Spotlight on: Tegan Taylor
2020 winner of the Walkley Award for Radio/Audio: News & Current Affairs with Dr Norman Swan and Will Ockenden
In some instances, Swan had a more accurate take…than maybe the government was prepared to commit to.
2020 started in a way no one could have expected: with a global pandemic. Enter “Coronacast”, a daily, 10-minute podcast providing the latest evidence on the pandemic by responding to questions from the audience. Every episode was hosted by physician and journalist Dr Norman Swan and health reporter Tegan Taylor, with production by Will Ockenden.
The daily “Coronacast” podcast was an invaluable font of reliable, calm, professional information that has helped people live their lives safely, and is a testament to Swan’s exceptional skills as a public health educator. Swan, Taylor and Ockenden worked tirelessly for months on end to cover the story with unparalleled knowledge, expertise and accuracy and remained steadfast in the face of political criticism and pressure.
We spoke with reporter Tegan Taylor about how they distilled the “firehose” of coronavirus information into a ten-minute briefing of essential info each day, how “health and science communicator” is the second-best job to “ice cream taster on Play School”, and why public interest journalist is like insurance.
Congratulations on winning a Walkley for “Coronacast”. How does it feel to be recognised by your peers for this particular piece of work?
It’s a huge honour — the Walkley is the big one in Australia. But the other thing that I’ve been really proud of is that this isn’t the typical thing that would win this category of Walkley. Rather than being a big front page splash, it’s been a slow burn all year of just trying as much as we can to respond to the questions plaguing people about coronavirus, day after day. It’s a responsibility that we haven’t taken lightly. And, of course, being recognised by our peers is also a hugely welcome thank you for the hard work we’ve put in over the course of this year.
As the pandemic was developing, what was the point when you decided ‘we should do a podcast about this and we need an eminent scientific voice behind it’?
It came together so quickly. We literally had the first meeting in February [when] we knew that there was this virus kind of happening, and that it was probably going to be problematic.
I was reporting on the thing and I certainly didn’t think it was going to turn into a global pandemic the way it has. I think I maybe naively thought that it was going to be a bit of a fizzle.
I hoped that it would be a bit of a fizzle — interesting from a scientific point of view, but not really impacting our lives the way it has — and I’m sorry to have been wrong. But I’m really not sorry that we decided to pull the trigger and start “Coronacast” when we did.
It was the brainchild of Tanya Nolan from the ABC’s audio current affairs team, and Norman Swan was the obvious choice to be the brains of the outfit, because he’s already such a trusted voice by so many Australians in the medical sphere. And I was the layperson’s proxy — even as a health reporter, you know, I’m not a doctor — so hopefully bringing the two of us together would tease out some knowledge and help people to sift through the incredible amount of information.
It was like a firehose [of info] at that time, and people were desperate for information, but on the other hand were so anxious and overwhelmed.
So the idea was that we would just have a 10 minute investment of your time each day to bring you up to speed and help you feel equipped to handle this unprecedented, truly just crazy time that we’re living in.
How did you go about distilling that firehose of information down into accurate, relevant ten minute packages each day?
The magic of this show is our producer Will Ockenden, who had a really clear vision for what he wanted the show to sound like. He wanted it to be warm and chatty, and not overwhelming — a tool to equip you. So the first few weeks of the show had quite a tight structure around the news of the day, answering audience questions, and new emerging research about what’s happening with this virus and how we can understand it better.
Even though that format has shifted a bit this year, because the energy around the pandemic has shifted, that essential brief of covering the most important news of the day, answering questions and grounding it in the latest research is still really cool and what we do.
What are some of the other impacts the podcast has had that have been important to you?
The impact of the podcast has been significant. I mean, you’d like to think that you are on the cutting edge of something, but Norman especially has had his finger on the pulse since the very beginning. He has some of Australia’s leading medical experts, epidemiologists and public health brains basically on speed dial, so he has been tapping into that knowledge and then bringing that to our audience.
I think in some instances, [Swan] had the ability to have a [more accurate] take…than maybe the government was prepared to commit to.
There were definitely instances where he was calling for compulsory face masks before it was widely accepted that aerosolised spread was a way that the virus can spread. In that sense, having someone with that expertise, who’s able to take the information that’s around, distil it and report on it without fear or favour, that’s been a real tool for the audience.
But I wanted to talk about the audience as well, because they have been an incredible part of the show and we’ve tried as much as we possibly can to have them and their questions front and centre. The ABC has had an enormous number of questions come through over the course of the pandemic — over 100,000 questions, not just to “Coronacast” but to the ABC . And they have to be sifted through.
The ABC News digital team have done an amazing job of doing that, especially Widia Jalal and Neryssa Azlan, who have been reading every single question, categorising them and helping to find themes so that we can talk to people as relevantly as possible. We absolutely would not be the same show without them.
Is it almost a user generated element, because from the torrent of questions you’ve been able to highlight the themes that people are most interested in and then work towards answering those?
Exactly. We’re led by the news and by the research but, in a really big way, by the audience as well.
What was it that made you want to get into journalism in the first place?
OK — here’s the story. I remember sitting in my very first journalism lecture in my very first semester of uni — and I know other people who’ve studied journalism and had this same line thrown at them for decades — which is ‘look to the person to the left of you, look to the person to the right of you. Only one of you will ever work as a journalist’. And I remember looking to the side of me going, ‘well, I’m not going to be it’ [laughs]. ‘I’m not going to be the one that beats the odds’ — and here I am. So that’s my story. No, basically, as soon as I got into journalism, my first job was at a daily newspaper in Ipswich, The Queensland Times.
When I realised that journalism was about meeting cool, interesting people, telling stories, and helping people understand the world around them, that just lit me up. So I’m really glad that I fell into this career.
Are there any particular stories that stand out as ones that you’re most proud of?
This year has honestly been an absolute roller coaster ride. Everyone’s been living through this pandemic as individuals, and then my colleagues and I in health and science reporting are also working through it. It’s been a wild ride, translating research as-it-happens to an audience that’s worried, while you’re worried for yourself as well.
But I do remember two years ago I did a story on the centenary of the 1918 flu pandemic, and it was a really interesting story to write. I love infectious diseases and epidemics as a theoretical thing — not so much when I’m living through one. I remember one of the interviewees saying ‘the next pandemic is not a question of if but when’, and that stuck with me. And then two years later, here we are — so it’s pretty wild to be reporting on these things that you think happened a long time ago, and then find yourself living through it as well.
How did you make your way into health as a specialty?
I’ve been a general news reporter since the beginning of my career, and I spent a few years teaching journalism at university as well. Then, a few years ago, I was thinking about what I wanted to do with my life, and what my dream job would be.
I figured that being an ice cream taster on Play School was not on the cards, so I decided the next best job would be to do what I do, but specifically around health and science, because they’re the topics that I love reading about and that I’ve always been interested in, even though I’ve never formally studied them.
So I started channelling my energy in that direction and reporting on that stuff, and I was really lucky to be given a job in the best team at the ABC, which is the ABC Science Unit — just a lovely collection of beautiful nerds, and I fit right in.
What’s been the best thing for you and the team about being recognised with a Walkley?
I think winning a Walkley is a massive deal and no one takes that lightly. But truly, we’re just so proud of what we’ve been able to do for the people who pay our wages through their tax. That sounds really trite, but I promise it’s not. It’s such an honour and a responsibility to be entrusted with people’s anxiety and to try to allay it in a way that’s fact-based.
The other thing that I’m particularly proud of with “Coronacast” are our episodes answering kids’ questions. We got real questions from real kids around Australia, early in the pandemic at a time when there was a lot of anxiety. And hearing those kids’ questions, you hear what’s behind them as well, what they’ve obviously heard and picked up on.
They’re asking things like, ‘are we all going to die?’ or ‘is everyone that I love going to die?’, which is heartbreaking. And when you put something into the language of kids, you have to really understand it. It’s a real test of your ability as a science and health communicator, so I’m particularly proud of that. Adults also said those episodes helped them — putting things into terms that kids understand is what helps adults as well.
Do you have a message for the Australian public about why it’s so important to support this kind of public interest journalism?
I think public interest journalism is a bit like insurance. You don’t think you want it, but you really want it when you need it.
We wish that we didn’t have corruption or infectious diseases or natural disasters, but we do, and we need trustworthy news sources to turn to at those times.
Tegan Taylor is a health and science journalist in the ABC Science Unit. Taylor appears periodically on ABC Radio National’s Health Report and Life Matters, on Triple J and in The Best of Australian Science Writing.
Dr Norman Swan hosts Radio National’s Health Report, appearing also on the ABC’s 7.30, Midday, News Breakfast and Four Corners and RN Breakfast. He created Invisible Enemies on pandemics and civilisation for Channel 4 UK. Swan is a past winner of the Gold Walkley. He was awarded the medal of the Australian Academy of Science and has an honorary MD from the University of Sydney.
Will Ockenden produces podcasts with ABC News, including Coronacast, The Party Room and Russia, If You’re Listening. He has worked in radio, filing stories for AM/PM/The World Today, and in the ABC’s rural department as a national rural reporter.
