Journalism

A Today show employee who works at the 30 Rockefeller Plaza building in New York City has tested positive for the novel coronavirus, according to a memo sent out to staff. Noah Oppenheim, the president of NBC News, emailed employees late Sunday to tell them that the unnamed staff member, who works on the weekday third-hour show, was receiving medical care for “mild symptoms” and wished them a speedy recovery. The show would go on, but everyone who’s had close contact will have to isolate themselves.

CBC adviser and news technologist Bruce MacCormack warns that deep fake videos have gotten more sophisticated and difficult to detect. Their creators are also proliferating, he says, and news organizations need to begin arming themselves against what could be “an existential threat” to their legitimacy.

Six months after the merger of two Top Four non-failing stations under Gray ownership, increased news offerings and wider signal coverage are among the results.

He joins from WCNC Charlotte, N.C., to lead newsgathering at WGCL and WPCH.

Reruns of Jimmy Kimmel Live will be pushed back a half-hour in the coming week as ABC seeks to give a bigger platform to Nightline episodes focused on the coronavirus pandemic. ABC said Sunday that Kimmel repeats will shift to the 12:05 a.m. slot starting Tuesday through Friday as Nightline goes all-in on coverage of the latest in the coronavirus pandemic.

The media’s job is to tell the story of a rapidly changing world in the throes of the coronavirus pandemic, but it must do so under rapidly changing new rules. “This is the biggest story since 9/11,” said New York Times Executive Editor Dean Baquet, but it needs to be told with an abundance of caution by the scores of journalists now working from home, interviewing sources via Skype and doing all they can to stay personally out of harm’s way.

Eric Wemple argues that Fox News’ reportorial deployment on the coronavirus pandemic has shifted into high gear with the professionalism and thoroughness one expects of a news network, but its opinion hosts continue to mislead and confuse viewers. Fox and Friends, newly-sidelined Trish Regan and Sean Hannity are among the worst offenders, he says. “It’s a wonder that Fox News doesn’t erupt in a journalistic civil war, such is the discrepancy between its sane and insane programming.”

A special show spotlighting winners of the annual journalism awards will be streamed on social media on April 16 and aired on E.W. Scripps-owned Newsy on April 26.

TVNewsCheck will publish Saturday and Sunday PM newsletters so readers are up to date on new developments in the coronavirus story.

Planning has already begun to bring a virtual World Congress to Paris participants in April-May, as well as the next in-person World Congress in New York in May 2021.

With the CBS Broadcast Center in New York City essentially out of commission while it’s cleaned, the network’s flagship affiliate WCBS originated its newscasts from KCBS Los Angeles March 12 and 13.

Localish has gone nationalish. The digital brand, introduced about 18 months ago by the ABC-owned stations, has a great new platform: broadcast television! Localish’s feel-good and lifestyle stories, while designed for digital platforms, have always appeared on station newscasts as well. But on Feb. 17, a new linear Localish channel made its debut in all eight ABC markets, available to an estimated 14 million viewers on the stations’ over-the-air subchannels.

Poynter’s Tom Jones: “Despite early claims that the media was overblowing this story, creating a narrative where there was none and fueling unnecessary panic, this week has turned out to be one of journalism’s finest hours. The journalism on display this week during an ever-shifting and rapidly-moving story has been nothing short of spectacular.”

In the span of just a few weeks, the top editors of two leading digital-news outfits called it quits. Ben Smith, who ran BuzzFeed News for eight years, took a job writing a column at the New York Times; Lydia Polgreen is leaving HuffPost to oversee a podcast company. Two does not make a trend, but it does raise a question: Do their departures — smack in the middle of the busiest news cycle in years — say something about the troubled state of the digital news media?

Univision’s Jorge Ramos has backed out of his planned role as one of the moderators of Sunday’s Democratic presidential debate because of possible exposure to the coronavirus, and the event itself has been moved from Phoenix to CNN’s studios in Washington, D.C.

CBS News management, which said Wednesday that two New York-based employees have tested positive for the novel coronavirus, said in a memo Thursday that a third employee has now tested positive.

So many podcasts, newsletters and TV specials have popped up in the outbreak’s wake, that Harvard University’s Nieman Foundation even joked about it last week: “Not to alarm you, but coronavirus-focused news products are spreading very quickly.”

Newsrooms are creating contingency plans to make sure that they can adequately inform the public about the novel coronavirus while keeping their own employees safe.