Collective Memory of Women Journalists in COVID-19

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  Alessandra Bergamin, Oral History Interview, 2023

  You Li

  Alessandra Bergamin is an award-winning Australian investigative journalist who divides her time between Melbourne and Los Angeles. Bergamin covers the intersection of environmental conflict and human rights around the world. Her work has appeared in The Baffler, In These Times, Harper’s Magazine, National Geographic, and The New Yorker.com, among others. In 2022, Bergamin was honored as a Distinguished Journalist by the Society of Professional Journalists, Los Angeles in the newspaper/print (smaller circulation) category. She has received fellowships and grants from many entities to investigate environmental and human rights issues.

  In this interview, Bergamin reviewed her experiences and takeaways from reporting labor and human trafficking issues during the pandemic. She shared approaches and advice to developing and cultivating sources who reside remotely and in hard-to-reach communities. She also commented on the importance of mental health and the challenges of being a freelancer and woman journalist. Finally, she reflected on the meaning of the pandemic to her personally and professionally. She called for more understanding of the differential impact of the pandemic on different populations.

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  Aliya Bashir, Oral History Interview, 2023

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  Aliya Bashir is an independent journalist covering India and India-administered Kashmir with a focus on human rights, gender justice, women’s issues, the environment, healthcare, education and minorities. Her work has been published in The Guardian, Time, Reuters, Global Press Journal, Global Health Now, and The New Humanitarian among many others. She is the winner of the 2015 Schizophrenia Research Foundation-Press Institute of India “Media for Mental Health” award for best reporting on mental health issues in India. A HEFAT trainee, she has won reporting grants from the International Women’s Media Foundation and Population Reference Bureau.

  In this interview, Bashir recalled her experiences covering the impact of COVID-19 on women and their children. She reflected on the lack of women's representation in mainstream media, vaccination and health data, and the decision-making process in families. Despite the challenges of reaching sources in remote and vulnerable conditions and with little support as a freelance journalist, her reporting brought awareness to the gender gap and urged officials to collect data and build women-centric vaccination campaigns. She also commended more recognition of women journalists' work and minimizing the pay disparity between genders.

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  Amanda Morris, Oral History Interview, 2023

  You Li

  Amanda Morris is a staff reporter at the Washington Post in the United States. Before joining the Post in August 2022, Morris was an inaugural disability reporting fellow for The New York Times. Previously, she covered science, politics, and national news for outlets, including The Arizona Republic, The Associated Press, and National Public Radio (NPR).

  In this interview Morris shared her experiences covering the early months of the pandemic for The Arizona Republic. She recalled challenges such as performing field work as a visual journalist, maintaining work and work-life balance, mental health, and combating public distrust in science reporting and online harassment. She recommended practical tips for organizations and the general public to recognize women journalists' challenges and contributions in reporting the pandemic.

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  Ankita M. Kumar, Oral History Interview, 2023

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  Ankita M. Kumar is a journalist, analyst, and product manager. During COVID, she covered several high-profile investigative stories on the pandemic in India for Deutsche Welle, Germany's international broadcaster. In 2020, she received a grant from the National Geographic Society's COVID-19 emergency fund to complete a written report on equal access to health care for women in the current Gurugram's urban slums. Kumar was relocated to the United States in 2021, and graduated with a master's degree from Northwestern University, specializing in media innovation and content strategy.

  Kumar published several investigative stories that focused on underrepresented groups during the pandemic, including women in Gurugram's slums, cremation urns workers, migrant workers, and diamond polishers. In this interview, she revealed the unique challenges from family, community, and sources she endured to practice journalism as a woman in India. A journalist and a social worker, Kumar advised spending time building a trustworthy relationship with sources and maintaining objectivity in one's journalistic pursuit. She reviewed the difficulties of covering COVID at its peak while enduring the loss of a family member to the virus. The personal loss put her in a unique position to tell other people's suffering with compassion and empathy. She left future generations with lessons of loss and gains.

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  April Zhu, Oral History Interview, 2023

  You Li

  April Zhu is a freelance journalist based in Kenya. Her work focuses on gender, urban inequality, and the Chinese diaspora in Kenya. She is a senior editor at Guernica Magazine where she edits interviews and produces a podcast “Until Everyone is Free”. Her work has appeared in The New York Review of Books Daily, Foreign Policy, The Baffler Magazine, The South China Morning Post Magazine, VOA News, and others.

  Zhu's COVID reporting helped people understand the systematic issues in the healthcare system in Africa. She recalled the early lockdowns in Kenya, government responses, and police violence. She criticized Sinophobia and racial discrimination and commented on the financial challenges and lack of institutional support for being a freelancer. Regardless, she's grateful for growing professionally during the pandemic. She urges the future generation to connect their crisis reporting with structural issues and make an impactful change.

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  Beimeng Fu, Oral History Interview, 2023

  You Li

  Beimeng Fu is an award-winning video journalist and documentary filmmaker based in Shanghai, China. She has covered stories out of the Greater China Area, the U.S. and its Asian diasporas, and East Africa. Her bylines have appeared in The Washington Post, BuzzFeed News, The California Sunday Magazine, ABC News, Quartz, South China Morning Post, Sixth Tone, Tencent Guyu Project, and more. During COVID, she recorded the collective mood of people who experienced the two-month-long lockdown in Shanghai in the Spring of 2022. The documentary, “Thank You For Your Cooperation,” was named a finalist in the 2023 Society of Publishers in Asia (SOPA).

  In this interview, Fu recalled the ground situation in China where COVID was discovered first. She covered the pandemic news and its impact on migrant workers, residents in Wuhan, education, and rural parts and frontier cities of China. She endured a two-month total lockdown in her apartment in Shanghai while producing two video projects about these lockdowns from home. She also commented on the difficulties of producing video and documentary projects in a highly censored media environment when mobility was tracked and restricted by the government.

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  Biena Magbitang, Oral History Interview, 2023

  You Li

  Biena Magbitang is an award-winning journalist from the Philippines. She has extensive experience reporting climate change, energy policies, and foreign relations in Southeast Asia. She currently serves as the Asia Regional Director for Climate Tracker, where she mentors journalists, reports on high-level summits, and moderates roundtable discussions. She has worked for ABS-CBN Corporation as the head of a digital news channel, production unit manager, and producer for over 10 years. During COVID-19, Ms. Magbitang was in charge of News Production, Management, and Strategy at ABS-CBN and produced numerous broadcast specials on the topic as TV News Executive Producer.

  Magbitang was the executive producer for a flagship evening newscast at a local broadcasting station during the pandemic in the Philippines. She recalled the early chaos and uncertainties of reporting COVID news and preparing for lockdowns. The station transitioned to COVID-centric coverage, went through revenue loss and layoff, and eventually was shut down by the government. Magbitang reviewed her experience from a journalist and a station manager's perspective, commenting on the differential impact of COVID on her colleagues. Heavy workload, loss of employment, and surviving COVID added multiple layers of stress to her colleagues and worsened their mental health. She advised the future generation of journalists to recognize the role of the press in society and advocate for gender equality and more attention to mental health.

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  Bukola Adebayo, Oral History Interview, 2023

  You Li

  Bukola Adebayo is an investigative journalist with over a decade of experience reporting health, science, politics, and education in Africa. She is now the West Africa correspondent for the Thomson Reuters Foundation (Nov. 2022 to now) covering human rights and issues around abuse and exploitation of everyday people in the big economy, environment, and tech space. During COVID, Bukola was the senior producer at the CNN Digital Bureau in Nigeria (Jan 2018- Aug 2021), where she covered many topics, including, human rights, women’s rights, social injustice, political uprisings, and the environment.

  In this interview, Adebayo recalled her experience of covering the impact of COVID across Africa as the senior producer at the CNN Digital Bureau in Nigeria. She reflected on navigating the transition to remote working, balancing work and life, coping with public distrust and criticism, and the unique contributions of women journalists. COVID has changed work relationships, work culture, and work routines, and provided more flexibility and safety to her. She also commented on the gender disparity in the newsroom, what it was like to work as a woman journalist in Nigeria, and made recommendations to future generations.

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  Caroline Harrap, Oral History Interview, 2023

  You Li

  Caroline Harrap is a freelance journalist based in Paris, France, writing about French culture, travel, and environmental issues. Her work has appeared in The Guardian, The Independent, France Today, and Euro News among others. She is also a co-founder of the Society of Freelance Journalists.

  When traveling was restricted, Harrap, a freelancer who used to write about travel, had to shift her gear to cover the lockdowns, human interest stories, and personal experiences and insights of the pandemic in Paris for foreign media outlets who couldn't send reporters in. She reflected on the pros and cons of sharing personal experiences and insights with the public, including handling public criticisms and dealing with gender stereotypes and harassment. Seeing the challenges facing many freelancers, she co-founded the Society of Freelance Journalists, a network of peer support that has attracted over 2500 members worldwide.

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  Christine Ro, Oral History Interview, 2023

  You Li

  Christine Ro, a freelance journalist based in London, the United Kingdom, covers subjects on international development, social justice, environmentalism, and pop culture. Her work has appeared in Nature, BBC, Forbes, and The New York Times, among others.

  In this interview, Ro recalled her experiences reporting COVID. She used a solution-based and data-driven approach that relied heavily on scientific research findings to inform the public of policymaking and the impact of COVID-19. She shared the strategies and challenges of reporting subjects and contacting on-the-ground sources remotely in other countries during the pandemic. She also noted gender disparity in family care and the importance of including women's perspectives in journalistic reporting. Last, she commented on the positivities and limitations of societal responses to the pandemic.

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  Danielle Keeton-Olsen, Oral History Interview, 2023

  You Li

  Danielle Keeton-Olsen is a freelance journalist who explores issues in business, human rights, healthcare, and environmental subjects in Cambodia. She has been stationed in Cambodia since 2017. Her work has been published in Forbes, the BBC, South China Morning Post, VOD English, Al Jazeera, and HuffPost, among others.

  In this interview, Keeton-Olsen recalled the ground situation in January 2020 and the COVID impact on local communities and businesses in Cambodia. She reviewed her journey of becoming a foreign correspondent. She commented on the business model of Cambodian media, the media environment, government control of media, media relationship with the general public, challenges, and opportunities as a freelancer in Cambodia. She also commented on the status of women, particularly women journalists in this society. She attributed her success to many role models and predecessors before her time and called for more public attention to and appreciation of reporting undercovered regions in South Asia.

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  Denise Hruby, Oral History Interview, 2023

  You Li

  Denise Hruby from Vienna, Austria, is an award-winning journalist, writer, and National Geographic Explorer focusing on the climate and biodiversity crises and politics. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, National Geographic Magazine, The Washington Post, and CNN, among many others. She has won multiple international awards for environmental reporting and feature writing and numerous fellowships and grants. Throughout her career, Denise has reported from more than 25 countries, including the war in Ukraine, terror attacks in Austria, and conflicts in South Sudan among many other national and international events. Before relocating to Vienna in 2018, Denise worked in China and Southeast Asia as a reporter, editor, and newsroom manager for almost a decade.

  In this interview, Hruby recalled the public reactions, the ground situation, and the reporting of the pandemic in Vienna, Austria. She contracted the virus early on and lost most of her freelance work due to travel restrictions. She switched from writing feature stories about the environment and climate change to covering breaking news on coronavirus and government responses. Besides enduring many hardships as a freelancer, she is concerned about the shifting public perception of the media after the pandemic and the deteriorating public trust in journalism in Austria.

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  Elettra Fiumi, Oral History Interview, 2023

  You Li

  Elettra Fiumi is an award-winning film director, producer, and editor making independent documentary films. Fiumi’s documentaries explore themes of discovery, innovation, and a sense of place. She’s told stories of people, brands, and places across nations and industries, including in technology, adventure travel, fashion, art, architecture, and education. Fiumi’s past films have been featured in the BBC, Teen Vogue, The New Yorker, NBC News Digital, MSNBC, Univision and others. She launched and leads Fiumi Studios, a full-service production and online content strategy company, and worked on content for Netflix, Airbnb, WhatsApp, and Amazon Prime, among many others. Fiumi also teaches filmmaking at Franklin University in Switzerland.

  Fiumi, a freelance documentary filmmaker who has strong family and professional ties in Italy and the U.S. Relocated to Switzerland right before the outbreak of COVID, Fiumi had to innovate her filming approach when in-person interviews and filming were impossible during lockdowns. She compiled crowdsourcing from residents and curated the eyewitness footage and storytelling from a few photojournalists remotely to document the frontline impact of COVID-19 in Italy, which won the attention of a global audience and 17 international awards. In this interview, she revealed the behind-the-scene coordination of those productions, challenges for filmmakers, and gender stereotypes in the filming industry. She left some encouraging remarks to future generations.

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  Elizabeth Fitt, Oral History Interview, 2023

  You Li

  Elizabeth Fitt is a freelance photographer based out of Beirut, Lebanon. Her work has been published with various media outlets including the Guardian, the Sunday Times, Forbes, Foreign Policy, the Telegraph, CNN, ABC Australia, The National, Middle East Eye, The New Humanitarian, The New York Post, and the New Scientist. She also writes on environmental issues for Mongabay.

  In this interview, Fitt recalled the ground situation in Lebanon and the extreme caution and effort it took her to photograph vulnerable communities during lockdowns. Her projects depicted the overwhelming and devastating scenes in the ICU Wards, the food distribution among the underprivileged communities in the south of Lebanon, and other high-profile events. She also recalled the extraordinary experience of photographing a wedding ceremony out of town during a total lockdown. She also commented on local public attitudes toward journalists, collegial relationships, and challenges facing women journalists in this area. She ended the interview with uplifting advice to future generations of journalists.

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  Elizia Volkmann, Oral History Interview, 2023

  You Li

  Elizia Volkmann is a British freelance journalist, photographer, and videographer with more than 20 years of experience. Based in Tunisia, Volkmann covers international trade, geo-political economics, and humanitarian issues in the Maghreb and Euro-med regions and North Africa. Her work has been published in the Times, Al-Jazeera, Euro News, the BBC, and AI Monitor, among others. During COVID, Volkmann covered the impact of the pandemic for both Arab-focused English language press and business publications.

  In this interview, Volkmann recounted in vivid detail her experiences surviving COVID and enduring Long COVID symptoms while covering politics and the pandemic impact. She lost significant work and income, received no institutional support, and struggled with maintaining mental health and physical health during the pandemic. She commented on the dilemma of being a foreign correspondent stuck overseas. She also recalled incidents of sexism against women in society and harassment against women journalists in the workplace. She called for more organized support to freelancers and to build community connections and mental and physical strengths.

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  Emily Sohn, Oral History Interview, 2023

  You Li

  Emily Sohn, based in the U.S., is a freelance journalist with 20 years of experience. She explores issues in science, health, and the environment. Her work has been published in Nature, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, Discovery News, Science News for Kids, U.S. News & World Report, and National Geographic News, among others.

  Sohn tried to explain the science of COVID guidance and the pandemic's psychological and behavioral impacts on children and adults. She reminded the public that science is an evolving process, and journalism plays an important role in analyzing, documenting, and conveying evidence-based information to the public as soon as it becomes available. She also touched on the fast-paced news cycle, work and life dilemmas, and challenges facing freelance journalists during the pandemic.

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  Frankie Huang, Oral History Interview, 2023

  You Li

  Frankie Huang from the United States is a freelance writer, editor, strategist, and illustrator. She writes about culture and food, and she is interested in intersectional feminism, diaspora Asian American identity, social justice, storytelling, the hybrid of translation and creation, and beauty in all its forms. Her work has been published in The Atlantic, The New York Times, The Guardian, Foreign Policy, and 1843 Magazine, among many others.

  Huang published a few opinion pieces based on her experience in Shanghai in the early days of the pandemic and then returning to the U.S. In this interview, she recalled her journey in journalism and the challenges of writing about COVID in China and the U.S. Job security, racism, sexism, inequality, work-life balance, and the clashes between cultures, are just a few challenges that she highlighted in this conversation.

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  Grace Moon, Oral History Interview, 2023

  You Li

  Grace Moon is a global audience editor at the Washington Post’s Seoul hub in South Korea, where they produce domestic and international breaking news stories, and live coverage of major events around the world. Moon also serves as the Co-Vice President of the Asia American Journalists Association Seoul and the Co-Director of the Asian American Journalists Association’s young professionals’ affinity group, which mentors students and early-career journalists. During the pandemic, Moon worked as a multimedia freelancer and Korea correspondent for Reporters without Brooders. Her work appeared in places like the BBC Worklife, NBC News, Nikkei Asia, The New York Times Video, VICE News, Public Radio International, The Wall Street Journal, and The South China Morning Post, among others.

  Moon, a Korean American journalist, took off her freelance career during the pandemic. She arrived in Seoul, South Korea for a research fellowship right before the outbreak and decided to stay. With no community or formal employment, Moon managed to cover breaking news and human interest stories for domestic and international media outlets despite taking health and security risks. Her story exemplified the transformation of a young journalist who survived and thrived with minimal resources amidst a global health crisis. This interview revealed the behind-the-scene process of her reporting and demonstrated the efforts and courage it takes a journalist to deliver the news. She reviewed the ground situation in Seoul in the early months of the pandemic, commented on the challenges facing a female journalist in South Korea, and encouraged more mentorship and peer support to younger generations of journalists.

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  Iris Hsu, Oral History Interview, 2023

  You Li

  Iris Hsu from Taipei is the China representative at the Committee to Protect Journalists (or CPJ). Established in 1981, CPJ is an independent, nonprofit organization that promotes press freedom worldwide. It is made up of 40 experts around the world with its headquarter in New York City. Iris Hsu joined CPJ in 2017. Prior to joining CPJ, she interned at Human Rights Watch, the Center for Arms Control and Nonproliferation, and the Atlantic Council.

  Hsu commented on the reporting environment in China. In this interview, she drew past and current cases to demonstrate the status of press freedom, the challenges facing female journalists, and the restrictions that both local and foreign journalists face while reporting in China, before and during the COVID pandemic. Working toward CPJ's mission, she gathered information, interviewed sources, and advocated for justice and public awareness on behalf of those imprisoned journalists.

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  Jenna Le Bras, Oral History Interview, 2023

  You Li

  Jenna Le Bras is a French independent journalist based in West Africa. She works for French and foreign media, mainly in print and video media, including L'Orient le Jour, Jeune Afrique, BFMTV, Les Inrocks, Orient XXI, AFP, and Rue89.

  Le Bras, a freelance journalist based in Ivory Coast, covered the West African regions for French publications during the pandemic. In this conversation, she recalled how she decided to stay and work in the area despite many challenges, including job security, mobility restrictions, health risks, and mental breakdown. She revealed the challenges and opportunities facing a freelance journalist in a foreign country and reflected on her gains and losses during the pandemic.

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  Jennifer Hassan, Oral History Interview, 2023

  You Li

  Jennifer Hassan is a London-based breaking news reporter for the foreign desk at the Washington Post. Before joining the Post in 2016, she worked as a social media editor at MailOnline.

  Hassan, a London-based staff reporter for the Washington Post, probably contracted the coronavirus from a trip to Thailand before the U.K. announced its first case. She recalled her personal experiences of surviving COVID early on when no test was available. Once recovered, Hassan chased the 24/7 news cycle coordinating with the international team across the U.S., South Korea, and the U.K., and published over 900 articles during COVID. She shared her challenges and takeaways from reporting the pandemic and acknowledged the contributions of women journalists.

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  Jess DiPierro Obert, Oral History Interview, 2023

  You Li

  Jess DiPierro Obert reported on COVID-19 from Haiti. She is an investigative visual journalist, producer, and filmmaker who splits her time between Mexico City, Brooklyn, and Haiti. She focuses on solution-based storytelling around women and abortion, human rights, identity, and mental health in Latin America and the Caribbean, and the U.S. Her byline has appeared in Buzzfeed News, The Guardian, Reuters, Al Jazeera English, the New York Times and others.

  DiPierro Obert did investigative reporting on vaccine hesitancy and mental health issues in Haiti during the pandemic, which increased public awareness and conversation about COVID-related issues. In this interview, she recalled the ground situation in Haiti, covering communities that denied COVID-19, interviewing women victims of gang violence, threats from gang leaders, and other challenges as a woman freelancer.

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  Kathy Gannon, Oral History Interview, 2023

  You Li

  Kathy Gannon covered Afghanistan and Pakistan for the Associated Press as chief correspondent and later news director for 35 years. She also covered the 2006 war in South Lebanon, the Iraq War, the Central Asian States, and the Middle East. Gannon was the only Western journalist allowed in Kabul by the Taliban in the weeks preceding the 2001 U.S.-British offensive in Afghanistan. In April 2014 Gannon was seriously wounded, hit by seven bullets while covering preparations for Afghan national elections when an Afghan police officer opened fire on the car in which she was riding. A Canadian native, she received numerous awards, including the 2022 Fall Semester Joan Shorenstein Fellow at the Shorenstein Center at Harvard Kennedy School, the 2022 Columbia Journalism School Lifetime Award, the International Women’s Media Foundation Courage In Journalism Award, and many others. In May 2022, Gannon retired from the Associated Press.

  Gannon recalled her reporting on COVID-19 on top of other regional conflicts in Afghanistan and Pakistan. She criticized the Western media's institutionalized double standard when covering foreign countries. Gannon believes in the role of journalists to witness and record history as a detached observer. She reviewed incidents where she pushed cultural, religious, and political restrictions against a woman to accomplish reporting tasks. She encouraged fellow women journalists to use their gender to their advantage and maneuver in challenging situations. She also urged more institutional attention and changes to resolve gender and race inequalities.

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  Lenora Chu, Oral History Interview, 2023

  You Li

  Lenora Chu is a journalist, public speaker, and media strategist with over 15 years of experience in the U.S., China, and Europe. Now based in Berlin, Germany, she covers Europe for the nonprofit news organization Christian Science Monitor. A long-time journalist, Chu focuses on the intersection of politics, education, and culture in her reporting. Her work has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and New York magazine, among others. Her book, “Little Soldier” won the “Best Education Book of 2017” among other awards. In 2019, she was named to the Public Intellectuals Program of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations.

  Chu, a journalist based in Berlin, Germany, was covering the pandemic impact in Europe for the Christian Science Monitor. In this interview, she recalled her trip to China in January 2020 where the coronavirus originated, and a conference later in Seattle where the U.S. documented its first COVID death. She compared the public attitudes toward science, government orders, and journalists in the U.S. and Germany, and how the two countries handled disinformation and misinformation. She traced the cultural, political, and historical factors that may have resulted in the differences between the two countries. She commented on the challenges of maintaining a work-life balance during lockdowns, changes to work routines, and women journalists' contributions.

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  Maria Hansson Botin, Oral History Interview, 2023

  You Li

  Maria Hansson Botin is a radio journalist from Sweden. She is a documentary producer at Third Ear Studio. She has several years of experience making documentaries for the Swedish Broadcasting Corporation, Sveriges Radio, investigative journalism, news stories, and as a local fixer in Sweden for foreign media outlets.

  Hansson Botin quit her freelance job and became an investigative reporter for a production company in the middle of the pandemic. She retrieved her memories of the ground situation in Sweden, the government policies (which were quite different from the other Western countries), and public reactions. This interview highlighted her experiences producing audio and investigative journalism pieces and documenting the impact of COVID on rural villages, and the spread of disinformation and misinformation. She also compared her experiences as a freelancer versus a staff reporter, and some challenges that she encountered as a woman journalist. Last, she urged future generations to understand that finding truth is an ongoing process and that journalism may improve its transparency to regain public trust.