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There's a real tension between the imperative to move fast and go big in a crisis, and one of the most common ways that the media holds the government accountable, and it's showing up a lot this year.
In the summer, it was PPP-shaming: focusing on the companies who got government money who seem like they shouldn't have, as @GrahamDavidA writes: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/07/ppp-naming-and-shaming-is-why-we-cant-have-nice-things/613894/
It's showing up again with vaccines: the broader the priority categories get, the more likely it is that we aren't going in perfect order of need. There are already stories about seeming unfairness in the criteria ("Young smokers can get the vaccine early!")
All of this is the classic stuff of watchdog journalism: government program goofs in a way that will make you, the reader, angry! Or the other version: government program too slow to get help to those who need it!
I hope we can acknowledge the tension. Macro policy stories often acknowledge the tradeoff between fast and targeting. Watchdog journalism should too, and not just by giving the program's defenders a perfunctory quote.
To be more specific about what I mean, there are lots and lots of stories about whether specific prioritization criteria are fair, like this one: https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/dc-politics/dc-vaccine-overweight-smokers/2021/01/20/bd6cb53c-5a74-11eb-a976-bad6431e03e2_story.html It's a good story! But this coverage rarely interrogates, even briefly, if perfect fairness is the goal.
And that can totally be done within standard journalistic conventions. "Experts and ethicists are still debating whether categories like these are necessary for equitable distribution or hampering the effort," blah blah blah quote, transition, -30-
Last thought: this doesn't weaken watchdog journalism, it strengthens it. No piece of reportage has ever been worse for acknowledging and engaging with complexity!
