new york the buzzing newsroom has long been the lifeblood of american newspapers but in recent months the buzz has become virtual as the pandemic deepens the industry crisis and forces journalists to work remotelyin recent months established dailies such as the new york daily news miami herald and baltimore sun have joined other news outlets abandoning their headquarters amid pandemic workplace restrictions that had already left them emptytribune publishing owner of the baltimore daily and others has acknowledged it is reevaluating its real estate needs as it struggles with a difficult environment with lower print circulation falling advertising revenues and increased costs for health and safetybut many journalists say the loss of the newsroom has changed the nature of their work and worry that newspapers may not reestablish newsrooms even after the pandemica newsroom is a lot more collaborative than a lot of other workspaces are said emily brindley a reporter at the tribuneowned hartford connecticut courant which shut its newsroom this monthi definitely think that its going to have an effect on the product added brindley an organizer of the courant guild which represents journalists i do feel that there will be some intangible effectsone of brindleys colleagues in hartford daniela altimari said she believes the pandemic proved that we could all work from home and still put out a newspaper making it unlikely the newsroom will reopen she fears for the quality of the worknewsrooms are factories for ideas in a way theres a lot of chance encounters altimari said you get ideas by talking to colleagues those chance encounters can really lead to better workvictor pickard a professor who follows the sector for the university of pennsylvanias annenberg school for communication said the pandemic is certainly accelerating and exacerbating the journalism crisis but this crisis predated the pandemic by yearshe said large newspaper chains such as mcclatchy and tribune are seizing this opportunity to cut costs as they often do in order to maximize profits while adding that at the moment theyre not very profitable these daysthe move out of the newsroom follows a long crisis for the sector that has seen consolidation by major chains the closing of many smaller papers and hedge funds buying newspapers only to slash costs and squeeze out as much profit as possiblefor decades the newsroom has been a mythical place whose atmosphere was captured in films from his girl friday to all the presidents men to spotlighttheres a sort of alchemy that happens when you have a lot of reporters in a room together said marijke rowland of the californiabased modesto beetheres nothing quite as interesting vibrant and at times weird as working in a newsroom she said thats an incalculable loss for local journalism particularlysome major newspapers such as the new york times washington post and wall street journal have maintained or even boosted their journalistic staffs even as they adapt to remote journalismno one doubts that the major dailies will reopen when its safe to do so