Global survey: How newsrooms are coping with the Coronavirus

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The Coronavirus crisis has forced news organisations around the world to adopt measures to ensure they can continue to produce content at the expected rate and standard, while keeping their staff safe.

As part of a World Editors Forum and WAN-IFRA Global Media Trends Panel survey, supported by Syno International, conducted in late March, more than 100 newsroom executives shared how the Coronavirus outbreak has impacted their operations.

Indeed, since launching this survey in late March, newsrooms around the world have been producing and distributing content in an impressive fashion, under the most challenging and unique circumstances.

Yet their coverage, and value, have proven once again how journalism’s role in society is as essential today as it always has been. What we have learned from this survey and our members is that despite all the challenges in the past weeks and months, a number of enduring lessons learned are emerging that will help publishers navigate the uncertainty that lies ahead.

It should be noted that so much has changed in the short time since we conducted this survey, in terms of the varying degrees of lockdowns per country, per continent; or layoffs, furloughs or short working hours in newsrooms, for example. We’re all battling a moving target.

We will conduct a larger survey in the months to come with the goal of gauging what newsrooms and their publishers think their companies will look like in the year(s) to come.

But this survey looks at:

• How a new newsroom culture has emerged: the remote newsroom, and all the challenges and opportunities that presents.
• In every crisis lies an opportunity: publishers have rolled out a number of new products during the crisis.
• Being that essential destination for news during a crisis, publishers are experiencing high levels of engagement, and are experimenting with their digital paid content strategies.
• Despite that essential role, many governments are using the crisis and subsequent lockdowns to curb the work of journalists. Unfortunately, disinformation thrives in this environment.
• Producing and distributing content and their products has naturally proven to be a big challenge for publishers.