Insights

Behind the Bylines: media perspectives on the post-pandemic world

New from Farrer Kane: Behind the Bylines

12 months on from the beginning of the UK’s first lockdown, we are all reflecting on the changes the pandemic has wrought: for individuals and families as well as for society and the economy.

In March 2021, as hundreds of thousands of people are vaccinated every day, though the crisis is not over it certainly feels like the beginning of a new chapter, perhaps closer to the end of the story than we could have hoped for in March 2020.

We decided to capture this moment of transition to find out what the pandemic has meant for one particular group of professionals – the UK’s journalists, those who have worked throughout to keep us informed and up to date, to analyse the daily developments and help us make sense of a reality none of us were prepared for.

Behind the Bylines, draws together the reflections of a few journalist friends working across national and trade media in industries and sectors including law, property, technology and care. It’s a snapshot of the ways the pandemic has impacted the field in which they report, and looks ahead to what the future holds. The insights here, though coloured by the human cost of the last twelve months, are in many cases testament to the resilience and adaptability we’ve seen this year – in some instances a prelude to lasting change.

Beyond their individual sectors, we asked our contributors to examine how the pandemic has affected the profession of journalism itself – a glimpse of people scrambling to adjust to producing newspapers and magazines from kitchen tables and sofas, by teams spread far and wide. They talk of the challenge of reporting on the greatest story of their lifetime – of trying to fill an unquenchable demand for more and better quality news. Of being at the mercy of ‘news gods’ like never before, of the strange phenomenon that working ‘remotely’ sometimes meant more face to face access – of Zooming with a prime minister and a Sex Pistol, and of the innovation and creativity deployed by their profession in contending with the challenges of the last year.

Whether you’re a business planning for marketing post-pandemic, or a communications professional building an understanding of the changing media landscape, we hope you enjoy Behind the Bylines. Let us know what you think.