David Ushery, discusses reporting on coronavirus last spring, as New York City became the epicenter of a pandemic. The WNBC team brought viewers vital life and death information about COVID, day after day, in real time. Their reporting won a 2021 duPont-Columbia award. 

In this conversation with duPont Awards Director, Lisa R. Cohen, Ushery recounts the uncertainty of the pandemic’s early days, his team’s commitment to transparently inform viewers, and how WNBC reporters and photographers grappled with the fear of reporting on a highly infectious virus.

Visit our website: www.onassignmentpodcast.com
Visit the duPont awards website: www.duPont.org
Follow us on Twitter: twitter.com/columbiajourn
Like is on Facebook: facebook.com/duPontColumbiaAwards

#70: KSTP News Director Kirk Varner on Covering George Floyd’s Murder and a Summer of Protest

On Assignment brings you some of the best conversations from the Columbia Journalism School, produced and hosted by the school's Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Awards.

The duPont-Columbia Awards honor the best in audio-visual reporting across platforms including broadcast, documentary, local investigative, radio and interactive journalism. We started the On Assignment Podcast to go behind the scenes and bring you the conversations we were having with the leading journalists in the field, many of whom are also past duPont Award winners.