The present world is going through a pandemic at the moment. The disease from the Chinese city of Wuhan started in December. It has slowly taken over the world. It claimed almost 3.67 lakhs globally. Here, the data is of 31 May 2020 (Source- WHO’s Corona dashboard). So how will Journalism be in a post-Covid world?
“The world we had before Covid-19 is going to be entirely different from the world that we will have post Covid-19” Arfa Khanum Sherwani, Senior editor, The Wire
As a result, most nations implemented lock-down. It is a situation where only the essential services function. People can only go out of their homes if it’s necessary. As a result, most employees in the tertiary sector work from their homes. Most factories, until recently, did not function. Most shopping malls, salons, temples, courts, and theaters did not function until recently.
The companies implemented salary cuts for their employees. Many companies had to file for insolvency.
The lock-down was implemented for social distancing. The disease spreads through touching and sneezing.
The nature of most industries is changing. And, hence are the job profiles. Journalism is an ever evolving field. The world will see a massive change in the way journalism activities function.
At present, most journalists work from their homes. For instance- most journalists working for a prominent English news channel now have to work from their homes.
“The print industry saw a massive hit in 2015. The Corona pandemic gave other blow to it. However, most youngsters have started reading newspapers. They believe that it is actually the last word of truth.
As per a survey conducted by the Economic Times, in the lockdown period, the reading of newspapers increased. The increasing percentage is 38. It was 16 per cent in the pre-lockdown period.
(The survey was in four states which were- Rajasthan, Bihar, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh).
The survey further mentioned that 72 percent of the respondents have admitted that they now read the newspaper for more than half an hour which in the pre-lockdown period was 42 per cent.
“The amount of work is far more when one is working from than it was when working from the office” said Arfa Khanum Sherwani, a senior editor with The Wire in a conversation with Elsa Marie D’Silva, the founder of Red Dot Foundation.
“People are more readily available for an interview or talk nowadays compared to what it was before” further adds Sherwani.
“There will be a lot of changes when it comes to running of newsrooms, with almost everything shifted online. Interviews and debates will increasingly happen on Skype and Zoom” says Sagar Hugar, a student of New Media and Digital culture based in Amsterdam.
“As per the reporters, they would have to go on the field directly and get back to home instead of the office. Internal communication among the people in the newsroom shall increasingly happen on platforms like slack” further adds Hugar.
“This would also be the time for web news portals to shift their audience from TV news to their web news in the time being” says Prastav Mishra, a student of mass communication based in Jammu.
“The news houses would have to be more careful about their employees and the show structures would have to be reconsidered” further adds Mishra.
“Once the situation gets normal(The world is free of Corona virus), the media industry would see a major tsunami of jobs” says Utkarsh Singh Gaharwar, founder member of The Youthquake, an online news platform.
“Digital India, which has been the buzzword ever since will take place faster” further adds Gaharwar.
So overall, we can say that in the post covid world, “the newsrooms” will increasingly shift to homes and the usage of the internet for debates will increasingly become common.
“Most newspapers are expected to go on the electronic platform under a paywall” said Adarsh Nalam, content director at MSL Group.
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