Normally my Wednesday afternoons are spent working on Thursday’s Local Edition. So today, I settled into my home office with a coffee, tried to tune out the one kid playing Roblox while FaceTiming her cousin in Missouri, and the other kid playing something I probably wouldn’t approve of on his Xbox with his school friends, and get started.
Then it struck me — TODAY is Thursday.
So, today you’re getting a life-in-a-pandemic kind of newsletter, which feels right.
How are you? Do you know what day it is? What are you covering? What stories should I be covering? How can Poynter help?
In addition to updating this big list of training, funding and resources for journalists covering the coronavirus, I’m also still updating the layoffs, closures and furloughs piece daily. And I’ve started a piece collecting the obituaries of journalists and colleagues we’ve lost to the coronavirus. All of that is grim work, but I’m holding on to something my boss, Neil Brown, said to me recently: We’re not letting journalism jobs disappear anonymously. I’ll
add to that — our peers.
I also have lots of bright spots, including writing these small stories about the local journalists who are covering this story for their communities every day, including:
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The middle school and high school journalists who cover local news in New York. In March, they wrote 150 stories. “They may not know it’s the biggest story of their lives,” their advisor Rich Zahradnik said. “But they acted like it was.”
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The fact-checking project bringing real news to local TV audiences. The questions are flooding in, and Jason Puckett said, “my personal favorite is still the grandfather who, on behalf of his grandson, wanted us to VERIFY that Santa was doing well through the coronavirus.”
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A look at the six-month anniversary of Mahoning Matters. The staff isn’t just adjusting to life in a pandemic, but also to losing one of their own.
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This two-woman weekly in Virginia, where they know they aren’t just reporting the present, but recording history.
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And when was the last time Randy Newman made a song for your newsroom? He did it for KPCC.
A few things to share:
I’ll see you next week. Or tomorrow. You never know.
Kristen
Pictured above, top right, the Pelham Examiner staff, pre-pandemic. (Photo courtesy Rich Zahradnik); Right: The Greene County Record in central Virginia. (Photo courtesy Terry Beigie); Bottom right: Youngstown, Ohio, which has a local online newsroom. (AP Photo/Tony Dejak); Bottom middle: Jason Puckett debunks for Tegna’s VERIFY. (Screenshot)
