Perceived challenges among campus press at the height of the pandemic

Abstract

The Covid-19 pandemic has created various challenges that allowed academic stakeholders to reflect on the concerns encountered by school administrators, teachers, and students. Many studies focused on the challenges of professional journalists. However, only a few studies on student journalists were explored. In this regard, this study aimed to describe and analyze the challenges of student journalists at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. A qualitative research design was used in this research. Grounded in this study were the student journalists’ personal experiences and narration of their expressed challenges as writers of the Nation Builder, the official student publication of a state university. Thematic analysis using Braun and Clarke’s (2006) Model was used to analyze the qualitative data gathered. Findings show that there were five identified themes such as health-related issues, ICT-related issues, connectivity-related issues, adaptability-related issues, and journalism-related issues. There are action plans that need to be implemented to sustain the interest of student journalists to write newsworthy articles. Training programs and capacity-building activities could be organized to boost the confidence of the students in coping with the pandemic.