Innovation In Covering the COVID-19 Crisis
In early March, our newsroom sat down for a morning pitch meeting, during which WFIU/WTIU News Bureau Chief Sara Wittmeyer said with certainty that our news team would never work from home, no matter what. We were essential workers and would continue to operate as such.
Two weeks later, Indiana University and WFIU/WTIU News moved to an almost fully remote operation. We created a video to show our audience how we were doing the news remotely.
And now, nearly a year later, we still work almost exclusively from home. We had to change the way we work, not only to keep our team healthy and safe, but also to provide information to our audience, who were going through just as many changes as we were due to the worsening pandemic.
We started almost immediately by implementing a daily coronavirus-centric newsletter on March 9. We sent this newsletter every day, including weekends, through June.
Next, we knew we needed a landing page for coronavirus coverage and resources. So we created a page on our website to house daily blog posts about Indiana COVID-19 statistics, statewide and local infographics and general coronavirus coverage.
Here's a screenshot from late March:
People were hungry for information, so we made use of data visualization tools and graphics to make easily-shareable content about Indiana University's COVID-19 plans, the status of many local restaurants and new information about PPE, among many others. Some of these stories are linked below:
April 24: Behind The Scenes VIDEO: Making The News During A Pandemic
April 29: Despite Cloth Mask Support, Effectiveness Is Unclear
April 29: Indiana Doesn't Have A Reopening Date. How Does That Compare To Neighboring States?
May 14: Who's Hiring Right Now? Here's A List To Get Your Job Search Started
May 15: Searchable List: When Is Your Favorite Bloomington Restaurant Open Now?
May 27: Here Is How Indiana Colleges And Universities Are Planning To Reopen This Fall
The impact of our COVID-19 reporting and status as a resource for people looking for crucial information about the virus is perhaps best displayed by the engagement analytics from our story about where to find COVID-19 testing sites in Monroe County, originally published July 1, 2020.
That web story has the fifth-most pageviews on our website for the entire year.
Innovation In Service Journalism
Our community-powered reporting project, City Limits, is nothing new. But when the pandemic hit, questions about COVID-19 began flooding in through our Hearken web embeds and we knew we had a responsibility to answer people as best and as quickly as we were able.
So we transitioned City Limits: Bloomington to City Limits: Coronavirus and began answering our audience's questions with daily stories, instead of just once a week. In 2020, we received more than 1,300 questions from our audience through our coronavirus Hearken embed.
Our City Limits: Coronavirus landing page houses all of these stories.
We answered questions about the virus, unemployment, how to make cloth masks, IU's role in the fight against COVID-19 and how people could give back and help in their communities.
Here are some of our most-trafficked stories from this project:
May 15: Do Freezing Temperatures Kill The Coronavirus?
May 26: Could Indiana Shut Down Again If COVID-19 Cases Spike?
May 28: Freedom, Safety & Home Improvement Stores: Bloomington Customers Grapple With Mask Policies
June 29: Why Not Close A Portion Of Fourth Street For Outdoor Seating?
Sept. 10: Do People Have To Wear Masks While Exercising On The B-Line Trail?
Innovation In Covering Civil Unrest
2020 was marked not only by the losses of the pandemic, but also by the most significant reckoning with race and civil rights the United States had seen in more than 50 years.
On June 5, 2020, Bloomington organizers gathered around 1,000 people under the beating summer sun to peacefully march and protest against police brutality and racism.
Almost half of our newsroom was there to cover it, and Facebook and Twitter were integral to our live, minute-by-minute coverage of the event -- especially given the volatile nature of other, similar protests in previous weeks.
Because the rally was organized using mainly social media, we used Twitter to reach out to two organizers for interviews, which culminated in this story: Hundreds Expected To Attend Friday Protest Against Police Brutality In Bloomington.
The day of the protest, we used Facebook Live to stream some of the speeches and performances before the march and tweeted photos and videos of the march in progress.
Here are some examples of our social media coverage of that day:
Crowd gathering at Dunn Meadow on IU’s campus leading up to #EnoughIsEnough rally. #GeorgeFloyd #blacklivesmatter @WFIUNews @wtiu pic.twitter.com/oLYg7RuyKf
— Adam Pinsker (@AdamPinsker) June 5, 2020
Update: minute-by-minute the crowd grows at Dunn Meadow. Well over 1,000 people of all different ethnicities have gathered. #EnoughIsEnough pic.twitter.com/9s6PTetMMW
— Ethan Burks (@EthanMBurks) June 5, 2020
While my colleagues are at Dunn Meadow for the rally and speakers, @BrockEWTurner and I are waiting for the protest to make its way downtown.
— emma atkinson (@emmameg) June 5, 2020
War memorial on the square is chalked up, along with sidewalks. pic.twitter.com/z0k6qqAWmX
And almost everyone is wearing a mask. pic.twitter.com/baoOSWsvCn
— emma atkinson (@emmameg) June 5, 2020
In addition, we culled our social coverage into a live blog on our website, which was updated every few minutes with coverage from the rally.
Innovation In Covering Indiana's Legislative Session
Because of our partnership with and membership in statewide news network Indiana Public Broadcasting Stations, our website is home to in-depth coverage of each year's Indiana legislature.
In 2020, we created a landing page for these stories and used an embeddable graphic to explain how the lawmaking process works.
