It is an exciting time to be a journalist. Even during the coronavirus pandemic, the news section of The Daily Evergreen remains resilient and ready to tackle any story that will come its way.

WSU’s transition to distance learning changed how Evergreen journalists conduct their reporting. All interviews, meetings and communication between reporters and editors are done virtually. 

Although the newsroom is quieter, our reporters’ enthusiasm has not waned. We still strive to cover the most important news for WSU and the Pullman community. 

Finding fresh and unique stories is a priority for us. From breaking news to feature pieces, we love to highlight amazing students, alumni, faculty and staff who are using their voices and skills to make a difference in the world around them.

A large portion of our coverage this semester will be focused on the COVID-19 pandemic, which has upended lives everywhere. 

In addition to relaying case numbers, positivity rates and coverage on vaccine distribution, we will also write stories on how the pandemic affected the local school district, teachers, students, parents, first responders, health care professionals and others.  

This semester, we created three new beats for the news section: WSU COVID-19, mental health and communities of color. 

Our WSU COVID-19 beat reporters will cover any story relating to the university’s efforts to deal with the pandemic. This includes WSU’s COVID-19 town halls, testing and protocols. We hope our coverage of this beat can help keep students, parents and faculty updated about the university’s COVID-19 plans.

The pandemic changed the way we live, affecting our finances, relationships and employment. Many people are struggling with their mental health. In consideration of this, we created the mental health beat to help raise awareness about mental health issues. 

The Daily Evergreen made a lot of progress in covering underserved communities. We would like to continue this effort through the communities of color beat. In this beat, we hope to highlight the resilience and often unheard stories of people of color.

Aside from creating those three new beats, we plan to cover more investigative stories, so keep an eye out for those articles throughout the semester.

There are many unknowns, many fears and many challenges right now. However, we believe that we can navigate through the pandemic one news story at a time.

We always love to hear from our community. If you have news tips, please email us at [email protected].