Why covid-19 may forever change how the Washington Post operates

Throughout the pandemic, our newsroom has leveraged advanced technology to collaborate in near real-time. Could these innovations remain part of its regular toolkit even after the crisis abates?

By WP BrandStudio

By the morning of Tuesday, March 10, Jeremy Gilbert knew his plans were in flux. As the Post’s director of strategic initiatives, Gilbert works to develop new digital storytelling experiences, everything from AR executions to mobile-first stories. For one of their next projects, his team was looking ahead to the presidential nominating conventions, where they were preparing to launch a series of immersive activations.

The rapid spread of the covid-19 virus, however, was upending these efforts. “I remember on Monday of that week we found out that we might not be able to work in the newsroom,” Gilbert recalled. “I was talking with other top editors about how likely is it that the various teams will be able to get back in the building. At the time, nobody really knew.”

As Tuesday wore on, Gilbert began distributing various pieces of equipment—an AT&T-powered hotspot, a VR headset and 5G-capable mobile phones—to different journalists. He wanted to make sure the creative work could continue if the office ended up being closed down for a while.

His planning turned out to be prescient. Starting Wednesday, March 11, all nonessential Washington Post staffers began working remotely—and they’ve been doing so ever since.

“It’s a challenge to do this work when you can’t visit someone at their desk or brainstorm together in an office,” Gilbert sighed. “Things have changed a lot.”

But with these changes, new opportunities have emerged to test new processes for collaboration and storytelling. Gilbert has been on the frontline of these efforts.

Reporting the news from a social distance

Micah Gelman knows he’s stating the obvious when he says it’s hard to make video in a quarantine.

“Journalism by design is a collaborative effort,” said Gelman, who oversees video at the Post. “But video journalism is even more collaborative, I would argue, than traditional text journalism. We are often shoulder to shoulder in the control room and now we are cooperating from miles away.”

This reality has forced the team to change just about everything about how they produce video. To execute a multimedia project called “Voices from the Pandemic”, for example, Gelman’s team asked ICU doctors to shoot film of themselves—a process that would have been unheard of before the stay-at-home order. His team is also producing a biweekly live show, hosted by journalist Libby Casey, on the state of the public health crisis. The broadcast mimics a studio news show, only with guests calling in from their own homes.

“There’s been a lot of creativity in how we conduct live interviews, as well as how we execute the higher quality, more polished things,” Gelman noted.

This creativity relies on technology. The biweekly pandemic show, for example, uses a 5G-capable mobile phone to power the livestream. Casey broadcasts from her kitchen, and her normal wireless connection wasn’t sufficient to deliver a clean and consistent live stream. The 5G-capable mobile phone on the AT&T network changed that.

“AT&T next-gen wireless technology offers more capacity than what many people currently have in their homes,” explains Robert Boyanovsky, AT&T vice president for enterprise mobility product management. “These devices give newsrooms more flexibility in terms of how and where they can carry-out data-intensive projects, which is particularly helpful in this moment when most people are working remotely.”

AT&T also provided the Post’s podcast team with a mobile hotspot, which has been crucial for sharing large audio files. “In this present circumstance when we are all socially distanced, we have to find other ways that we can use technology to bridge the gaps,” said Gilbert, whose team sourced the AT&T technology. “We’ve had to adapt.”

Whats next?

Gilbert believes there’s value to finding new ways to use technology that will benefit The Post even once the crisis abates, particularly with more advanced mobile technology like 5G.

AT&T-connected phones and hotspots are only the beginning. The proliferation of next-generation wireless, which is faster and has higher capacity than predecessors, will increasingly be transformative for journalists working remotely. It could eventually support upload and download speeds in home offices that are comparable to in-office broadcast studios. It would allow reporters to create data-heavy content—immersive experiences, for example—from the field. It could allow flexible, mobile mini newsrooms to exist just about anywhere.

“The potential of 5G to reshape newsroom operations is quite profound,” notes Boyanovsky. “Imagine a world where massive amounts of data can be shared in near-real-time from just about anywhere. It expands what you can do from the field and remote offices to deliver breaking stories faster than ever before.”

Gilbert believes advanced network technology can support a rebalancing between a physical newsroom and remote staffing—one that will yield an even better news product. “We’ll need processes that more seamlessly connect employees who work in different locations,” Gilbert said. “I see so much potential in the 5G network and the higher connectivity speeds that it will increasingly enable.”

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The Washington Post newsroom was not involved in the creation of this content. Learn more about WP BrandStudio.