Journalism and Corona · The Century of Journalism

A very practical consequence of the pandemic can still be observed today in many German newsrooms. Comparatively many editors are not there. This has less to do with the staff cuts outlined above than with so-called home office. As in so many areas of the modern working world, journalism too is frequently done from home. Editorial meetings take place partly virtually as video conferences and partly in person. Joint work on stories across department boundaries is done via servers and shared documents on different platforms. The pandemic was a catalyst for the digitalization of society, in journalism as well. This includes the fact that live tickers and data journalism have permanently gained importance internationally. The ZEIT journalist Julius Tröger described it like this during the pandemic: “The coronavirus pandemic is the biggest data story there has ever been worldwide, and it is being covered live right now. So visual storytelling is currently a huge topic for many newsrooms, and we are glad that we built up a data team early on.” (Hauri & Tröger, 2021, pp. 85-86)

Data visualizations on the pandemic in particular have appeared in elaborate scrollytelling formats in the Anglo-Saxon world, for example at the BBC, the Guardian and the New York Times:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/ng-interactive/2020/apr/09/how-coronavirus-spread-across-the-globe-visualised

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/05/24/us/us-coronavirus-deaths-100000.html

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-dc2d6e2d-3ab4-42de-8d03-bb7eda5fff8e

Science communication and science journalism, too, are exemplary of the fanning-out of communication channels, for example through explainer videos such as those by Mai Thi Nguyen-Kim on YouTube or the podcast Coronavirus-Update with Christian Drosten and Sandra Ciesek at NDR.

As a result of the pandemic, parts of the population have indeed turned away from established media. In part, deliberate news avoidance has taken place. In part, a polarizing turn to alternative media. It is therefore worthwhile to look at these media and at journalism here.

However, “the population’s level of trust in journalistic reporting fluctuated during the pandemic, and most news media experienced a decline in trust after an initial peak” (Beuthner et al., 2026). Right in her first government statement at the beginning of the pandemic, Chancellor Angela Merkel had said on 23 April 2020:

This pandemic is a democratic imposition; for it restricts precisely what are our existential rights and needs – those of adults just as those of children. Such a situation is only acceptable and bearable if the reasons for the restrictions are transparent and comprehensible, if criticism and objection are not only permitted but demanded and listened to – reciprocally. The free press helps with this.

The media, however, were not thanked for this help in the course of the pandemic; rather, they were accused of being too close to politics. And this reproach stems from the previous crisis, the so-called “refugee crisis”. The pressure on politics and the media in the Corona crisis would presumably not have been so strong, and the drifting apart within society not so severe, had there not been this refugee crisis beforehand.