Trump, Trump, Trump.
There’s a predictable thump-thump-Trump rhythm to the questions that come at Dr. Jerome Adams, especially if he’s talking to national media in the midst of this pandemic that is showing no signs of ending. Reporters love to ask Adams, who served as Trump’s surgeon general, about his former boss.
“People ask me all the time (about) how much of an impact it would make if Trump were more vocal about vaccines,” said Adams, who’s been active on Twitter and has conducted a steady stream of interviews since leaving his post when President Biden took office. “I think, ‘Gosh, how much of an impact would it make if LeBron James were more vocal about vaccines, considering African Americans are one of the least vaccinated groups in the country?’”
There’s a bit of sidestepping spin in Adams’ words – although we should note that in a telephone interview with him last month, we didn’t actually ask Adams whether the former president should be more publicly supportive of the vaccines developed during the Trump administration. Adams brought up that point himself to address a larger topic, which is the focus of this week’s Pandemic Lessons: how to focus on the messages that matter by thinking local.
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Whether it’s a former president, an NBA star or a highly visible health official like Adams, what makes an influencer’s words matter?
In a word: Connection, although what makes you trustworthy to some people may have the opposite effect on others.
Adams taps into his medical expertise – he’s an anesthesiologist and was Indiana’s top public health official before becoming surgeon general in 2017 – and also speaks as a parent navigating the pandemic. (He has three school-age kids.) A few days ago, he tweeted about a school that was adjusting its Covid-19 protocols to include an indoor masking policy as cases rise. “Not going to name this school, but kudos to them for adjusting as their data emerged,” Adams tweeted. “And to those schools that start after Labor Day, perhaps you should learn from the experiences of others – 'hope for the best’ when others have shown you it’s not likely, isn’t a strategy.”
Politics is part of Adams’ connection too, but the results can be mixed. “There are people who will listen to me because I was appointed by President Trump,” Adams said. “Conversely, there are people who will never listen to anything that I say, because I was appointed by President Trump.”
This is where we differentiate between influencers. Politicians and policymakers have actual power over people, which guarantees a certain amount of pushback from detractors who disagree with their decisions. But athletes and entertainers have no actual authority over the average person. They only have the influence that comes from celebrity, which is derived from doing work that excites and inspires people. “We absolutely need to make sure we're answering athletes’ questions, because they're real people too,” Adams said, “but then help them leverage their bully pulpit to encourage their fans, and the people who look up to them, to stay healthy.”
But how much influence do influencers really have?
It’s limited.
Celebrities can put an idea in your head, but what you do with it is more likely influenced by the people in your daily life. Think about a simple scenario like climbing into the backseat of an Uber. What’s more likely to make you click into a seat belt: A public service announcement from a celebrity who encourages buckling up, or the people sitting next to you actually doing it?
“You’re more likely to take action by seeing somebody take the same action than by seeing a celebrity take action,” said Dr. René F. Najera, an epidemiologist and editor of the online History of Vaccines project at the College of Physicians of Philadelphia.
“Even though a business might not require a mask,” Najera said, “if a lot of people in there are wearing masks, people are more likely to throw on a mask themselves.”
This critical mass effect is true of safety measures of all types, from seat belts to vaccines to helmets. “We want to be part of the crowd,” Najera told The News in an interview last spring, shortly after he helped conduct a series of focus groups with Latino residents in the Washington, D.C., area who were largely vaccine hesitant until their family and friends started getting the shots. “For the most part,” Najera said, “we don’t want to stand out.”
How does this dynamic play out when the influencers are political figures?
It’s trickier, because the inherent divisiveness tends to emerge. As surgeon general, Adams traveled the country with Dr. Deborah Birx, who coordinated the White House coronavirus response. Talking about Covid safety, they adopted a “take it local and make it local” approach.
“We would say, ‘Here’s what's going on in Boise, Idaho. Here are your numbers. Here’s the curve. Here’s what you need to understand. Here's where you can go and get tested in your community,’” Adams said. “I found that that helps depoliticize the situation quite a bit.”
Delivering local insights didn’t necessarily limit reporters’ questions, however. Although Adams found regional newspapers and broadcast outlets tended to be “attuned to the local needs and the local situations,” journalists from wire services or who were freelancing for national outfits “were the ones who would come at you with a political question, and they were trying to frame it in that national sense.”
Is it bad form to ask political questions?
Not necessarily, although it’s helpful to recognize the difference between soundbites and substance. Though Adams was a political appointee, he’s not actually a politician. He’s a doctor and a public health official, which makes policy – not actual politics – his expertise. In our interview, for example, he was critical of states that have banned mask mandates in schools. “To me, that’s just insanity,” Adams said, noting that children who are at increased risk of bad outcomes from Covid – those who have cancer, type 1 diabetes or asthma, for example – have “as much of a right to go to school and feel like they’re not being endangered, as any other child has a right to go to school and feel like they don’t have to wear masks.”
Agree or disagree with his position, Adams’ perspective is rooted in real policy experience and medical authority – and that has value.
How should the media responsibly manage its own coverage?
We took this question to Julie Pace, the Amherst native who was just promoted to executive editor of the Associated Press, a job that puts her in charge of journalists who are local, national and international, and who are covering every major story on the planet.
Her response: Look at each story from multiple angles. To illustrate her point, Pace referenced the Sept. 1 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court not to block Texas’ new law that essentially bans abortions after six weeks of pregnancy. “That is a legal story, it is a health story, it is a politics story, and so we’re going to cover it from all of those angles,” Pace said. “My emphasis is to not oversimplify it. Don’t make that story just a political story. Don’t make it just a court story. It’s also a health story. It’s an access story. It’s an inequality story too…
“Look for the different layers of a story. Tell a story through a bunch of different lenses.”
Let’s look at New York. Almost immediately after taking office in late August, Gov. Kathy Hochul mandated masking in K-12 schools and pushed for vaccination-or-testing requirements for teachers and staff. That’s a strict approach, but her style is warmer than former Gov. Andrew Cuomo's, and she arrives in the job with far fewer political foes and little to no controversy around her. How might that impact the way people react to the rules she’s enacting?
It’s too soon to speak with certainty, but Hochul’s style likely helps. She doesn’t incite nearly the anger or resentment that Cuomo did (and still does), and social science research indicates that “competence and care are two of the most fundamental factors that determine how much people trust public officials,” said Janet Yang, a University at Buffalo professor who specializes in science, health, environmental and risk communication.
“The warm, personable communication style of Gov. Hochul certainly conveys a sense of care and benevolence towards her constituency, which will foster trust,” Yang said. “Trust, especially during crises, plays a critical role in influencing people’s risk perception and preventive behaviors.”
The lack of scandal or controversy surrounding Hochul “is also helpful,” Yang added, “because it will keep the media and the public more focused on her job performance, instead of unnecessary distraction and noise.”
That’s New York, for now. What will it take to quiet that noise nationally?
A shift in dynamic that’s not likely to come anytime soon.
With midterm elections coming up in a year, Adams acknowledges that he doesn’t “have much hope … that we’re going to get much better in terms of national political camaraderie.”
Instead, he’s leaning into hopes for sound local decision making. Adams said, “I do think that locally, people understand, ‘Hey, we want to stay open, we want to get our kids to school, and the way we do that is by working together.’ ”
