Best Practices

COVID-19 Resources for Journalists

TRAINING AND GUIDELINES

The James W. Foley Legacy Foundation has posted journalism safety modules for use in undergraduate programs. The modules are available to view in downloadable PDF or flip-book formats, and include 16 different curricular ranging from best newsroom practices to digital security and disaster coverage. Explore the modules here.
 
Dart Centre Europe has posted a resource page with guidelines for reporting on and interviewing survivors of sexual violence that occur in conflict. The page includes key questions journalists should ask themselves before starting, assessing safety of sources, evaluating ethical pitfalls, and how best to approach an interview to mitigate harm and work compassionately. Explore the resource page here.
 
OPC Vice President Azmat Khan, an investigative reporter with The New York Times and The New York Times Magazine, and a professor at Columbia Journalism School, posted a tipsheet for investigative journalism that she uses as a reference for students.
 
The A Culture of Safety (ACOS) Alliance has posted a list of legal assistance resources with links to organizations that provide advice, support and legal assistance to freelance journalists globally. ACOS also offers a discount on insurance for journalists and other members of the media. It covers journalists travelling to any country in the world and includes conflict zones, embeds and travel in a military vehicle or helicopter.
 
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) released a guide for journalists covering natural disasters and extreme weather in connection with wildfires in California. The guide includes advice on risk assessment, how to minimize dangers, checking insurance, and other best practices, as well as a list of contents for an emergency kit. Read more here.
 
IJNet publishes an email newsletter that includes articles, grant and training opportunities and resources. Read more and subscribe here.
 
Russell Midori, the OPC Foundation’s Nathan S. Bienstock Memorial Scholarship in 2016, wrote an extensive piece for the OPC on best practices for covering civil unrest.
 
The nonprofit journalism organization 100Reporters launched a project that tracks government moves around the world that exploit the COVID-19 crisis to expand surveillance, enable corruption, and weaken transparency and government accountability. UnderCovid aggregates news about those issues from a broad range of media sources with an interactive world map, to highlight “encroachments that exploit the fear of coronavirus to redraw the balance of power between government and citizen,” and also produces original reporting “to map, expose and analyze moves to lock down civil liberties and government accountability, under cover of crisis.” Read more here.
 
The International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) has updated its site with several new resources, including articles on fighting COVID-19 disinformation, reporting on communities of color during the pandemic, audience engagement in a time of social distancing, and photojournalism in the coronavirus era.
 
The Global Investigative Journalism Network (GIJN) held a panel on July 8 to discuss how to handle disinformation about COVID-19. A recap on the organization’s site includes several links to resources and a roundup of useful advice from the program.
 
The A Culture of Safety (ACOS) Alliance has launched Arabic, French and Spanish versions of the COVID-19 News Organizations Safety Protocols. Those who want to help spread the word can access social media tools here. All versions of the protocols are downloadable from the ACOS website here.
 
The Fund for Investigative Journalism is offering emergency grants to U.S.-based freelance investigative journalists working on stories on the coronavirus that “break new ground and expose wrongdoing in the public or private sector.” The small grants will be available over the next few months on a rolling basis of up to $10,000 for freelance investigative projects that have a strong U.S. angle involving American citizens, government or business. Stories must be published in English and have a media outlet in the United States.
 
Photographers Without Borders has compiled two key resources for COVID-19, one for storytellers, and another for activists responding at the frontlines all around the world. The storyteller resource includes resources for mental health, emergency relief grants, and resources for freelance photographers.
 
Everyday Projects, a group dedicated to combating media-driven stereotypes, has published a page of general tips for visual journalists covering COVID-19. Tips include practical advice and reminders like avoiding unnecessary travel, being wary of official infection numbers and restricting exposure, as well as detailed steps for how to sanitize camera gear.
 
The GroundTruth Project published an interview with photojournalists about their best practices while covering the pandemic. OPC member Max Becherer, photo editor at The Times-Picayune and The New Orleans Advocate, talked about working with subjects and maintaining transparency to prevent risks, like asking if elderly people live in a home he might shoot.
 
National Geographic is offering rolling grants ranging from $1,000 to 8,000 for local coverage of “the preparation, response, and impact of this global pandemic as seen through evidence-based reporting.” The organization is especially interested in reporting that covers social, emotional, economic, and equity issues.
 
The International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) launched a Global Health Crisis Reporting Forum in March to help journalists provide accurate, life-saving information on the COVID-19 pandemic. Some 2,500 journalists from 100 countries have joined. The Forum, open only to journalists, connects reporters with health professionals and other experts through a webinar series. In conjunction with the International Journalists’ Network (IJNet.org), the forum also provides resources on covering COVID-19 and fosters cross-border collaborations via a Facebook group. The ICFJ has also posted a page with resources for covering the coronavirus, and has a Health Forum Newsletter that you can sign up for via this link.
 
The ACOS alliance has posted a tool kit to help freelance journalists negotiate terms to keep them safe while reporting on the pandemic or any risky environments. The article, titled “The Model Contract Project,” published on the Medium website and written by Andréa Schmidt and Anna Therese Day, includes key issues such as paying for flexible flights under uncertain travel restrictions, getting advances for safety-related costs, and insurance.
 
The Global Investigative Journalism Network (GIJN) has posted a list of new sources of funding for coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic. The list includes emergency funds from the National Geographic Society, a Coronavirus News Collaboration Challenge from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, the Internews Information Saves Lives Rapid Response Fund, the Africa-China Reporting Project, the IWMF’s Journalism Relief Fund, and dozens of others.
 
The group A Culture of Safety (ACOS) has assembled a substantial list of COVID-19 resources for journalists, including links to practical safety advice, funding opportunities, hardship and emergency funds, and reporting resources such as guides for fact checking.
 
The International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) has launched a page for COVID-19 resources for journalists. It includes a page of ICFJ research on the impacts of the pandemic on journalism, recommendations on combatting disinformation, webinars with health professionals, and a ways to connect with other journalists covering the crisis.
 
The Rory Peck Trust also has a resource page for pandemic coverage. It includes safety guidelines, funding sources, job opportunities and online training videos.
Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE) has been hosting free webinars with panelists to discuss COVID-19 reporting. The webinars are recorded and posted on the IRE website for those who cannot attend live.
 
The Google News Initiative has launched a Journalism Emergency Relief Fund to deliver aid to small, medium and local news publishers globally. The funding is open to news organizations producing original news for local communities during the crisis, and will range from the low thousands of dollars for small hyper-local newsrooms to low tens of thousands for larger newsrooms, with variations per region.
 
DATABASES
 
Columbia University’s Brown Institute for Media Innovation has compiled a large repository of documents on COVID-19 via FOIA requests. Explore the database here.
 
The Tow Center has been compiling a database on US newsroom cutbacks that have occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic. Researchers have aggregated sources including news reports, press releases and Twitter announcements. Browse the tracker here.

Helpful Organizations