ANNA ALDRICH
Even as they are finding some positives in working remotely, leaders in the region’s student newsrooms say they’re committed to resuming in-person operations once they return to their campuses.
When universities around the country moved the remainder of their semesters online due to the COVID-19 pandemic, student news organizations also transitioned their operations to exclusively digital production.
Annemarie LePard, who lives in Higganum, is a news reporter for the Hofstra Chronicle and radio station WHRU at Hofstra University on Long Island. She said the radio station has become more creative in its reporting, finding new ways to get sound.
“It’s so significantly better than what it was,” LePard said. “I hope we take that back with us and don’t let it just be a moment.”
The Yale Daily News has also continued reporting online since Yale University in New Haven announced it would move all classes after spring break online.
“It’s been really fantastic to see our writers take their roles as journalists so seriously through this important time — especially while they are all dealing with huge adjustments to their lives and the anxieties that this pandemic brings,” Yale Daily News Editor-in-Chief Samantha Westfall said in an email.
Brendan O’Sullivan, editor-in-chief of the Quinnipiac Chronicle at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, said the transition to online was smooth because reporters were already regularly updating the website.
But it has been a challenge to get the same amount of content out during this time, O’Sullivan said.
“It’s difficult to reach out to people when we’re not on campus together,” he said.
Vivian Martin, chairwoman of the journalism department at Central Connecticut State University in New Britain, said student journalists are being challenged to find new ways to get stories.
“Students are being encouraged to find a way,” Martin said. “Journalism is a really good model of creative problem solving.”
Martin said the skills students are using to innovate their reporting now will become permanent parts of their reporting toolboxes.
“There are going to be other crises we’ll have to deal with,” Martin said. “This is going to be a skill set. These practices and tools get integrated together, and the ones who will prevail and do well are those who know when to use them.”
The current situation has also shown student journalists that, although remote reporting is possible, there is no replacement for working together in a newsroom.
“Every production night we have dozens of writers, staffers and editors all running around the [Yale Daily News] building, busy collaborating between desks, discussing journalistic decisions, laughing, learning from each other,”
Westfall said. “A lot of that connection is lost while we are remote.”
Even though the Quinnipiac Chronicle has been able to produce content without printing its weekly paper edition, O’Sullivan said staff won’t permanently discontinue the print run.
“It’s another avenue,” O’Sullivan said. “It’s what the Chronicle is. It’s important to keep that tradition.”
LePard said having a studio on campus lends WHRU an air of professionalism that is absent with exclusively remote reporting.
“It’s much different talking to a mic than your phone,” LePard said.
Chris Roush, dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac, said while companies may ask journalists to cover more things remotely going forward, the newsroom is a space where journalists can work together and collaborate on a level that is not possible through remote reporting.
“You can sit with your fellow journalists and talk through things,” Roush said. “It’s the camaraderie when they have that physical space.”
LePard said one of the things she misses most about working on campus is interacting with her fellow student journalists.
“Everyone is like a family,” LePard said. “So we’ll be really excited to see our family again and produce some extraordinary content and reflect on what happened and where do we move on from here.”