Sports Journalists in a Pandemic

By James Grant

Reporting Texas

While watching a local newscast one night around the start of the coronavirus pandemic in the U.S., I noticed one of the sports reporters on Tampa/St. Pete’s Bay News 9 was reporting from his living room because of health and safety measures.

This caught my attention because I want to go into local television as a sports anchor/reporter, and once I saw this, I immediately wanted to hear from sports journalists at different stations about how they were having to change the way they cover and report on stories as a result of the pandemic. I was interested in hearing about how these anchors and reporters became creative in how they conduct interviews, put together packages, and report on stories even from their own homes.

I was fortunate to be able to talk to several different sports anchors and reporters from stations around the country, and I enjoyed getting to hear about how each of them adapted by doing things like using Zoom for interviews and turning living rooms into makeshift studios using jerseys and sports memorabilia as a backdrop.

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