Comet at 50: 'The world of work transformed almost overnight'

Comet editor Anne Suslak (Image: Danny Loo)

I became editor two weeks before the COVID-19 pandemic turned the world upside down.

Having officially taken over the role on February 10, 2020, I worked in the office for a week before heading on an exceptionally well-timed three-week holiday to Australia. When I returned, the atmosphere had changed.

The communal snack pile in the office lay untouched, with colleagues afraid to spread germs, the slightest tickle in the throat meant not coming into work, and I told reporters to take their laptops home with them each day just in case.

Much sooner than I expected, I found myself editing the Comet from my desk at home, holding meetings via Microsoft Teams and cancelling plans to have coffee with important people in the community so I could introduce myself.

Journalism has changed hugely even since I started as a trainee reporter at one of the Comet's sister titles in 2016. Staff numbers have greatly reduced, newspaper teams have merged and our digital knowledge has greatly increased. The enormous newsrooms described in previous editors' letters seem like ancient history.

But even with all these changes, I couldn't have predicted the entire world of work transforming almost overnight. At first the lockdown was a novelty, with reporters conducting interviews from their bedrooms and frequent cries of "I can't hear you, you're on mute!" Soon it became routine, with most meetings conducted via video call even now we've returned (part-time) to the office.

As editor, I was also completely unprepared to be faced with the biggest news story in a generation. We ran a liveblog to share coronavirus news as cases rose across Hertfordshire. Since then we've covered the local angle on what seems like every possible COVID story - watching community groups come together to help people in need, supporting businesses as they reopened following lockdown and publicising newly-opened vaccine centres.

Comet reporters have risen to the challenge of covering the pandemic, all while dealing with the pressures of lockdown, furlough and uncertainty about what the future holds. We're now (hopefully) emerging out of the other side of the crisis - but our newsrooms may never be the same again.

I'm now once again typing this from an office, and I'm hopeful that these changes in the way that we work will ultimately give us more freedom. Reporters in the past were never chained to their desks but roaming about on patch - and now that hybrid working has become the norm technology has developed to allow reporters to work from wherever's most convenient, be it the office, their homes or out and about for a story.

Just as becoming editor was a huge adjustment, returning to something resembling normality is an adjustment too. When you read the Comet please spare a thought for the poor editor, who had to make a packed lunch and get dressed before 8.45am.

While local news has certainly taken a hit recently, there are lots of reasons for optimism. The Comet is still going strong, and it's been an honour to be the editor during such a notoriously difficult time, and to celebrate the paper's 50th anniversary.

I feel it's worth mentioning that I'm also the Comet's first female editor, something which I'm reminded of every time someone writes us a letter starting 'Dear Sir'. Please don't do this. What's even worse (as I look at our entirely female reporting team) are letters addressed 'Dear Sirs'. Please don't do this either - we'll still publish your letter, we'll just be a bit grumpy about it.

I have no idea what the future of journalism will hold, but I hope that in another 50 years I'll be able to peruse the Comet from my luxury retirement home (probably on Mars as climate change will have ravaged the earth too much for human habitation), and I'll look back fondly to when we were told to work from home 'for a few weeks, until it all blows over' and then didn't leave our homes for the next year and a half.

In the meantime, please keep reading the Comet so we can keep covering the issues which are most vital to local communities, and, nearly as importantly, so the editor can afford to buy comfy pyjamas and snacks for the next pandemic.