How traffic reporters dealt with the pandemic

Zlati Meyer of Fast Company writes about the plight of traffic reporters, who suddenly had little to cover when traffic plummeted during the pandemic.

Meyer writes, “As the COVID-19 pandemic made going to work some place other than a kitchen table obsolete, every metropolitan area in the United States saw a virtual halt to its car travel. Gone were the school buses, mass transit, college students driving to campus, and ticket holders heading to sporting events.

“Traffic was at a standstill, because there was none.

“But while other professions were able to shift—Zoom management meetings, telemedicine, online teaching, and the like—traffic reporters were jammed. Unlike their entertainment, sports, politics, health, and business brethren, they had nothing to report on.

“‘It went from a full-capacity rush hour to about 50% of the rush hour,’ recalls Whitaker, a 51-year veteran. ‘We were sitting there kind of twiddling our thumbs. In our business, it’s harder to say nothing than to be busy with lot of problems.'”

Read more here.

Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.