Travis DeNeal: News coverage also was changed by COVID-19

It's always interesting to me to look back over a year's worth of news stories to pick up insights about past coverage and how our coverage can improve going forward.

I knew that the events of the past year, especially the impact COVID-19 has had on the entire world, would have a significant footprint. However, I've been a bit surprised in what I've found.

For starters, many of us knew at this time last year that there was something potentially big that appeared to have started in China. I'm not trying to point blame at anyone, but in early January 2020, the BBC and some other international outlets published short accounts of a "mysterious viral pneumonia" that suddenly seemed to appear in central China. Stories continued to be published as infections started to spread.

Even by February, as more of these stories about what was eventually termed "COVID-19" developed, it seemed like it might stay confined to other parts of the world.

My son and I had tickets to attend C2E2, a comic book convention at McCormick Place in Chicago, the last weekend of February. By this time, I did have some concerns about mysterious virus and how now it had the potential to develop into a pandemic.

However, we took the Amtrak to Chicago, attended the convention and returned a day later, no worse for wear. We did both note, though, that some attendees at the convention and our hotel were wearing face masks at that time.

By the end of March, of course, Illinois and many other states began "shutdown" measures in efforts to contain the virus. McCormick Place, the location where we attended the convention, temporarily was turned into a hospital facility to contain a perceived overflow of sick people. However, hospital services were closed in May 2020 after it appeared it was no longer needed.

Of course today, we're still taking precautions in Illinois as the number of COVID-19 infections continue to decline.

In looking back at our company's news websites, it has become apparent how this pandemic has affected the world and subsequently the news. In January 2021 and December 2020, about one in every five stories is related in some way to COVID-19. That trend seems to have stayed constant from the tail end of March 2020. Some of those stories contained the number of new infections reported by area health departments. Others contained news that vaccines were under development and would be rolled out soon.

Of course, one constant in a normal year is local coverage of things happening, and as we all know, there wasn't a lot happening after April 2020. Still, you can't print a paper with nothing in it. Unfortunately, crimes still occurred, and those were covered. To me, though, one of the most significant things I realized is the adaptability of people as a whole.

For instance, graduations weren't held in a normal fashion, and in a perfect world, high school seniors wouldn't have to settle for a parade around town and a drive-up ceremony on the back of a flatbed trailer.

It's not a perfect world, though, and those were the cards that were dealt. I commend our area school districts for finding solutions for graduation instead of doing nothing. We saw and covered story after story about ways we navigated around COVID-19, and as difficult as it's been the past year, things are looking better.

Here's to looking back in a year from now and seeing an end to the horror stories of this pandemic, and more stories about people being able to gather together once again.