How Newsrooms Can Balance Community Reporting and Journalist Well-Being During Crisis

Our hearts go out to everyone in Los Angeles as wildfires, fueled by low humidity and the relentless Santa Ana winds, leave death and devastation in their wake. These events remind us of the different levels of gravity in breaking weather news:

• Winter Weather: Often manageable but can turn deadly with power outages, dangerously low temps, or dangerous road conditions.

• Severe Weather: Most storms won’t kill you, but lightning, flooding, hail, and tornadoes are exceptions—always life-threatening.

• Hurricanes and Earthquakes: Typically infrequent but catastrophic when severe.

• Wildfires: A category of their own—losing everything or facing entrapment by fire is a nightmare scenario.

In moments like these, newsrooms must focus on serving the community by:

• 🛡️ Keeping people safe.

• ✅ Sharing accurate, vetted information.

• 🤝 Connecting people with resources and support.

• ❤️ Helping the community find ways to help each other.

Support Your Team:
Newsroom leaders need to consider the personal impact on their staff.

• Are employees or their families in evacuation zones?

• Do they need time away to handle personal emergencies?

• Can partnerships with freelancers or other newsrooms help ensure coverage continuity while supporting your team?

Prioritize the well-being of your journalists.

Stand-out coverage:

• KTLA: Mental health resources; weather analysis on La Niña’s impact; before-and-after videos.

• LA Times: Interactive wildfire maps—excellent for real-time updates.

• KCBS: Guides on how to help victims.

• LA Daily News: Coverage of landmarks and businesses destroyed by fires.

Think about how each type of content above could be used for other news situations.

Watch Duty: The App Revolutionizing Crisis Coverage

When it comes to innovative tools for real-time reporting, few have been as impactful in this crisis as Watch Duty. Developed by a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, this groundbreaking app keeps communities informed during emergencies by delivering up-to-the-minute updates directly to their devices. Here’s how it’s transforming the way we stay safe and connected.

According to their website, Watch Duty is:

“a non-profit, non-partisan, and non-government organization focused on disseminating public safety information in real-time from verified sources. Our service is powered by real people – active and retired firefighters, dispatchers, and first responders (not crowdsourced) – who diligently monitor radio scanners and collaborate around the clock to bring you up-to-the-minute life saving information. Our reporters undergo extensive training as well as background checks before joining our elite team.

Our mission is to publish only the facts that provide true situational awareness in case of emergency, without editorialization or prediction. We honor integrity and correctness over speed or sensationalism so we can build and maintain trust with not only our community but our first responders. As such, we adhere to a strict code of conduct for all of our reporting.”

💡 Social Media Tip of the Week:

When covering breaking news of this magnitude, always center your social media posts on value for the audience and not on yourself. Ask yourself:

• Is this helpful? 🤔

• Does it comfort? 💕

• Will it connect? 🌉

If it doesn’t check at least one of these boxes, skip the post. Behind-the-scenes content? Save it for later when the crisis has passed.

For extra confidence, run your post by a colleague, manager, or even an AI tool like ChatGPT for feedback on tone and appropriateness.

TikTok’s Future in the Hands of SCOTUS 📱⚖️

Big news on the horizon for TikTok: later Monday morning, the Supreme Court will reconvene to issue a much-anticipated opinion that could determine the app’s fate in the U.S. 🇺🇸

The justices have a few options:

• They could uphold the ban, a move many pundits are predicting.

• They might overturn it, potentially citing the First Amendment or using the “least restrictive means” test under strict scrutiny to argue there are better ways to address the government’s concerns without banning the app.

• Or, they could issue a stay, kicking the decision down the road for President-elect Trump to tackle after January 20.

Here’s my prediction: always the contrarian, I think the Court will vote to save TikTok.

I suspect they’ll lean on strict scrutiny and the “least restrictive means” argument, emphasizing the massive precedent a ByteDance ban would set for other platforms. At the very least, I believe they’ll issue a stay.

My guess? A close decision, either 6-3 or 5-4.

But even if the Court upholds the ban, TikTok’s story doesn’t end there. A President Trump administration could decide not to enforce it, leaving room for platforms like Apple and Google to weigh their own decisions. Plus, with a 5-year statute of limitations on the law, a future administration could revive the issue.

What This Means for You 🚨

To protect your content, follow these steps ASAP:

1. Download an app like TokRepost.

2. Open TikTok and select Copy Link on each of your videos.

3. Use TokRepost to save those videos directly to your phone.

Hopefully, your strategy has already been omnichannel, with your content living on multiple platforms. But if not, now’s the time to migrate your videos to other platforms and safeguard your hard work! 💾

Stay tuned—we’ll keep you updated as the story unfolds.

👀 Businesses: Activate Like A Newsroom!

Imagine what your public relations and communications efforts could be if your teams truly activated like a newsroom.

• Going direct-to-audience with your messages

• Owning the narrative

• Capturing attention faster

It’s what I do in my new post-newsroom life: work with businesses, brands and entrepreneurs to show them how to ‘activate like a newsroom’ to level up the attention they need to succeed at scale!

Visit my website at doabledigitalmedia.com, or message me anytime at [email protected].

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Stay safe this week! ❤️