Coronavirus: Journalism students and graduates support local communities during crisis

Journalism students and graduates are supporting their local communities during crisis, including Maddie Leivers (second from right) who is distributing donated food supplies to NHS staff

Multimedia Journalism students and alumni from Manchester Metropolitan University have been supporting their local communities during the Coronavirus (COVID-19) lockdown.

They have been hard at work offering their support and time in different ways from reporting on Coronavirus stories to volunteering and donating food and drink to hardworking NHS staff.

A group of newly-graduated students have been reporting on Coronavirus stories from across the North West region, seeking out positive stories to bring comfort to audiences in such an uncertain time. Northern Quota, a news website run by the University’s Multimedia Journalism department, recently caught up with them to find out about how important their roles have become over the past few weeks.

For many, they are working in their first journalism roles, which has given them the chance to put into practice the skills and knowledge they learned whilst studying at Manchester Metropolitan. Ramazani Mwamba currently works as Community News Reporter at Manchester Evening News covering the Salford area, his first role since graduating with an MA in Multimedia Journalism, while Dan Davies works as a Reporter for Bauer Media Group where he compiles and reads the hourly news bulletins for local commercial radio stations CFM in Cumbria and Rock FM in Lancashire, a role which he stepped into just a couple of months ago. He also records Coronavirus Reality Checks which are broadcast across the stations four times a day.

Mwamba told Northern Quota: "It’s been the perfect time to be a community reporter because people have banded together and are offering help in all sorts of ways. I feel kind of privileged that these people are bringing these stories to me."

Journalism graduate Maddie Leivers works as Communications Officer for Blue Skiles Hospital Fund, an NHS charity, and has found her normal role has drastically changed to address the current situation. Instead of writing press releases and managing social media channels, her day to day job now involves distributing donated food supplies to NHS staff. 

Leivers told Northern Quota: "That's what the nation wants to do at this time - anything to help keep NHS staff going. And we’re trying to make sure it happens in the safest way possible. We’ve been taking pictures so that we can look back on this time and remind ourselves that it really did happen."

Isaac Jordan, who is studying part time for an MA in Multimedia Journalism and working as a paramedic, has volunteered his time to work with St Johns Ambulance in London, supporting frontline NHS services dealing with Coronavirus in the capital.

Liz Hannaford, Lecturer in Multimedia Journalism said: "It was such a joy speaking to our recent graduates in these difficult times. They are confident, resourceful, thoughtful young people with a real sense of duty towards the communities they serve. It's wonderful to see them applying the skills they learnt at Manchester Metropolitan in such exceptional circumstances and rising to that challenge. We are incredibly proud of them."