While the CDC fact sheet is more digestible than its WHO counterpart, it uses some high caliber/medical words difficult for the average reader to understand. In contrast to the WHO fact sheet, it is US-centered (as it is a CDC factsheet) and more so details ways for American travelers to avoid contact with the disease. However, it also does give details on symptoms, transmission, diagnosis, treatment, and prevention, in albeit a more readable and compact format and lingo than the WHO factsheet. Source

This nightly news clip brings up the topic of Ebola. “It’s been raging in Africa,” a stoic Brian Williams tells the camera. He describes a recent Pentagon announcement about US healthcare workers and soldiers being sent to help deal with the crisis. Then, we are taken to a medical reporter in Liberia. Her voiceover starts, “Dying of Ebola is a brutal process, and for this man, a lonely one,” as footage of a dying man alone on a street plays. She explains that fearful of contracting the virus, citizens leave the sick alone on the streets until they are dead. Another victim is shown, this time a 17-year-old girl in a wheelbarrow left outside the hospital. She attempts to run away, but her mother catches her and takes her back; both of them are then admitted. The reporter follows these two throughout the hospital after donning protective clothing when the clinic’s staff “invite [her] into a place that is off-limits to most outsiders.” Perhaps this is meant to demonstrate NBC’s prowess as an exclusive source. Later in the video, the voiceover says the local doctors “are fighting a war against a deadly and unpredictable enemy”. She interviews one of the staff members who passionately exclaims that Ebola “is a disease that is beyond boundaries…it is a disease that comes to kill!” The video ends with that interview clip and a close up of the sick 17-year-old girl. This video is certainly meant to pull heartstrings and be emotionally driven with its personal examples of victims and passionate interview clips, and while it helps draw attention to the issue in West Africa, like the previous video, in some ways it contributes to the media scare. Source

Wikipedia is infamously the “encyclopedia that anyone can edit” source. Because of this, it is often viewed as a lesser information source than its more traditional academic counterparts. However, during the Ebola outbreak of 2014, Wikipedia emerged as an extremely powerful resource for the common person on the illness. At its height, Wikipedia’s page for the Ebola virus disease (in the English language) matched the web traffic of both the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s page on Ebola and the World Health organization’s Ebola Fact Sheet, and it was the top result on Google for searches on Ebola. source Despite skepticism, Wikipedia actually became a reliable information pool for English-speaking westerners trying to learn more about the biggest worldwide health concern at the time. It did this by tweaking its motto a bit; apparently, large, highly viewed articles such as the Ebola Virus Disease cannot be edited by anyone. There is a group of professionals called WikiProject Medicine who monitor the most important public health articles on Wikipedia such as Ebola. This group made sure that the Ebola Wikipedia page had accurate and up-to-date information and discluded and dispelled rumors about the disease such as its ability to be transmitted through air.  Wikipedia is infamously the “encyclopedia that anyone can edit” source. Because of this, it is often viewed as a lesser information source than its more traditional academic counterparts. However, during the Ebola outbreak of 2014, Wikipedia emerged as an extremely powerful resource for the common person on the illness. At its height, Wikipedia’s page for the Ebola virus disease (in the English language) matched the web traffic of both the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s page on Ebola and the World Health organization’s Ebola Fact Sheet, and it was the top result on Google for searches on Ebola. source Despite skepticism, Wikipedia actually became a reliable information pool for English-speaking westerners trying to learn more about the biggest worldwide health concern at the time. It did this by tweaking its motto a bit; apparently, large, highly viewed articles such as the Ebola Virus Disease cannot be edited by anyone. There is a group of professionals called WikiProject Medicine who monitor the most important public health articles on Wikipedia such as Ebola. This group made sure that the Ebola Wikipedia page had accurate and up-to-date information and discluded and dispelled rumors about the disease such as its ability to be transmitted through air.

All of this is explored in the New York Times article. It is certainly interesting, as it draws attention to the fact that a site that everyone uses and probably a lot of people used to find information about Ebola is (in contrast to public opinion) actually accurate and peer-reviewed by professionals. Although the article does not give very much information about the Ebola virus itself, it draws on an interesting theme from the crisis: misinformation was rampant and most westerners relied on the internet and familiar big-name websites such as Wikipedia for most of their information about the virus, and while this could have been problematic, Wikipedia made the best of it and produced and distributed accurate information thus emerging as an important player in the world health scene. The New York Times article looks at this with a seemingly straightforward view, common to newspaper articles. Source

This Washington Post article from July was at the beginning of the media scare surrounding Ebola. It details how several countries are dealing with the spread of Ebola. The article starts off with explaining the first “confirmed instance of the virus traveling by air”. Source Next, it takes a moment to briefly explain Ebola, saying it is a virus “transmitted through contact with the bodily fluids of an infected person– is incurable, and it can kill up to 90% of those who contracted” source After these buzzer facts that may be seen as frightening and therefore emotionally driven, the article reminds that generally, healthcare workers and other people in direct contact with Ebola infected patients are at the greatest risk for infection and “the risk of infection for travelers is very low”. Source Then, the article details how Guinea, Hong Kong, Britain, and the US are taking precautions to avoid outbreaks in their respective countries. The article in hindsight does read a bit sensationalist, not because of inaccurate information, but because of its focus on tension and panic concerning the virus around the world. However, because it is an article, it is easier for the reader to project his/her own feelings into it, in contrast to spoken media formats such as podcasts or television news whose reporters’ voices (whether they are calm, serious, concerned, etc.) contribute greatly to the viewer’s perception. Source

Sources:

1. Alimonti, Judie, Anders Leung, Shane Jones, Jason Gren, Xiangguo Qiu, Lisa Fernando, Brittany Balcewich, Gary Wong, Ute Ströher, Allen Grolla, James Strong, and Gary Kobinger. “Evaluation of transmission risks associated with in vivo replication of several high containment pathogens in a biosafety level 4 laboratory.” Scientific Reports 4, no. 1 (2014). doi:10.1038/srep05824.
2. Berry, Emily Lea. “Ebola Virus 2014: Timeline of the World’s Largest Outbreak.” Medscape. December 23, 2014. Accessed October 06, 2017. http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/836512.
3. “Britain to award medals to over 3,000 Ebola fighters.” EconomyLead. June 12, 2015. Accessed October 06, 2017. http://www.economylead.com/international/britain-to-award-medals-to-over-3000-ebola-fighters-77046.
4. Cohen, Noam. “Wikipedia Emerges as Trusted Internet Source for Ebola Information.” The New York Times. October 26, 2014. Accessed October 06, 2017. https://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/27/business/media/wikipedia-is-emerging-as-trusted-internet-source-for-information-on-ebola-.html?rref=collection%2Ftimestopic%2FEbola&action=click&contentCollection=timestopics®ion=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=430&pgtype=collection.
5. Dehart, Greg. “Ebola survivor Fanta Oulen Camara puts on protective gear before entering the Ebola treatment center where she now works.” Flickr. January 04, 2015. Accessed October 06, 2017. https://www.flickr.com/photos/isurvivedebola/16189694471.
6. “Ebola (Ebola Virus Disease).” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. June 22, 2016. Accessed October 06, 2017. https://www.cdc.gov/vhf/ebola/resources/infographics.html.
7. Ebola Factsheet. PDF. Center for Disease Control, August 11, 2015. https://www.cdc.gov/vhf/ebola/pdf/ebola-factsheet.pdf
8. “Ebola outbreak: Deadliest on record – BBC News.” YouTube. July 28, 2014. Accessed October 06, 2017. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKp7ZTAOdlY.
9. “Ebola virus disease.” World Health Organization. June 2017. Accessed October 06, 2017. http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs103/en.
10. “Inside An Ebola Treatment Center.” YouTube. October 01, 2014. Accessed October 06, 2017. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2p80n8LWDpM.
11. Ohlheiser, Abby. “How different parts of the world are responding to West Africa’s Ebola outbreak.” The Washington Post. July 30, 2014. Accessed October 06, 2017. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2014/07/30/how-different-parts-of-the-world-are-responding-to-west-africas-ebola-outbreak/?utm_term=.d2754074269e.
12. Ruf, Simon. “Ebola treatment unit (ETU) run by Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF).” Flickr. January 10, 2015. Accessed October 06, 2017. https://www.flickr.com/photos/unmeer/16057883668.
13. Smith, Sam. “How do we protect our Ebola fighters?” British Red Cross – Blog. March 04, 2015. Accessed October 06, 2017. http://blogs.redcross.org.uk/emergencies/2015/03/protect-ebola-fighters/.