Ryan believes that the business realities that afflict much of the industry will tend toward making the current situation permanent for some. “You’ll see more newsrooms, maybe those that are financially strapped, relying more on remote journalists,” she said, “and I think traditionalists will not have the fear or wariness that they had in the past.”
Magazine editors I spoke with expressed similar sentiments. “I’m so sick of the way magazines have always done things,” said one, “and if we make a virtue out of this situation, I think we can actually build something new and possibly better.” The disruption is especially pronounced for celebrity-driven, long-lead monthly magazines with high production value—like Vanity Fair—where the usual way of doing things has been upended by social distancing. With widespread restrictions on travel and human interaction, how do publications like these make it work when they can’t do photo shoots, or intimate profiles, or really any stories that would require being around people IRL? Indeed, the near-religious belief in face-to-face sit-downs and ride-alongs is also, of necessity, being tested. (Such beliefs, once discarded, can be hard to recover.)
As another editor at a major magazine suggested, it’s all about leaning into the situation, co-opting the technologies that celebrities use in their daily lives or for their Instagram accounts. Think FaceTime interviews, iPhone selfie shoots, etc. But it’s definitely a double-edged sword, and it accelerates a dynamic that social media has already set in rapid motion. “Celebs seem to want to do selfies,” the editor told me. “The problem is that it’s cute once, but will it lead to future cover stories being only phone and selfies? That said, I think a lot of people are home with time on their hands, so people do seem willing to have fun in new ways. A lot of talent seems available for interesting ideas when they’re presented.”
The publishing world is working through its own COVID conundrums. Take Don Winslow, the best-selling crime author, who has a new book coming out on April 7. His 20-city promotional tour was all booked and ready to go. Then came the coronavirus pandemic. Now Winslow, like other authors, is hustling to take his entire book tour virtual via Zoom and other videoconferencing applications. “This is the next best thing,” he said. “We’re lucky this technology exists now.” In the future, Winslow continued, “I don’t think I’d like to replace the in-person appearances with these, but if you could enhance them, if it made it possible to be in more places, then yeah.” Another potential upside: “This might also make promotion more available to authors who maybe don’t have the same marketing outreach that I do. It might make the public more available to authors who are, as yet, lesser known.”
As for the so-far-well-received home-ification of the TV-news interview, some industry insiders are skeptical that it will have legs. “Zoom interviews seem to be working really well,” one source told me. “Zoom and FaceTime and Skype have allowed a lot of front line folks, doctors, nurses, etc., to speak directly with TV reporters in ways that would have been far more challenging than in the past. I’m not sure how much we’ll love them once this passes. Sure, they might replace some smaller interviews, but I get the sense journalists will want more face-to-face things.”
Another TV-news source concurred: “When things get back to normal, they’ll seem less attractive. But in breaking news, anything goes.”
Back-to-normal could take quite a while. 9/11, with the scrolling news ticker at the bottom of cable screens, inaugurated a world in never-ending crisis. And now, not ending any time soon.
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