The COVID-19 pandemic is causing healthcare and economic woes around the world, and some governments are using the global crisis as an opportunity to seize control of information flowing from and within their borders.  With press freedom increasingly under attack, many journalists find it difficult to collect and provide details about COVID-19, especially in nations that have been hot spots for the virus. In this edition of Update-1, Broadcast Podcast team member Shannon Fisher speaks with Executive Director of Reporters Without Borders (a.k.a.

Founded in 1933 during the Great Depression, the NewsGuild has represented reporters and other employees at news operations through good and bad times, bargaining for improved wages and working conditions and promoting honesty in journalism. Now, amid a pandemic and another extraordinary economic downturn, the NewsGuild is pushing hard for measures to aid its members as newspapers and other news media in the U.S. and Canada lay off and furlough reporters and cut their salaries to compensate for lost advertising revenue.

Timely and reliable news reporting is more important than ever now as the coronavirus pandemic spreads rapidly across the world. The challenge is a daunting one for journalists faced not only with the task of sorting through complicated and often contradictory information but also the risk of contracting COVID-19, the infectious disease caused by the new virus. And even as people turn to the news media for information on the crisis, many U.S. newspapers are letting go of reporters and editors as advertising all but disappears.