Journalism

An ABC News staffer working on the 5th floor of the network’s 47 West building in New York tested positive for the coronavirus Saturday. TVNewser obtained an internal memo from ABC News President James Goldstonto, sent yesterday, announcing that the staffer was last in the office on March 12 before experiencing any symptoms. However, the staffer officially tested positive for COVID-19 on Saturday.

Margaret Sullivan says President Trump has begun using his daily press briefings on the coronavirus pandemic as a substitute for his sidelined campaign rallies rather than the critical venues for public information they should be. In response, she says news organizations should stop taking the briefings as live feeds and instead cover the news within them with context and fact checking at every step.

The White House Correspondents’ Association is postponing its giant dinner scheduled for late April, but still hopes to hold the annual event this summer or fall if the coronavirus threat abates.

With CBS News’ home base in New York closed due to coronavirus, CBS owned stations are helping get the national newscasts out to viewers. The weekend of March 21-22, CBS Weekend News will be produced out of Dallas, with KTVT staffers filling key roles in the production.

TVNewsCheck‘s Paul Greeley: “I follow more than 500 TV stations’ Facebook pages and what I see every day are countless examples of news coverage about the coronavirus. All necessary, all important. But what I want to share are examples of the more practical posts on how to cope with the disruptions, and the measures some are taking to help each other.”

Readers are flocking to news sites during the coronavirus pandemic. The media has a basic commodity — information — that people are craving as they try to keep themselves and their loved ones safe. And yet, financially, the crisis is delivering a punishing blow to already struggling local publishers.

Big news stories can dominate the entire news cycle for weeks, months, even years. But very few are as earth shaking as the recent coronavirus outbreak, which is dominating the news cycle and changing the way news organizations work.

President Donald Trump went off on NBC News White House correspondent Peter Alexander after he pressed him on what he would say to Americans who are frightened by the coronavirus. “What do you say to Americans that are scared?” Alexander asked. “I’d say you are a terrible reporter,” Trump responded. “I think that’s a very nasty question, and I think that’s a very bad signal that you’re putting out to the American people.” He then blasted NBC News and its parent company, Comcast, in general.

Life during wartime is littered with changes. One small, yet indelible sign of the coronavirus pandemic is hitting home every day on Detroit TV screens. The local TV news anchors, usually seated within elbow-rubbing distance, have moved farther apart. It’s one of many precautionary steps being taken by the big three of Detroit broadcast news — Fox 2 Detroit (WJBK), Local 4 News (WDIV) and 7 Action News (WXYZ) — and at newsrooms across the country.

NBC News said on Friday that one of its employees, longtime audio technician Larry Edgeworth, has died after testing positive for the coronavirus. Larry Edgeworth, a sound technician for NBC News’s Rockefeller Plaza headquarters for the past 25 years, suffered from other health issues, his wife said, according to a memo sent by NBC News President Andrew Lack.

Margaret Sullivan: “We live in stupid, scary times. And nothing illustrates this more vividly than one bizarre development among many others: That a Fox News host managed to get the president of the United States to take the coronavirus seriously when legions of public health experts around the world — and in his own administration — could not.”

Of all the newsroom jobs, producing newscasts would seem to be one of the toughest to do from a kitchen table, but Wednesday, for the first time, WSMV Nashville producer Jules Marcantonio did just that. “It went fine, on both ends,” Marcantonio said, “from both my perspective and the station’s.”

Media outlets big and small, from The New York Times to the Telegraph-Forum in Bucyrus, Ohio, are letting people read their coronavirus coverage without a subscription.

The Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, a non-profit organization that supports independent global journalism, is seeking proposals that develop innovative approaches to reporting on the novel coronavirus crisis using collaboration among journalists and newsrooms across state lines or national borders. This opportunity is open to all newsrooms and independent journalists in the United States and abroad.

University of Missouri journalism professor Damon Kiesow advises that the legions of journalists now working from the unaccustomed environs of home follow some key guidelines to maintain their productivity. He shares practical tips for saving internet bandwidth, the importance of keeping a regular schedule and blocking weekly unstructured time with colleagues to maintain cohesion.

President Donald Trump’s press briefing today had a flurry of newsworthy statements, updates and some startling moments. Days after saying that a lot of the media “actually has been really fair” in its coverage of the coronavirus crisis, on Thursday he was back to calling a number of news outlets “dishonest.”