How Student Media Met the Challenges of the Pandemic

By Zach Richter

SYRACUSE, N.Y. – This year student media on campus has had to adapt due to COVID-19 restrictions. At Citrus TV masks are required at all times and we have had to reduce capacity now allowing only a total of 18 people in the studio with specific capacity restrictions for each room.

The student run newspaper on campus, The Daily Orange, has also had to adapt. Casey Darnell, Editor in Chief at the DO says they have had to make almost everything virtual.

“We cannot fit everyone into our office, which is at 230 Euclid, as we normally could so we have about half of the staff working in person,” said Darnell.

A student run radio station on campus, z89, says they have also had to make changes. General Manger of the station, Kyle Leff says that it has been difficult.

“We’ve had to the limit the number of shows we’ve doing. We haven’t done about the half of the shows we normally do which is really weird for us. Normally we have shows from 6:00 a.m. to midnight every day, constantly going,” said Leff.

Also, Mornings on the Hill, a newscast run by Newhouse students has also had to adapt to Covid restrictions. Professor Kobland says when everything went online last March, they were faced with the difficult challenge of putting together an entirely virtual newscast.

“It was a challenge through zoom and I’m not going to suggest it was a perfect production. We were kind of, you know, figuring it out as we went along. But when students were able to produce their pieces and send them in and through proper production techniques on zoom,” said Kobland.