COVID-19 induced changes to news gathering and news production: Practical experiences from five Ghanaian newsrooms

Abstract

This study, grounded in Kurt Lewin’s theory of change management, investigates how the COVID-19 pandemic influenced change in the news gathering and news production process in five newsrooms in Ghana. Through semi-structured in-depth interviews, our study proves that the social restrictions that were introduced due to the COVID-19 pandemic forced Ghanaian newsrooms to introduce certain measures, including work-from-home policies, a strategy that had never been explored prior to the pandemic. Our study further reveals that, whereas male journalists were usually given tasks that were considered dangerous, such as reporting from the morgue and intensive care units of hospitals, female journalists were usually assigned news conferences and tasked to conduct interviews with various stakeholders, a gender perspective to news gathering during the pandemic which has never been reported. Based on these and other findings, we argue that the COVID-19 pandemic did indeed drive change in how journalists gather and produce news.