This coming Sunday afternoon, April 26, a historic collaboration, called “COVID Diaries Colorado: A Day in the Pandemic” will launch. The effort crosses more than 20 Colorado newsrooms, documenting what just a single day –April 16 – was like, as the people of Colorado deal with the profound impact of the coronavirus pandemic known as COVID-19.
Ark Valley Voice (AVV), is a member of the CoLab — Colorado News Collaborative and has participated in this effort; submitting nearly a dozen stories to the project, written by five AVV writers. Our story focus; people across the Upper Arkansas region; documenting their roles, their efforts to deal with the realities of COVID-19 on daily life, their hopes, and their fears regarding this epic reality.
This historic newsroom collaboration is the first of its kind in Colorado; linking our newsgathering strength to the Associated Press (AP), which offered its Storyshare software to our Colorado News Collaborative. This software tool was first created for AP newsrooms in New York State and has now been offered to Colorado and Oregon.
Inclusion in the project requires newsroom credentials (AVV is also a member of the Colorado Press Association and First Draft, the global collaborative to address dis-information flooding mainstream and social media). Our partners in this effort include both for-profit and nonprofit newsrooms: other digital news platforms, television and radio stations, and print publications.
Involvement in such a sweeping project has required the ability to work flexibly and collaboratively with other newsrooms to cover a story of statewide significance. This inaugural effort once again reinforces the importance of community newsrooms to better serve the public need for factual information, documenting our world and our realities.
The first installment of “COVID Diaries Colorado: A Day in the Pandemic” will begin Sunday afternoon, April 26, and stretches throughout next week; with stories each day representing our region and other parts of the state. The nearly 60 news stories, effectively keeps diaries of the representative interviews across this state; they will also be added to History Colorado Archives.
Start reading the COVID Diaries Colorado stories now.
For an introduction to this historic collaboration click this link .
To see the YouTube video about this project click the link below:
https://youtu.be/WhU0fDaNHjY
This story is powered by COLab, the Colorado News Collaborative. Ark Valley Voice joined this historic collaboration with more than 20 other newsrooms across Colorado to better serve the public.
#COVIDdiariesCO
Jan — I get the Sunday Denver Post . . . . saw your picture and comments in the news story! FANTASTIC! Loved what you said, picture was great. Excellent.