Innovation and Determination: How Local American TV Journalists Told the COVID-19 “Story of a Lifetime”

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has provided a rare opportunity for analysis of local American television news reporting during a global health crisis. Using Diffusion of Innovations as the theoretical framework of their study, researchers conducted 20 in-depth interviews in summer 2021 with local television reporters from small, medium, and large markets across the United States about their work conditions during the pandemic. Thematic analysis revealed time-saving, cost-saving, and health-saving measures adopted under difficult and confusing circumstances.