by Owen Milnes

In the span of days, everything that college students knew as normal was flipped upside down. Classes were replaced with teleconferences, residence hall rooms were replaced with childhood bedrooms and workspaces were transitioned online due to the spread of COVID-19.

Every college student had to adjust to virtual instruction and coping with the loss of the life they had known prior to the virus, but student journalists were faced with reporting on it as well, having to balance full-time courseloads with full-time reporting.

News came in every day, detailing the changes and restrictions because of the virus —– restaurants shut down, campuses closed with no assurance of when they would reopen and every facet of life was required to be done at a safe physical distance to prevent the spread.

Unpaid and sometimes feeling underappreciated, while coping with a drastic upheaval, student journalists across the state of Ohio rose to the occasion. Independent, student-run news outlets such as the Ohio University Post Athens, the Miami University Miami Student, the Kent State University Kent Stater, the Bowling Green State University BG News and Falcon Media and The Lantern at Ohio State University provided what seemed like non-stop coverage of the COVID-19 world, working across cities, states and timezones with their staff, driven by a sense of duty to the community they cover.

Balancing the adjustment to online school and nonstop news proved a challenge for the news outlets, but they went above and beyond to provide their coverage. This is their story.

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The LanternBy The LanternDec 11, 2020