COVID-19 QA

37 results arranged by date

An entrance to a beach is closed on March 31, 2020, in Miami Beach, Florida. (AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee)

University of Florida student journalist on covering COVID-19 amid campus closure

When university campuses across the U.S. began to send students home in response to growing coronavirus concerns, student journalists did not close their student papers, pack up, and leave. Instead, many student journalists across the country have emerged as their communities’ local coronavirus news reporters. The student journalists at The Independent Florida Alligator at the…

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Workers wearing protective suits disinfect a passenger train on the outskirts of Kolkata, India, on April 6, 2020. Indian freelance journalist Vidya Krishnan recently spoke with CPJ about the challenges of covering the COVID-19 pandemic. (Reuters/Rupak De Chowdhuri)

Indian journalist Vidya Krishnan on navigating harassment and government obstruction while covering COVID-19

Vidya Krishnan, a freelance reporter who has covered healthcare in India for 17 years, says she has never seen the kind of harassment and threats that health reporters have received while covering COVID-19.

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Medical staff are seen in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on March 27, 2020. CPJ recently spoke with Haitian journalist Robenson Sanon about covering the COVID-19 pandemic. (Reuters/Jeanty Junior Augustin)

Haitian journalist Robenson Sanon says covering COVID-19 feels like being ‘soldiers in the battlefield’

Reuters correspondent Robenson Sanon has been covering life in his home country of Haiti for over 10 years.

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A journalist records a press briefing following the arrival of the USNS Comfort, a naval hospital ship with a 1,000 bed-capacity at Pier 90 in New York, on March 30, 2020. (AP Photo/Kathy Willens, File)

Speed, Clarity, Context: The New York Times’ Billie Sweeney on editing ‘Coronavirus Live Update’

In early February, only eight weeks ago but in a parallel universe that no longer exists, I invited Billie Sweeney, a senior staff editor at The New York Times, to tour the new CPJ office and visit with old friends. For nine years, from 2004 to 2013, Billie worked as CPJ’s editorial director, overseeing all…

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Somali freelance journalist Abdalle Ahmed Mumin. (Abdalle Ahmed Mumin)

Somali journalist Abdalle Ahmed Mumin says there is ‘nobody to trust’ for COVID-19 information

Somali freelance journalist Abdalle Ahmed Mumin has covered the news for 17 years, spending much of that time in one of the most dangerous places in the world to work as a journalist. Since CPJ started keeping records in 1992, at least 69 journalists have been killed in Somalia for their work.

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The New York City Housing Authority's John Haynes Holmes Towers are seen on April 4, 2019. CPJ recently spoke with housing reporter Sadef Ali Kully about reporting during the COVID-19 pandemic. (AP/Mark Lennihan)

Covering COVID-19 as a housing reporter in New York City

For Sadef Ali Kully, a housing and land use reporter for the nonprofit news outlet City Limits, meeting with sources in-person was an integral part of covering her beat in New York City. However, with the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic, Kully has needed to rethink how to perform the basics of her job.

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Slovenian journalist Blaž Zgaga told CPJ he has faced harassment from the government over his COVID-19 reporting. (Tomislav Čuveljak)

Slovenian journalist Blaž Zgaga on facing off against a government fighting COVID-19 coverage

Blaž Zgaga is a freelance Slovenian investigative journalist and a member of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists who covers national security and defense. In his reporting, he has uncovered corruption and written about arms trafficking in the region.

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Journalist Raihana Maqbool reporting in Kashmir. (Aliya Bashir)

Kashmiri journalist Raihana Maqbool on reporting on COVID-19 amid ongoing restrictions

Journalists in Jammu and Kashmir have spent the past eight months navigating an intense crackdown by Indian authorities in the region, including unprecedented restrictions on communications and the longest internet shutdown in a democracy. Now, they have the added challenge on trying to report on the COVID-19 pandemic. India has instituted a strict 21-day national…

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Video journalist Jon Gerberg is seen on assignment in Brazil. Gerberg told CPJ about the challenges of reporting on the COVID-19 pandemic. (Gustavo Canzian)

U.S. video journalist shares tips for covering COVID-19: ‘We have to get creative’

In early March, Jon Gerberg was in Detroit, Michigan, covering the Democratic primaries as a video journalist with The Washington Post. But as the COVID-19 virus has spread in the United States and around the world, Gerberg’s coverage has changed to focus on the pandemic.

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Journalist Evrim Kepenek is seen while covering COVID-19 in Istanbul, Turkey. (Evrim Kepenek)

For Turkish journalists, fear of contracting COVID-19 competes with fear of arrest

Journalist Evrim Kepenek works in Istanbul as the women and LGBTI+ news editor for the independent news website Bianet. Like most people, she works from home these days, but she is also a street reporter who recently observed twin fears among the Turkish public: getting infected with COVID-19 and getting arrested for talking about it.

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