 Hello, hello, and welcome to Adweek Together. It is Monday, April 27th. I'm Stephanie Siegel, the editor of TV Spy, which covers the business of local TV news. Excuse me. And today, we're going to be talking about how the local news stations have been handling COVID-19 coverage. And I am here with W-A-V-C anchor, Bill Ritter. Thank you for joining us. Today, we're talking about local news, the power of local news, how to cover a pandemic, how it has changed the way we do local news, and also your story. So thank you. Let's start off with March 14th. We talked about this last night over the phone. That was the day that businesses started shutting down. And what did that look like for you at home in New York City and the W-A-V-C newsroom? Before, there was this kind of movement of awareness that so many stores were closing and it was a little like a ghost town because of rising rents. And now, of course, it's just everything's shut down except for the essential things. And it's very strange. It's a very different real ghost town kind of feel to it. And even around the corner of my favorite bagel place, I went to go get some on Saturday and they had clothes. They had been giving takeout only. You walk in three people at a time or something. And they were shut down. And the landlord had posted a notice. It was so sad. But it posted a notice saying their rent for April, $47,000 for a bagel shop. Oh my God. That had been paid. How big is it that they have to sell? It's a buck and a half a bagel, how many bagels? That's a lot of bagels. Hope everyone gets real sad. So what was happening? I know. Right. What was happening in the newsroom at that time? Was there a feeling of like, okay, we need to start the social distancing right now? We need to put measures in place? Or was that... Did that happen sort of afterwards? We started social distancing right away. And we also started experimenting with a few people going home and working from home. And it grew over the next month, three weeks really, two weeks, it grew every week. It was a little like what Governor Cuomo did when he said, we're gonna shut down 25% of your workforce and then 50 and then 75 and then 100. So it was a gradual thing. And we sort of mirrored that. I think, I don't know if it was by design, but we could see where this trend was gonna go. And so they really did a good job trying to get ahead of us. Could we have done it earlier? Sure, it would have been great because we had a lot of little bugs we had to work out. Like your show here, all of a sudden you had to work it out and so you'd have... This is a show and tell show today. It's proving my point. And I think the audience, it was interesting. We're used to big high def and everything's perfect. We're the biggest TV news station in the country. And we're used to having this well oiled machine which we are with everything working really well, which it does. And all of a sudden you're at home. And so you see, I don't know if my wife saw this shot, she'd say, why did you have the bulletin board full of the kids stuff or that kind of stuff? I don't see that like that. I think the audience says, okay, we can understand that you're at home, you look like my house. So that's okay. We talked about that, the vulnerability that has come into play here for news anchors. And I think we should touch on that. But first, what was it around? What made, no, March 24th, after you sort of play it safe, you do the news, you get around the technical difficulties, you bring the important stuff to the viewers, you sort of stay on the air, you got sick. And we did a story about it. I think we did a story on March 30th, I think it was around the 24th. Here it is. You started coming down with something you made an announcement on your Sunday show from home that you had a possible case of COVID. What was that like? You know, it started after the 11 o'clock on March 24th, we were doing a midnight news cut-in at the end of nightline, which had flipped with Jimmy Kimmel, flipped from the two spots because there was so much news. And then I would go home and by the time I got home at about 12.30, it just hit me. And in my head, it felt like a train had gone through from one ear to the other and half the caboose had gotten stuck inside and didn't go out. And it was quite, you know, profound. And I didn't like it. And I don't, I really rarely get sick. And I felt, uh-oh, I got something. So I went right to sleep. I didn't wake up till 11 o'clock despite all these alarms and despite the pauses in my brain. And it was really groggy and I called work and I said, I don't know what's going on, but I just don't feel very well. And I'm pretty sure I can't come in today. And I probably shouldn't given what's going on in this town. And there began, that was on Wednesday morning, the 25th. And, you know, I felt pretty bad. It was, I talked to my doctor. We, you know, he diagnosed me. He said it's likely a mild case because I didn't have a heavy fever and I had no pain in my lungs. But I did have, you know, this overwhelming feeling like I had been beat up. And I was sleeping 11 to 12 hours a day for the next 10 or 11 days. And it was, you know, quite different. I usually get five to six hours of sleep. So it was not good, but I did do a couple of things. And I say this at the suggest, because I did it at the decision on my doctor and also the suggestion of my trainer and other medical people on our, I know at ABC and elsewhere. And they said, you know, sleep is the most important. Hydrate is the most important. But also don't exercise like you normally exercise, but get moving, get your oxygen going. Breathe, practice breathing. And I felt also that I wanted to work. So I really only missed one day of work that first day. And the second day I had did a remote. So you're looking right now, the one on the left was my first day out, 17 days later in quarantine. They did not test me. They did not test me because I was not seriously ill. And we found out later step that, you know, probably five times as many people have this virus as when we say there've been a quarter of a million confirmed cases, probably five times. So I set up a little studio in my, I had three different places. You can see that's in my bedroom. Yep. And then in the back, I set up a gym in my den. My family went to the bike. The bike is now been replaced by that. But at the beginning I rode only to get my blood going. I had a trainer twice a week who worked with me on breathing exercises via Zoom and really did help me. When I would talk, let's say if I talked to you on the phone, I would walk around the apartment. I didn't stay still after I woke up, I moved. And I think that helped. If you're seriously ill with this, you can't do that. But I had a likely virus. And the picture you had of me going out with a mask, I went to get my plasma tested. The first day I could go out. And I went across the park, walked across the park and I was tested positive for COVID-19 antibodies. And in the picture you had on the left with me it strapped down there giving blood. I'm giving, starting last Thursday I gave my first dose of eight weekly doses of antibody plasma, which three people can be treated with one dose. And so I could conceivably help 24 people with an antibody plasma injections. And I'm just thrilled by this, if it works. It works, right. You know, this adrenaline we have as journalists to be on top of it, get the story, get the information out there. Do you feel like that's the feeling for you and for the newsroom right now just to be as connected as possible to the viewers at all times? I don't think there's any question about that. It's well put, I think. You know, the beauty of local news is that you're in people's homes and living rooms and at night in their bedrooms and in their most personal spaces, the relationship between us and the viewers is a kind of personal one in the normal situation. And when there's a crisis and there's never really been a crisis like this that I could think of a couple, 9-11 certainly and Superstorm Sandy when so many people were without a home, off their lives and without power and we were flooded. I think that we have, you know, we re-engage this incredibly profound relationship between people bringing the news and the people receiving the news and who desperately need accurate facts and information to help them make decisions and guide them through this. And I think that then the other level what you talked to is that, you know, we walk with them, we're in this together, we say it, it's not a cliche, I got sick and people saw me every day doing a story on the five or the six, which I anchored and I wasn't anchoring, I was just doing a story. And, you know, I think it brings a profound thing and they saw me get better. And I think it burnishes this tight relationship that local news has with the viewers. And I think, you know, all those little things we talked about earlier about, you know, getting the, you know, the background may be messing up, you know, closing that computer over this end of me, whatever it works, it all understands that and our technical people just did a fabulous job getting us lined up, you know, I'm wearing a microphone right now that's our station's mic. That's amazing. So it's great, you know? But I think that we walk hand in hand in all this stuff, you know? We are there as we see all this human kindness overflowing, people helping people. And then we're there when there's just unbelievable sorrow, you know, the town you lived in, Steph, you know, there's a lot of people who are dead here, you know, the 12,000 people in this city that died. That's just staggering, yeah. Staggering. I think people forgive this, by the way. They know that it's the internet and who the heck knows what's going on. But we're here and this is what we're doing. You locked off everything. Yeah. To any local news person who's watching this, I think this is a real opportunity for them. I joked about legendary, but you know, I mean, there are young people out there who maybe want to get to New York and have seen your face on the air for many years. And you know, I would say all of them are really sort of striving for perfection in a time that that's not really necessarily an opportunity, you know, to be the perfect anchor person and the perfect outfit, perfect hair, all these things. How do you, like you said, sort of reinforce that vulnerability is okay right now? And how, yeah, how do you, like you said, you work at a powerhouse station, now you're working from your house. How did you embrace it? Any tips for that? Yes, good question. I will say that I'm working now back at the studio. So I'm- Right, right, right. Go home right now. Yes, you are working back at the studio. I think that at all times, you know, I was a newspaper reporter for 15 years, a print reporter, and then I became a television board at the age of 37. And so, but I can remember the times I messed up or I made a mistake. And, you know, it's not good. It really is the worst thing you can do because we have one thing that I use this word because your ad-reap people will understand this. This is our product, we sell. We sell trust and credibility. And if we don't have that, the audience doesn't believe we have that and we're sort of, no matter what you look like, no matter what you sound like, no matter what you dress, no matter how many weeks you go without a haircut, the only thing we have that really matters in the end is trust and credibility. So we talk a lot and we certainly have been dealing with this one when the media has been under attack for any mistake or even when they don't make mistakes. You know, we strive to tell the truth and the facts and help people get through this. And I think that in these last, you know, three years we've been put to the test and have become even more aware of how important it is to be accurate. And when we're not, it sucks, but we try not to do that. And we try to really say, this is what we know. Here are the numbers we know. When we realize, and I certainly realized it, when I realized I wasn't counted and so many people I knew in mild cases were not counted in the official count, then I think we're obligated to say, here's the confirmed case count right now in New York City or New York State or the country. But we know that so many people are not being tested positive or negative because they're not given the test that there are many, many more people who have this virus than the official confirmed numbers. And that's the truth. And for us not to say that would be hurting the public because I didn't get tested. And then when I did get tested for the antibodies, it showed, of course, that I had antibodies so that meant I had the virus. So it proved the point. And so that's part of the reporting process. That's great advice. And I know we wanted to talk about more but because of the technical issues, I think we should wrap it now and maybe we can revisit this later. But listen, this is a great conversation and thank you. And I'm glad you're well and this is a real pleasure for me to speak with you. So thank you for that. And let me quickly tease in tomorrow's show with Kelsey Sutton from Adweek who will be here speaking with Allison Moore. She is the CEO of Comic Relief US. Thanks for joining us guys and have a great day. Thank you.