Abstract
Those of us in TV news pride ourselves on the collaborative nature of our work. Putting a complicated story on air is the work of a tightly knit group of people. This has all had to change. A story so huge it affects the lives of every single viewer and demands completely different working conditions has meant we have had to change almost every aspect of the way we work.
Adding to our usual output, Channel 4 News produced at least two 90-minute programmes a week for the first few weeks of the UK lockdown, and our weekend programmes expanded to fill a 45-minute slot. Our newsroom also produced extra hour-long documentaries and discussion programmes for Channel 4 on the virus roughly once a fortnight.
One of the first measures was to reduce the number of people physically in the newsroom. We now have 15 to 20 people, when we would have had 50 to 70 people each day. A core team works directly to that evening’s programme, with one or at most two senior editors. What was once a busy, noisy, boisterous newsroom, full of discussion, argument and gossip, is now a very calm and quiet place, with staff spaced out two metres apart. Our editorial meetings are on Zoom, with around 30 people lined up on the computer screen from all around the country.
This technology is valuable, but is not conducive to the cut and thrust of journalistic debate. It is impossible to have a discussion between more than two people. The usual exchange of ideas, angles, information and views has been severely curtailed. This runs into how our journalists do their job of finding, checking and scrutinising stories. Meetings and coffee shop chats have ended, and WhatsApp conversations or Signal messages – already important platforms for dealing with sources – are even more prevalent.
Another big change has been how our teams film and edit. The safety of our staff and of the people they are interviewing is our priority. So although we have key worker status, and are allowed to travel, we try to keep this to a minimum, and do not go into people’s homes or workplaces if there is any risk of the spread of disease.
All reporting teams carry a boom pole for microphones, so a reporter can stand at least two metres from the interviewee. Editing in the field has been a challenge, as normal practice is to edit in a specially modified van, with a camera operator/editor and reporter sitting side by side in the back seat, and a producer sitting with their back to them – all in very close proximity. All of our teams have found different ways of “distance editing”. Some have rigged up Zoom to watch the edit process remotely. Others have very long cables to link microphones and extra screens between cars parked side by side. Some have found quiet, abandoned hallways or outdoor spaces where they can sit apart from each other but carry out the intense, fast-turnaround work of editing a news package.
The in-depth interview part of our format has brought its own challenges. We now have only one presenter in the studio each night, with the other presenting from home. Each of our main presenters has a full camera rig at home, which our director and senior camera operator created. Much creative effort was put into finding suitable backdrops and branded props to make the setting work – not too distracting, but signalling to the viewer that the presenter was working from home. Our director decided in mid-March that bringing people into the studio was no longer safe – for them or for us. That was true of almost all of our down-the-line interview options, either in studios or via satellite trucks. Occasionally, a government minister is able to do an interview face to face in Westminster that we can pre-record – at a safe distance – but most of our presenter interviews are now done via Skype or FaceTime.
We used to avoid these platforms as much as possible. The rule of thumb was to use the internet only if interviewees were in a very remote location or a war zone, as the sound and vision quality was too low. But, with few alternatives, we have had to examine new ways of making them work better. One of our online video journalists produced a handy guide to making a laptop or phone camera interview look better: put the lens at eye-level, not higher or lower; have the light in front of you, not behind.
TV news has always faced challenges in getting complicated, in-depth, balanced stories quickly to air. Covid-19 has made the task an even greater collective effort. It is testament to the huge dedication and ingenuity of our journalists and newsroom staff that they have adapted their practices so quickly.
