8 WORK IN A TIME OF PANDEMIC


Coping with the challenges of work in a time of coronavirus


By Stephen Corrigan In the space of just a few short weeks, our lives have been turned upside-down. The challenges on a personal level have been great, but so too has the impact on our professional lives as local journalists.


While it has been an extremely difficult time for journalists in local newspapers, the Covid-19 crisis has highlighted the tenacity and commitment of colleagues right across the sector who have put their shoulders to the wheel to continue to deliver for our readers and the communities we serve.


Face-to-face interviews have become rare, while the amount of time we spend on the phone has increased


The change was swift - on Thursday, March 12, we


were at our desks in the Connacht Tribune as normal. By the following Monday, we were scrambling to find spare keyboards and monitors to cobble together home offices from which we’d be operating for the foreseeable future. Now more than ever, we’re reliant on technology to


get us through, and as anyone who has been working on a Virtual Private Network (VPN) for the past few weeks will tell you, it’s an achievement to get through even one day without letting go of an involuntary stream of expletives prompted by a failed connection.


NUJ Extra appeal


NUJ Extra is facing additional demands as members try to deal with hardship during the Covid-19 emergency. Freelances and staff can apply for assistance


from the charity, the union’s solidarity fund for those in need. We are extremely grateful to branches who have already contributed to the fund. Branches and


individual members are asked to help us deal with the high level of appeals. All donations welcome. Perhaps your branch might consider an online event as a solidarity fund raiser? We all encourage those who may qualify for


assistance to apply in strict confidence. Details available online at https://www.nuj.org.uk/ work/nuj-extra.


Stephen Corrigan


For most of us, the home office constitutes a laptop on the kitchen table or a desk in the corner of a bedroom - instead of lofty bookcases, most of us are displaying our bedspreads to the world via Zoom. Face-to-face interviews have become rare, while the amount of time we spend on the phone has increased. Skype interviews and Zoom conferences are daily occurrences and it’s now entirely normal to conduct an interview with your poorly lit bedroom as the backdrop. While all these elements are new, the work remains


the same. News is still happening all around us. In fact, there’s more than ever - just perhaps different to what we’re used to. The usual council meetings and regular markings are only now slowly returning, all with physical distancing built in. What’s shone through most in recent weeks is the unending good in people and the value of local news in highlighting those in our communities who are making the best of a bad situation. As we find ourselves in yet another fight for our


survival, local newspapers are week-in, week-out showing their worth and their determination to continue to fight that fight.


Stephen Corrigan is a news journalist with the Connacht Tribune.


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