Discover and read the best of Twitter Threads about #WhatReportersDo
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Do hospitals have enough beds to care for seriously ill patients if there’s a surge of #COVID19 cases?
That’s the question @mattwynn and I tried to answer. #coronavirus #WhatReportersDo THREAD /1
That’s the question @mattwynn and I tried to answer. #coronavirus #WhatReportersDo THREAD /1
To be clear, this is a mental exercise, not a hard-and-fast prediction. We just wanted rough numbers to help us ask better questions about the tough decisions that lie ahead. Infectious diseases experts have already warned hospitals could be overwhelmed. /2
In short, no state has enough hospital beds to treat seriously ill #covid19 patients if #coronavirus cases spike like other countries. We found that there could be six patients with severe or critical symptoms for every existing hospital bed. usatoday.com/in-depth/news/… /3
Just printed out my story. I’ll highlight facts, details or quotes in green and names in orange. Then I’ll grab a pen and go through each, writing down the page of a document or interview that supports it. This is how I fact check, interrogating every sentence. #WhatReportersDo 
Contextual words like “first,” “only,” “never,” “always,” most” and “often” get circled for special attention. These little buggers seem innocuous but can easily create errors if not backed up. #WhatReportersDo
One quick note about this process: It can make your writing stronger, too. If you have loads of evidence behind a key fact, you can write that bit with much more verve and authority than if the sourcing is tenuous and you have to explain that caveat to readers. #WhatReportersDo
