Newsrooms across the country have had to find new ways to adjust to pandemic news gathering. Covid-19 has limited resources inside of newsrooms forcing workers to create work spaces in their own homes. WFHB, a Bloomington- bases radio station with a newsroom knows how important it is to deliver news, especially in a pandemic , but it has had to limit how many people can be in the building at a time and where journalists travel to get their stories.
The new set-up presents challenges for journalists and requires them to work differently. One year into the pandemic, some workers have still not returned back to their normal work routine.
Indy Star reporter, Holly Hays says she did not think “temporary setup” she made for herself months ago would turn into a more permanent one- a position that has kept her isolated from many of her newsroom colleagues.
“Being a news reporter is a tough job on a good day, but to not be around your colleagues and to not have that (kind of) sense of camaraderie; obviously that still exists but you know you just cant plop down next to your friend and just be like, “Oh, you will not believe this interview I just did,” said Hays.
Indy Star Reporter, Holly Hays, speaks about adjusting to at home reporting in the Covid-19 pandemic over the past year.
Reporters have had to learn how to work even more efficiently throughout the pandemic. That means calling sources well in advance to get access to stories and to reserve spots at certain events to cover. The pandemic also meant hearing the word “no” more often because so many different sites have shut down through the entirety of the pandemic.
Journalists are finding new ways to get interviews And compile the facts they need. This means that they too have turned to sources like, Zoom and Skype, even Google Meeting to try to find ways to communicate quickly and effectively. Kathleen Johnston, the Founding Director of the Arnolt Center for Investigative Reporting at Indiana University says, enterprising reporters have learned how to live with the restrictions rather than just work around them.
“So it’s limited us by that, but I don’t think it’s really slowed us down any. I can’t believe we are doing eight stories you know? If you had told me that at the beginning of the semester, I mean… we are only a year old, but last semester when the pandemic hit we were working on two stories,” said Johnston.
Kathleen Johnston, Founding Director of the Arnolt center expresses the ways that her news reporters have found ways to adapt to the pandemic and it’s obstacles over the past year.
Normal now has a new definition. It doesn’t mean going to work everyday, it doesn’t mean seeing colleagues face-to-face except on Zoom. What it does mean is that there are new avenues through which to communicate and capture stories despite the restrictions, diminished resources and lack of physical contact.
