The coronavirus has consumed journalism in 2020, as news organizations have scrambled to tell the story of the biggest pandemic in a century. But journalists themselves have not escaped the virus’s toll.
For the final installment of The Kicker for 2020, CJR tells the story of five journalists lost this year to covid-19, as told by the colleagues who loved them.
Charles Wenzelberg, chief photographer for the New York Post, memorializes Anthony Causi, forty-eight, a longtime photographer for the Post.
Barbara Ortutay, an AP technology reporter, remembers Anick Jesdanun, fifty-one, deputy technology editor for the AP.
Helen Fallon, president of the Press Club of Western Pennsylvania and a journalism professor emerita at Point Park University, memorializes Ginny Frizzy, sixty-six, a freelance writer and a leader in the region’s journalism organizations.
Steven Thrasher, a professor in the schools of journalism and medicine at Northwestern University, looks back on Ward Harkavy, seventy-two, former news editor for the Village Voice.
Molly Moorehead, senior editor at the Penny Hoarder, memorializes Mike Konrad, sixty-four, former editor in chief of the Hernando and Pasco bureaus of the Tampa Bay Times.
The remembrances were led in conversation by Kyle Pope, editor and publisher of CJR.
SHOW NOTES
Music:
“Breathe the Free Air,” by Stephen Keech
“In Another Life,” by Wild Wonder
Amanda Darrach is a contributor to CJR and a visiting scholar at the University of St Andrews School of International Relations. Follow her on Twitter @thedarrach.