Do a little showandtell from my own research work, and the timing of this turned out that doing something Historical Perspective on pandemic preparedness might seem like a really interesting topic for us to is discuss. And i think i have mentioned to you all that i have been getting a lot of calls from journalists lately, and its kind of like, why in the middle of an ongoing pandemic are they calling up people like me . So i think this is a good thing for us to talk about. This is a history methods course. Its about how you whoops, went too fast there. How you become a historian and what you do for a living. You may remember the first week of class we talked a little bit about the reaction sometimes you may get from family members when they hear youre a history major or minor or taking a history course. Why is this useful knowledge . Why are you bothering with all of this old stuff . I can tell you personally, i get those questions a lot because of my Research Specialty in the history
Which Political Party youre coming from the grade that you would give and its hard for me to be an objective ject of observer of this president ial administration when for years now they have continuously tried to deal a jet in my eyes and marginalize News Reporters for doing their constitutionally protected job and so i would say that in any environment when youre up against you know someone whos continuously trying to batter you i give the press corps in a. And i have to say there was a little part of me that chuckled when the white house new press secretary started her her briefings and said to the press corps i wont lie to you which was almost a signal that gets one im about to give you unleash ill turn it in facts you know for her tenure however short that may be. Yeah arguably she did fave about 15 minutes after making that statement but you know as we channel surf domestic cable news there is a kindness to the commercials we see often with solo piano music in the background some
A Masters Program in journalism and digital storytelling at American University in washington and as most guest you see on most cable news talk shows are these days she is joining us remotely margo welcome back thanks for having me how and you bet its good to see and if theres a slight delay its because were operating in remote mode here but 1st things 1st professor i want you to grade both parties the president and the press in those Daily White House briefings that are on again off again and generally during this crisis. Well i think you know i guess it depends on which Political Party youre coming from the grade that you would give and its hard for me to be an objective of objective observer of this president ial administration when for years now they have continuously tried to deal a jet in my eyes and marginalize News Reporters for doing their constitutionally protected job and so i would say that in any environment when youre up against you know someone whos continuously trying t
Responders, everybody out there, who is working so very hard on this emergency. And i want to, again, thank our health care workers. All across the state of louisiana. Whether theyre doctors and nurses, respiratory therapists, you name it. A lot of really, really good work by selfless people has taken place across the state of louisiana. Governor edwards and certainly particularly down in the new orleans region. Last night i requested a major disaster declaration for the state of louisiana from the federal government. So i directed that request to President Trump. In order that we might receive Additional Support for state and local agencies as we continue to combat the spread of the virus and deal with all of those individuals who actually have the disease, covid19. As we anticipated and as we stated and, quite sadly, the number of cases in louisiana continues to rise. More drastically than we would like. As of today, we have 1388 cases. And 46 deaths. That is 216 more cases than we r
Kind of like, why in the middle of a pandemic are they calling people like me . So this is a good thing for us to talk about. This is a history methods course, it is about how you become a historian, and what you do for a living. You may remember the first week of class, we talked a little bit about the reaction you may sometimes get from family members when they hear you are a history major or minor or even taking a history course, that, why is this useful knowledge . Why are you bothering with all this old stuff . I can tell you personally i get , those questions a lot because of my Research Specialty in the history of health and medicine. Science is so much better today, why should we bother looking at the past history of diseases and how we responded to them . My goal today is to give you an example of why bother, and why i am proud to be a historian, why i am really psyched about what i do. So that is objective number one. I said the first week of class, i want to make you proud o