Northwestern Infectious Disease Expert is Hit with Morning News Pandemic Audience at Chicago’s Own WGN-TV
Northwestern Infectious Disease Expert is Hit with Morning News Pandemic Audience at Chicago’s Own WGN-TV
Every weekday at the 7 a.m. hour, there’s the news, the weather, the traffic, and then the COVID-19 Pandemic Update with “Dr. Murphy” on WGN-TV’s Morning News, Chicago’s most popular morning show.
“Dr. Murphy” looks like a doctor from central casting. In real life, he is Robert Leo “Rob” Murphy, MD, the John Philip Phair Professor of Infectious Diseases at Northwestern University, where he serves as executive director of the Institute for Global Health.
He also is co-founder of CoVAXCEN, a coalition of academic, government and industry experts on the COVID-19 pandemic.
Since the outbreak of COVID-19 in 2020, Murphy has appeared as a regular, along with anchors Larry Potash and Robin Baumgarten, on the WGN Morning News, offering reliable advice about responding to the pandemic.
Dr. Murphy has been a fixture at WGN, appearing on nearly 300 broadcasts. Ross McAbee, Morning News Supervising Producer at WGN-TV, said Murphy has been “Steady Eddy. He’s only had holidays off. He's all about doing the greater good.”
The last week in April was a busy one for Murphy and the team at WGN-TV. Murphy and McAbee collect news items relating to COVID-19 during the course of the day and exchange them via email.
This particular week yielded stories about the COVID-19 “vax passport,” the end of the “pause” of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, and new guidelines relaxing use of masks outdoors
At 6 a.m. each weekday, Murphy and McAbee in consultation with the news anchors agree on the topics of the five-minute “COVID-19 Pandemic Update” segment. Murphy writes brief summaries of what he will discuss by 6:45 am, and then he connects to WGN in the study of his Lincoln Park home via the Skype video conferencing platform.
McAbee said Murphy has become a standard presence on the morning program just like the traffic and weather reporters. He said Dr. Murphy has even developed his own fan base with viewers.
“Some people are tuning in just for Dr. Murphy. We don’t mind,” he said. “We’re glad to have them if only for the segment.”
In addition to his on-air duty, Murphy said he answers all addressed letters and keeps them along with a log of all the segments he has done.
He tries to cover breaking news on COVID-19, such as new or changing guidelines relating to the vaccines as well as sharing his personal opinions of what will happen. He predicted that the J&J vaccine eventually will be withheld from women under 50.
The infectious disease doctor, who has degrees in medicine, biology and geography, is not a newcomer to pandemics nor the media. He cut his teeth on both as a young infectious disease doctor at Northwestern in 1981 with the outbreak of HIV/AIDS. He said he sees communicating with the public through the media as his duty as a public health doctor.
The media landscape has changed dramatically over the past 40 years with the emergence of social media such as Facebook, through which questions now are submitted to Murphy, and the use of teleconferencing software. He said misinformation is spread easily on social media and needs to be addressed promptly on the same media.
Social media are a two-edged sword.
Murphy said he is impressed with the knowledge, professionalism and easy humor of the WGN crew.
On Fridays, the WGN news people like to tease and spoof Murphy. McAbee said his crew concocted a TV ad parody selling the imaginary “The Talking Dr. Murphy Doll'' that uses some of the doctor’s catchphrases: “The virus is the enemy. The enemy is not each other.” and “You wanna play Russian roulette. I hope you win.”
McAbee “If it would have been a real thing, I think quite a few people would have bought it. It was all in good fun and he really enjoyed it.
“I try to blindside him with some lighter questions, like who is in the pictures behind Dr. Murphy? Is Dr. Murphy single? I’ve had a few women send straight to the Facebook page their picture saying they’d like to hook up with Dr. Murphy!”
Murphy said he has enjoyed his time on WGN: “I’m strictly a guest. I have no contract. There is no payment. I told them at the beginning that I’ll do this until the pandemic is over, you fire me, or I drop dead.”
McAbee said the short-term goal is to get beyond COVID-19. “But when COVID-19 is done, we’d love to see Dr. Murphy come back even if it's just covering daily health headlines and other things he might see fit to bring to our viewers. We’d love to have him. We’ll see what the future holds. Let’s get past the pandemic first.”
Headquartered in the Institute for Global Health's Center for Global Communicable and Emerging Infectious Diseases with the cooperation of the Center for Communication and Health, we seek to achieve consensus on a variety of issues related to the safety and efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines and then produce and disseminate written materials for scientists, healthcare professionals, and the general public describing its conclusions.
Northwestern COVID-19 Vaccine Communication and Evaluation Network (CoVAXCEN) seeks to achieve consensus on a variety of issues related to the safety and efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines and then produce and disseminate written materials for scientists, healthcare professionals, and the general public describing its conclusions.
Howard Wolinsky is a Chicago-based freelance medical writer and author. He is the former medical reporter for the Chicago Sun-Times. He has won awards for medical writing from the American Public Health Association, the American Bar Association, and the Association of Health Care Journalists, the Chicago Headline Club’s Peter Lisagor Award (“the Chicago Pulitzer''). The Sun-Times twice nominated him for the Pulitzer Prize.