How newsrooms around the country are handling COVID-19
COVID-19 has dominated Australian news headlines for weeks, matched by sky-high readership figures. But there’s also more pressure on journalists as they adjust to remote working and added mental and economic pressure. Mumbrella’s Hannah Blackiston speaks with leaders from newsrooms across the country to find out how they’ve changed their models to adapt to the global pandemic.
The coronavirus pandemic has changed vast aspects of Australian life, beyond the obvious restrictions put upon us by the lockdown. The inability to see people we love, or even just our workmates, the economic pressure of job losses and stand-downs, and the ongoing anxiety of a quick-spreading pandemic we know very little about.
Newsrooms have a big role to play during this time. From providing education and news updates, particularly important during the pandemic when it felt like the rules are changing every hour, but also providing other content and offering a distraction for audiences.
Michael Stutchbury, the editor in chief of The Australian Financial Review (AFR), says his newsroom was primed from the beginning to report on COVID-19.
