The strange experience of reporting on the Democratic National Convention during a pandemic

The New York and DC bureaux have had to change their plans – but the insights from this video-conferenced convention are just as juicy

Joe Biden is applauded by his wife Jill and family members after being officially nominated as the Democratic presidential candidate at the DNC on 18 August, 2020 (Democratic National Convention)

This week is one of the most exciting in the American electoral calendar: the Democratic National Convention. In January, the journalists at The Independent’s New York and Washington DC bureaux sat down together and hashed out a plan for how we would handle it, who would cover which speeches, and what time we would meet up at the convention centre in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. That was back when nobody knew who’d become the nominee, New York streets were still adorned with “Bloomberg 2020” posters, and Bernie Sanders looked like he might finally get his turn. Then, of course, coronavirus happened.

Needless to say, we are now writing our rapid responses and analysing our speeches from our couches and kitchen tables rather than from the front seats of conference rooms. Over Zoom calls and Slack boards, we gather at 9pm each night to start off the evening, and share our real-time reactions to the speeches unfolding. To make it feel a little more cinematic, I’ve been projecting video from the convention onto my studio apartment wall; it lends it a little more gravitas. And I’ve found the American ability to turn everything into first-rate entertainment particularly helpful now that I have to drum up enthusiasm from the confines of my Brooklyn apartment, surrounded by the detritus of dinner, rather than from a hotel bar in a new city, surrounded by the great and the good.