My final workday in February 2020 was the last time I reported a story before our world was upended.
It was a Saturday. I was in downtown Atlanta, covering the U.S. marathon trials for the 2020 Olympics. I stood amidst a crowd of hundreds, not realizing that option wouldn’t exist in a few weeks. I spoke with anticipation about that summer’s Olympics, not realizing they wouldn’t take place.
Two days later, our second daughter arrived. Two weeks later, while I sat home on paternity leave, the president declared a national state of emergency because of the widening COVID-19 pandemic.
That pandemic has altered our lives ever since.
I plan to offer more expansive reflections on the past year in the weeks ahead, but I first wanted to look back. One of the many personal benefits of this blog is the snapshots it provides of the various moments of my professional – and often personal – life. I share these entries with you now in the hopes they’ll trigger your own reflections on how you’ve changed during this challenging, maddening, extraordinary time in our lives.
23 hours in New Jersey: how I crammed seven shoots into one trip for a powerful story: Remember when we could travel freely, for both our jobs and our lives? One month before the pandemic spread across the States, here’s the kind of ambition and possibility I saw in my work:
“Whenever I ask my boss for the go-ahead to fly for a story, I shake a little.
“I don’t ask often. But when I do, I know I’m requesting an investment. A plane trip requires extra time, at least one additional workday if you combine both flights. It sends me beyond my market, for a story that must remain relevant for a local audience. Above all, it demands money: hundreds of dollars at minimum for travel, lodging, and food.
“I know the stakes. So I never go too far with my requests. I research the cheapest flights and try to minimize my nights away, all while ensuring I give myself enough time to make the trip worth it. And ‘worth it,’ in these cases, means gathering enough footage, interviews, and moments to allow me to tell memorable stories.
“I got the chance last month, and I turned 23 hours into seven shoots, for a story that demanded each one.”
The COVID-19 pandemic struck as my daughter was born. I knew I needed to stay on the sidelines: I mentioned being on paternity leave when our country entered a state of emergency. That meant I couldn’t jump into action the way I would have normally done:
“A storyteller’s instinct is to rush to the biggest stories. We romanticize it. I’ve heard reporters boast about cutting short weekends, vacations, and honeymoons to cover the latest breaking story. To some degree – and depending on where you work – that’s part of the job. I’ve spent snowstorms on windy, white-capped bridges. I’ve missed friends’ weddings to cover the World Series and Olympics. I struggle with these sacrifices, but I understand why they’re necessary, and I hope my friends and family do too.
“But I wouldn’t sacrifice this. Months before my daughter arrived, I informed my bosses I planned to take four weeks off: two for paternity leave, and two as paid time off. I resolved as many commitments as I could beforehand, and I cleared those weeks to focus solely on family. No story, I pledged to myself, would reel me back.
“Then a worldwide pandemic struck American cities, and I felt torn.
“I wanted to jump to action. But I wanted more to be with family. I wanted to take my two-year-old for rides on her balance bike. I wanted to bottle-feed my newborn and feel her fuzzy forehead nuzzle against my neck. Mostly I wanted to shoulder my half of the sleep-deprived parental responsibilities and not overburden my wife, still recovering from childbirth and expecting a more gradual return to normalcy.”
‘It’s like emotional whiplash’: my juggle as a reporter and father during the COVID-19 pandemic: The challenges of balancing work and family didn’t stop once I returned to work. Like so many, I confronted the struggles – and the beauty – of raising children while turning packages:
“None of this is normal. We are all making sacrifices and adjusting our lives. Many of us know someone who’s caught COVID-19 – or, worse, lost a life from it – if we haven’t faced it ourselves. Many work in fields where they confront the pandemic first-hand every day, from the grocery store cashiers wearing masks and gloves to the nurse I interviewed, witnessing a body get rolled to the morgue.
“Before the last two months, I often shot video of and experienced viscerally the best and worst moments of people’s lives. I processed details that would sober me, haunt me, and often force me to step outside the newsroom for a breather. But at least I was near the newsroom, miles from home. I could focus on my work, my wife could do the same, and my daughter could frolic with her classmates at school. Then we could all come home, put our experiences aside, and enjoy each other.
“Now I work from home, eternally juggling. I don’t place my situation above anyone else’s. Far from it. But I can speak to the unique challenge of balancing the emotions of confronting a pandemic with the emotions of parenting young children. My daughters don’t recognize what’s going on. My 2-year-old rarely asks why she hasn’t been to school in a month, and my newborn is still mastering tummy time. Often this works to my benefit. I spend “Pajama Playtime” with my daughters before my dayside shift, take a ten-minute break to sing to my two-year-old before nap-time, and pop in throughout when I’m needed (and when I can).
“So often, this creates an emotional whiplash. I dive from sound bites about sickness and death into dance parties with Baby Shark. I absorb the weathered eyes of a patient who’s beaten COVID-19, then stare into the blue-eyed bubbles of a toddler with few cares beyond her next virtual play date.”
Finding the power of the big picture in the pandemic grind: As 2020 closed, the pandemic neared its highest totals in terms of cases and lives lost. Many I know had been affected by the virus personally. Even for those who hadn’t, the ability to think big – especially during such limiting times – was and remains crucial:
“I spent much of 2020 feeling like I wasn’t fulfilling my potential. I sat out major stories. I couldn’t approach others with the same ambition because I realized the toll it would take at home. For a long time, with a months-old daughter sleeping in our room (and often not sleeping), a successful day meant summoning enough energy to get through both my work shift and the additional hours overseeing a toddler and infant. I could barely focus while writing scripts. I scraped for extra minutes to plan future stories. I rarely felt I had enough time.
“Then I stepped back and realized what those frustrations had borne. And I became immensely proud.
“In 2020 I continued to produce meaningful stories, even receiving the opportunity to work with the special projects team at my station. I MMJ’d a documentary, The Ripple, about the pandemic’s overlooked effects on underserved communities. (I shot most of it during a glorious two-week period when my parents came down to visit and babysit.) I used the lack of significant shooting opportunities to improve my post-production and get stronger at Adobe After Effects. I learned Adobe Premiere and now use it as my primary editing software – a longtime goal I finally accomplished.
“Outside the newsroom came two of my proudest achievements. When so many storytelling workshops and conferences were getting postponed or cancelled, I reached out to the NPPA to see if I could plan a virtual video storytelling workshop. Two months later, we gathered more than 200 journalists and an all-star speaking line-up over Zoom for an inspiring weekend that will remain a highlight of my career. And in the early stages of the pandemic, not to mention the earliest months of my younger daughter’s life, I copy edited the 2nd edition of my book, The Solo Video Journalist, a how-to guide for those of us who produce stories as one-person crews. My publisher released it over the summer.
“I know I’m not alone. Maybe we all didn’t write books or plan workshops, but I think most of us can look back at 2020 and find successes amidst the struggle. It’s an important perspective for 2021, when we may perhaps return to something approaching our pre-pandemic lives. Burnout will remain a risk. Stress will remain a constant. We will need to navigate our dreams, expectations, and assignments with steady minds. That starts with thinking big and always keeping sight of our larger goals. It means absorbing our circumstances and continuing to push.”
The Solo Video Journalist is available for purchase. You can find it on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and the publisher’s web site.
Matt Pearl is the author of the Telling the Story blog and podcast. Feel free to comment below or e-mail Matt at matt@tellingthestoryblog.com. You can also follow Matt on Facebook, Twitter, and his web site, mattpearl.tv.