States.
Each year, about 100 journalists gather in Washington for initial sessions, then fan out in smaller groups to journalism schools around the country for seminars and field activities.
This year the program, a public-private partnership between the U.S. State Department and seven universities, is scheduled for Oct. 27-Nov. 14.
The now-canceled visit to USFSP comes at a time of much anxiety in the U.S. Responding to polls and congressional criticism, President Barack Obama last week appointed an Ebola czar to oversee and coordinate information at the federal level.
USFSP is not the only school to cancel visitors from Africa.
A similar situation occurred at the University of Georgia in Athens when FrontPageAfrica Newsroom Editor Wade C.L. Williams, Liberian Journalist of the Year in 2013, was told at the last minute that her invitation to lecture at the university was rescinded. Williams was scheduled to give the McGill Lecture on Wednesday, according to an article in FrontPageAfrica.
“Despite my disappointment, I am not angry with the University of Georgia. They felt they could not wear the barrage of criticism that would be directed at them if they allowed a Liberian journalist who covers Ebola on their campus and on a U.S. soil,” Williams is quoted as saying. The article goes on to say that Williams partially blames misinformation in the U.S. press for causing paranoia at the university.
In another part of the country, Syracuse University “disinvited” Michel du Cille of The Washington Post, who was recently in Liberia covering the Ebola epidemic, according to an article in The Washington Post. The Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist was scheduled to participate in a journalism workshop this past weekend.
“It’s a disappointment to me,” du Cille said in the article. “I’m pissed off and embarrassed and completely weirded out that a journalism institution that should be seeking out facts and details is basically pandering to hysteria.”
Many students felt the university made the right choice.
“I’m not mad at the university for canceling it,” said Choya Randolph, a junior mass communications major.
She said that the Ebola seems serious and the university is just being cautious. She is sad that the journalists are no longer able to come, however.
“I like the international and multicultural thing, but it’s another stepping stone now, like swine flu,” said Miosotys Felipe, a freshman accounting major. “Until they have it under control, I think they did the right thing.”
According to health care authorities, Ebola is difficult to catch unless there is direct contact with body fluids—such as blood, saliva, sweat, vomit, or urine—from a person having symptoms or who has died from the disease. Health care workers, family and friends in close contact with Ebola patients have the highest risk of contracting Ebola, according to information on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) website.
The CDC’s website also says that “although coughing and sneezing are not common symptoms of Ebola, if a symptomatic patient with Ebola coughs or sneezes on someone, and saliva or mucus come into contact with that person’s eyes, nose, or mouth, these fluids may transmit the disease.”
More than 8,900 people in five western African countries have contracted Ebola; more than 4,400 people have died, according to The New York Times.
In the United States, there have been only three cases—a man who had come here from Liberia and died, and two of the nurses who cared for him at a Dallas hospital.
Regarding travel, the CDC has issued a warning that urges all United States residents to avoid non-essential travel to Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia, where Ebola is on the rise, but it does not support a travel ban to the United States from these or nearby countries. CDC Director Tom Frieden has said that it is better to screen people at airports for signs of Ebola because a travel ban could make things worse by causing people to lie and circumvent the system, according to several news sources.
The Liberian government has closed all borders except major entry points and instituted screening measures at entry points that remain open, for incoming and outgoing travelers, according to CDC’s website.
A Letter from the Regional Vice Chancellor
The following letter was provided to faculty after the announcement to cancel the Edward R. Murrow program for 2014.
To All Faculty, Staff and Students in Journalism and Media Studies,
After careful review of relevant information and thoughtful conversations, and with great sadness, the Chancellor and I have decided to cancel the visit of 14 journalists from African countries scheduled to begin two weeks from today. The visiting journalists, part of the U.S. Department of State Edward R. Murrow program, were scheduled to arrive in St. Petersburg on Oct. 31 for a five-day visit. We cancelled out of upmost caution due to concerns about transmission of Ebola virus, which has proved fatal for more than 50 percent of the people who have been infected. The CDC has declared these outbreaks of Ebola as the largest and most complex in history.
Standard risk assessment strategies take into account both the likelihood of the event occurring and the impact that the event would have, should it occur. Because of the border closings in some of the African countries, and medical surveillance and quarantines in the United States, I personally believe that the likelihood of USFSP introducing the Ebola virus into our community is extremely low. However, it is also clear that, should we do so, the impact on our stakeholders, our students, faculty, staff and the community that we are a proud member of, would be devastating, and our first responsibility has to be to our stakeholders.
Polls suggest that as many as two-thirds of Americans asked fear an Ebola epidemic. Faculty, students and staff have told us that they share this concern, and some have expressed reservations about their involvement in the program we created for our visitors. Running the program under these circumstances would have negatively impacted the positive effects that the program has had on our Murrow Visiting Journalists, our students and faculty, and our community in the past.
The Edward R. Murrow Visiting Journalists program has been a point of pride for the four years that we have hosted the program. We will miss the cultural exchange that the program offered students across campus and to members of our community, and we hope that we will be able to welcome the Edward R. Murrow visiting journalists back to USFSP and St. Petersburg next year.
With kind regards,
Han Reichgelt, Ph.D.
Regional Vice-Chancellor for Academic Affairs
Totally agree with this. People are panicked. Too bad, though.