All around the world, the coronavirus pandemic has forced millions to work from home. This has led to an uptick in viewers for the news. However, news reporters have been made to work from home during the pandemic as well, leading to some challenges when it comes to keeping people informed. Chris Glover is a national news reporter for CBC News in Canada, one of the major stations in the country. He’s been working from home for over a month now due to the pandemic.

“(CBC) started shifting to work from home around March 13th, but by then we already had about 10% of our staff working from home due to being immuno-compromised or other factors,” Glover said.

“Once we began the shift the network was awesome with making sure I had a laptop, microphone, tri-pod, really everything I needed.”

Chris is a self-described “people person” and has missed the normal everyday interaction that he has with his team.

“The hardest part is probably that I’m not really having much face to face time with my team and so that’s difficult,” Glover said.

Without the normal assistance from a camera man or access to sound booths, Chris has had to get creative with certain aspects of the job.

Getting his interview subjects to shoot b-roll has been a big help. But Chris also has his partner Jeff Vallis who has proven to be quite useful.

Jeff has been a fill in cameraman for Chris, filming everything from b-roll for stories to helping shoot live stand-ups.

Vallis has a background as a multimedia journalist, having run his own magazine for multiple years and working a variety of jobs in the industry that gave him experience with filming for packages.

“Video editing is a passion of mine so it’s been fun to help Chris out in that aspect,” Vallis said.

 

While Chris and Jeff have been able to manage both working from home pretty well, it hasn’t been without a few hiccups.

“Often times he’ll come in (to the room I’m working in) and be like, ‘I need you to be quiet I’m about to to record my voiceover.’ Or ‘I need you to be quiet I’m doing an interview’ and I’m like ‘I’m on a conference call, I have a job too here,'” Vallis said.

Overall, it’s been a positive experience with some perks Vallis says.

“Sometimes I’ll finish my work early and I’ll make us a snack or Chris will finish his work early and get started on dinner so that’s been nice.”

The work side of things hasn’t been without some hiccups of it’s own though. Chris felt that sometimes the fact that he has to conduct interviews over Zoom has left something to be desired when it comes to audio and video quality.

“The quality is lacking a bit,” Glover said. “But as long as they’re getting the information they need and accurate information, how it looks isn’t really that important to people right now.”

Chris said that he wasn’t sure when he would be able to return to work, but that he has enjoyed his time working from home and getting to spend more time with Jeff.

https://twitter.com/chrisgloverCBC/status/1249820699427995651?s=20