Journalists unite. Throw up a #journobeacon to let colleagues know how and where you can pitch in.

Journalists and news organisations around the world are working flat out to tell the story of Coronavirus/COVID-19. It isn’t going to end anytime soon and we don’t know when we might be stuck in our own homes or elsewhere or become temporarily out of action. The organisations we work for are essential to keeping our communities informed and we want to keep the reporting flowing however we can.

For journalists who are displaced or stuck at home — or for those who are independents/freelancers and have experience and extra capacity that they could throw into this story — the feeling of being in the middle of a story and not having a way to tell it is frustrating. For a local news organisation who has had to send people home or who have staff that can’t get back to town there is going to also be a huge frustration.

So why don’t we see how we can club together to help each other out?

If you can help other journalists or news organisations — or if you’re a newsroom in need of additional help — throw up a #journobeacon!

What kind of thing are you talking about?

Anything you can offer, throw it out there and see if it can be of use to your colleagues elsewhere, e.g:

Good at fact checking or verification? There is going to be plenty of help needed for obvious reasons.

What about polishing off your radio reporting skills or your news writing and let your local radio station, TV station or newspaper that you would be happy to help however they could use you?

If you are stuck in the house and can’t move then you could even just let folk know where in the world you and that you could do a phone or Skype interview with colleagues at other news organisations about what life is like where you are.

I’m sold, what next?

Tweet or write a public Facebook post including #journobeacon with four key pieces of information:

• Who you are
• What you can do and how you want to help
• Where you are (use a #tag location)
• How you can be verified and contacted (e.g. LinkedIn, email address, open DMs)

Running a newsroom and need extra help?

Follow the hashtag and post what you need help with, and we’ll help triage the people sending their info and try and match you with someone who can help.