Dear Reader,

The best reporters know what they don't know. As Julie Mack tackled the coronavirus in Michigan, that was a lot.

“Am I a health expert? Not at all,” Mack said. “I’ve really had to educate myself very fast about the coronavirus.”

When Mack got put on the beat, she immediately did two things – read everything she could get her hands on, from mainstream media to medical studies, and build a list of expert sources.

She started with two of Michigan’s strengths: Excellent hospital systems and universities.

“The first day I covered coronavirus, I think I emailed all of them,” Mack said. “You read a diverse set of sources, and then you’re talking to experts. ‘I read this, what do you think of that?’ Within the first week, I had developed a pretty long list of people I was talking to.”

🎧 To listen to the podcast version of this column, click here: Behind the Headlines: Reporting on the Data of Coronavirus

Mack waded through the unknowns about the spread of coronavirus to find trends, probable causes, and provide analysis to our readers. Back in March, the focus in Michigan was on stopping a runaway train.

“I’m talking to doctors in Detroit, and it was scary. The (case) numbers were literally doubling every three days. Within a short period … Detroit went to being as bad as any place in the country,” Mack said. “Doctors, through their tears, were trying to describe how awful it was. I asked one doctor, how are you feeling right now? And she said, ‘I feel like the sky is falling in.’”

Mack wrote insightful stories about why Michigan became the hotspot it did, while neighboring Ohio didn’t see the coronavirus spread as viciously. As cases peaked and then tapered in our state, she then began writing about mitigation strategies, such as the public health and political debates on reopening the state, and the health benefits of wearing masks.

In all of her reporting, she works hard to separate the unknowns from the knowns, and label them clearly.

“At the very beginning, experts told me the problem with mitigation strategies is that, if they work, people are going to complain,” Mack said. “If you keep the cases down low enough, people are going to say ‘Why did we do this, this was a waste.’ I didn’t realize how true this would be.”

Again, when in doubt Mack seeks expert sources. And she urges readers to do the same. For instance, she said, “If you think masks are stupid or masks are unimportant, who is the most credible person making that point, and what are their credentials?”

As cases drop, the unknowns shift to some larger topics, such as how Michigan’s aggressive response in shutting down and enforcing stay-at-home orders affect long-term economic outcomes.

“There are states that opened fast, and now they are surging. We’re reopening from a much lower number base,” she said. “That is going to help us this summer. Economically, it could actually be beneficial to Michigan – but maybe not. We don’t know.”

Among all the unknowns, Mack knows one thing for sure: What topic she’ll be covering tomorrow.

“I’ve been a reporter for more than 40 years, and this is the first time where I’ve had a story where for two months it’s the only subject that I wrote about, and I was writing stories every single day about the same thing, over and over.”

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