My name is Anemona Hartocollis. I am a New York Times reporter, wondering about how the virus has added complexity to the decisions students are making about college. Are you hesitating to go to a school like Tulane, even though you really like it, because it is a hot spot for the virus? If you’d be willing to talk about this, contact me at anemona@nytimes.com, please. (I have permission from College Confidential to post here.)
Hoping you will be asking the same question about colleges in and around New York, Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles, Miami and other hot spot areas. Based on your posts, that does not yet appear to be the case (at least here on College Confidential).
Here’s a link to an interactive map from your very own paper to help give you ideas on other cities to target.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/coronavirus-us-cases.html
New Orleans doesn’t need to be singled out with more negative attention from national media. Its recovery is going to be difficult enough as tourism and oil drive the local economy. Writing a piece planting the seed that it is a place to be feared and avoided will only make things worse. Please consider the negative impact you could be having on any city or individual college you may include in your story.
I’m sure NY Times is doing research on this topic across the country. OP is either only responsible for one piece of that research, or the Times is using New Orleans as a representative case of study (and its implications can be drawn about any city with a serious outbreak).