The COVID-19 pandemic has hit nearly 200 countries and infected over 41 million people in less than a year, making it the largest health crisis and the most dominant news of the 21st century. Journalists were the essential workforce that brought news, stories, and interpretations of scientific discoveries and policy impacts to people at that time. The experiences of women journalists covering the pandemic—their contributions and unique challenges—are integral to our collective memories of the pandemic.
This collection features 33 oral history interviews with women journalists who reported the COVID-19 pandemic from 25 countries and regions, including Afghanistan, Australia, Austria, Cambodia, China, France, Germany, Haiti, India, Italy, Kenya, Lebanon, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Switzerland, Taipei, Tunisia, United Kingdom, United States, Vietnam, and West Africa.
This sample of journalists comes from the Coalition for Women in Journalism (CFWIJ) which compiles the list of women journalists covering COVID-19 in 54 countries. One journalist in each country and additional journalists in the countries with more than five journalists listed were contacted, including the United States, India, China, Pakistan, Turkey, United Kingdom, Italy, Canada, Germany, and Afghanistan. A total of 33 women journalists out of 117 contacted participated in the project.
The interviews were conducted by Dr. You Li from May to September 2023. Each interview ranged from 38 to 100 minutes, with an average length of about an hour. The conversations covered issues including but not limited to work-life balance, work relationships and safety, gender-specific challenges, contributions, and reflections. All interviews were recorded, transcribed, and reviewed by the interviewees. The transcript ranges from 12 to 18 pages per interview and approximately 500 pages total.For more information and inquiries, please contact Dr. You Li: yli23@emich.edu. (https://www.emich.edu/cmta/faculty/y-li.php).
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Megan Clement, Oral History Interview, 2023
You Li
Megan Clement from Montreuil, France, is a journalist, critic, and editor whose work focuses on gender equality, social policy, migration, human rights, arts, and culture. Her work has appeared in The Guardian, Bloomberg, The Sydney Morning Herald, Al Jazeera, The New Humanitarian, and News Deeply, among other publications.
Clement, an Australian journalist living in Paris, France at the time, traveled across three continents and underwent four quarantines for work and family reasons during the pandemic. She published her quarantine experiences in the first-person voice and raised public attention to the mismanagement of quarantine protocols at hotels and public housing. She urged public attention to structural inequality in race and gender and called for more diversity of representation in story topics, newsroom staffing, and leadership.
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Megha Rajagopalan, Oral History Interview, 2023
You Li
Megha Rajagopalan is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative correspondent for the New York Times based in London, the United Kingdom. Previously, Rajagopalan was the China bureau chief and Asia correspondent for BuzzFeed News and a political correspondent at Reuters News Agency in Beijing, China. She has reported from 23 countries in Asia and the Middle East on stories ranging from the North Korean nuclear crisis to the peace process in Afghanistan. In 2021, Rajagopalan and her colleagues won a Pulitzer Prize in International Reporting for “a series of clear and compelling stories that used satellite imagery and architectural expertise and interviews with two dozen former prisoners to identify a vast new infrastructure built by the Chinese government for the mass detention of Muslims.” (according to the Pulitzer website). When the pandemic hit in 2020, she was a senior international correspondent for BuzzFeed News.
In this interview, she recounted the reporting and production of the project that won her team the Pulitzer Prize in International Reporting in 2021. She revealed how her team combined investigative reporting, data mapping, and architecture into journalistic storytelling, and how they collaborated remotely when travel was restricted. She also reflected on her experiences corresponding in China and working for Buzzfeed News.
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Nikita Jain, Oral History Interview, 2023
You Li
Nikita Jain is an award-winning independent journalist based in India. She has covered various issues catering to human rights, conflict, gender, crime, health, education, and the environment. Her work has been published on national and international platforms including The Wire, Women’s Media Centre, The Diplomat, New Internationalist, and The News Lens, among others.
Jain published hundreds of articles during COVID-19 to document the impact of the pandemic on hospitals, patients, and minority groups in India. Her reporting challenged the government-controlled mainstream media that downplayed the severity of the pandemic. She had to dispute government propaganda, negotiate reporting access, and endure mental and physical health concerns to deliver those high-profile stories, some of which resulted in meaningful changes. She called the newsrooms and the public to recognize the talents of women journalists and acknowledge their work and contributions.
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Nirasha Piyawadani, Oral History Interview, 2023
You Li
Nirasha Piyawadani is a freelance journalist in Sri Lanka who covers stories on human rights, peace, migrant workers, gender-based myths, social issues on sexual and reproductive, media literacy, and climate and environmental issues. During the pandemic, Piyawadani was a research assistant for the ICFJ-UNESCO Global Study: Online Violence Against Women Journalists from 2020 to 2021. She has been selected as a scholar for the International Visitor Leadership Program on Edward R Murrow Program for Journalists, conducted by the United States Department of State Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs from February - March 2021.
Piyawadani covered the issues facing marginalized communities during the pandemic. In this interview, she reviewed what it is like to practice journalism in this region, especially the challenges facing freelance journalists and women journalists. Ethnic tensions, job insecurity, political corruption, and discrimination against minorities and women, are a few issues highlighted in this conversation.
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Sen Nguyen, Oral History Interview, 2023
You Li
Sen Nguyen is an investigative journalist, podcast host, and producer based in Hong Chi Minh City, Vietnam. She covers policies and developments of public interest with a particular focus on marginalized populations in Vietnam and Southeast Asia. She has produced stories for Vietnam, Cambodia, the U.K., and Australia, and published them in the South China Morning Post, Al Jazeera, Thompson Reuters, CNN, and many others. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Nguyen has published more than 100 articles, many of them focused on the pandemic, its development, and its impact on the local communities. Her story about the COVID-19 pandemic on migrant workers was one of the top five countries’ finalists for the Journalism for an Equitable Asia Award organized by the Oxfam and Asia Center in 2020.
Nguyen published more than 100 articles during the COVID-19 pandemic, focusing on the development and impact of the pandemic on local communities. She recalled the early days of the pandemic, the reporting process of her award-winning stories, and the challenges of being a freelance woman journalist in the region.
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Stefania D'Ignoti, Oral History Interview, 2023
You Li
Stefania D'Ignoti from Catania, Italy, is a freelance journalist who covers migration, conflict, women’s rights, and organized crimes in the broader Mediterranean region. She has reported from Sicily, Turkey, Lebanon, Egypt, the Syrian border, Israel and the Palestinian Territories. Her work has appeared in National Geographic, The Economist, Al Jazeera, The Washington Post, the BBC, the Guardian, and more.
D'Ignoti was forced to shift the reporting focus from the Middle East to Coronavirus in Italy overnight after her flight to Iraq was canceled due to a border lockdown. She mostly covered the impact of COVID-19 on migrants and asylum seekers. In this interview, she commented on the challenges of being a woman journalist in Italy, the gender disparity in newsrooms and leadership, the contributions of women journalists, and concerns about job security and safety as a freelance journalist. Despite the challenges, D'Ignoti considered the pandemic a booster of her career.
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Youssra Jabeen, Oral History Interview, 2023
You Li
Youssra Jabeen from Pakistan is a video journalist with Arab News Pakistan. She was a development communications manager at the United Nations Development Program's Merged Areas Governance Program (MAGP) from March 2021 to November 2023. Before working for UNDP, Jabeen was a multimedia journalist with over 10 years of experience. She's interested in covering art and culture news, especially when they intersect with social issues such as women's rights and vulnerable communities. Her work has been published in major Pakistani news outlets such as BBC Urdu, Independent Urdu Dawn, and the Express Tribune. She also worked for the Dallas Morning News and received her degree in journalism from the United States.
Jabeen shared her insights on practicing journalism as a woman in Pakistan. In a patriarchal society, women journalists face gender stereotypes, sexual harassment, workplace bullying, and family pressure. In this interview, Jabeen talked about her reporting, gains, and losses during the pandemic. She reminded the next generation to remain hopeful and keep searching for one's purpose in life.
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Zozan Yasar, Oral History Interview, 2023
You Li
Zozan Yasar is a Kurdish journalist based in the United Kingdom who focuses on Middle East politics, refugees, and women. Her work has appeared in the Guardian, BBC, The New Humanitarian Practice Network, and the Voice of America, among others.
Yasar attempted to establish a freelance career in the U.K. right before the pandemic started. A veteran journalist covering the Middle East in Turkey but relatively new to the U.K., she encountered many challenges including financial instability, online harassment, lack of network, isolation, and mental breakdown during the pandemic. In this interview, she recalled the traumas she experienced as a Kurdish woman journalist and compared the challenges she faced in the Middle East and the U.K.