Nieman Foundation at Harvard
What were you doing in the middle of the night last night?
At 8:39 PM ET on Thursday evening, Jennifer Jacobs, the senior White House reporter for Bloomberg News, broke the news that Hope Hicks, a close aide to President Donald Trump, had tested positive for Covid-19.
NEWS: Hope Hicks, who traveled with Trump aboard Air Force One to and from the presidential debate on Tuesday, and to his Minnesota rally yesterday, has coronavirus, sources tell me.
— Jennifer Jacobs (@JenniferJJacobs) October 2, 2020
White House officials “had hoped to keep the news about Ms. Hicks from becoming public, to no avail,” Annie Karnie and Maggie Haberman reported for The New York Times on Friday morning.
ALSO: @JenniferJJacobs deserves a BIG hat tip here … She broke Hope Hicks had covid. It was not disclosed by the W.H.
— Anna Palmer (@apalmerdc) October 2, 2020
At 10:44 PM, Trump tweeted about Hicks’ positive test and said that he and the First Lady, Melania Trump, were awaiting their test results. Then, at 12:54 AM ET on Friday morning:
Tonight, @FLOTUS and I tested positive for COVID-19. We will begin our quarantine and recovery process immediately. We will get through this TOGETHER!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 2, 2020
Trump is symptomatic, and was reportedly showing signs of illness as early as Wednesday. The timeline of how he could have spread it before his announcement is still unclear.
In what has been an already relentless and unprecedented year for major news stories, the news that the President of the United States had tested positive for Covid-19 after months of downplaying the severity of a pandemic that has killed 208,000 Americans, mocking people (including Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden in the presidential debate on Tuesday night) for wearing masks, and pushing unproven or dangerous cures was still shocking. The fact that the news broke in the middle of the night added an extra layer of surreality.
Here are some interesting bits and pieces on how news organizations handled it — and we want to hear your stories, too.
I jumped out of bed to a team that was already underway, working to rip up the front page. The final edition of Friday's @StarTribune. pic.twitter.com/FDUqHzEiFj
— Greg Mees (@mees_greg) October 2, 2020
I found five front pages where "Trump has virus" made it this morning. Seen any I'm missing?https://t.co/JdczxRKGgj pic.twitter.com/gXDMxXVpPH
— Kristen Hare (@kristenhare) October 2, 2020
(Brian Stelter, we want to know: Were you wearing pants here? Update: Sweatpants.)
Side note: all the emails, texts, calls etc that I have been on with reporters, editors, producers, etc for the last few hours only affirms my view that journalists would make the best contact tracers.
— Seung Min Kim (@seungminkim) October 2, 2020
Where is a town crier when you need one?
— Lily King (@lilykingbooks) October 2, 2020
Who needs insomnia Twitter when you live in Baltimore and there is a man on the street at 1:30 AM yelling “Trump got it!” .
— Danielle Evans (@daniellevalore) October 2, 2020
