How the story-of-the-decade – the coronavirus pandemic – has impacted newsrooms and journalists was the focus of the ABU’s Global News Forum – a Webinar this year that brought together Asiavision Members from Fiji through Asia, from South Asia to Iran.

Keynote Speaker Dr Anthony Feinstein, Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Toronto – and co-author of a recent Reuters Institute study that found one in four journalists are reporting ‘clinically significant’ anxiety post COVID-19 – was joined by a panel of Asiavision newsroom leaders. CGTN’s head of Domestic News Gathering Xu Zhaoqun, DDI’s head of News Operations Padma Angmo and FBC’s CEO Riyaz Sayed-Khaiyum. The 90-minute webinar was moderated by NHK’s Chief International Correspondent, Miki Ebara.

More than 60 participants were part of a wide-ranging discussion informed by Dr Feinstein’s data on how reporting on and living though COVID-19 has affected the mental wellbeing of journalists. They heard accounts of journalists who reported from the field in Wuhan as the pandemic unfolded in January, to the challenges of running a massive news operation in multiple languages across India, to how the pandemic has shut down Pacific economies even though there are very few cases.

A recording of the Webinar will soon be made available for all ABU Members on Asiavision’s website.