“It’s Not as Neat Television Like Before The Epidemic”: Analysing the Visuality of Television Journalism During the Covid-19 Crisis

ABSTRACT The study explores the (re)negotiated visuality of television journalism during the first wave of the epidemic in Slovenia and on this basis examines the visibility of the COVID-19 crisis. Institutionalised procedures and relations of production together with the conventional visual-aural news form are analysed by assessing journalism’s (cl)aims of bringing relevant events and disputes to public attention, uncovering hidden social realities, and enabling people to engage in public life. By combining qualitative interviews with journalists and editors of public television and the leading commercial broadcaster with ethnographic content analysis of the lead news packages, the study reveals “not as neat television like before the epidemic”, albeit a detailed analysis of the mechanisms for ensuring veracity in the newscasts showed “business as usual” in television journalism. Although the two newsrooms (cl)aimed to be performing in line with the journalism’s normative foundations, chiefly monitoring disputes, deviances and changes, making them visible for people in their public engagements and encounters with power, the study points to the emergence of “kaleidoscopic vision”. Namely, television journalism provided a shifted, fractured and scrambled vision of the COVID-19 crisis defined by competing, conflicting and dysfunctional narratives articulated in the contradictory (dis)connect within the journalism–power–citizenry nexus.

communication rights on the grounds of protecting public health (Unesco 2020) has led to "a great need to inform, communicate, to coordinate and make decisions" with respect to private and public life (Trenz et al. 2021, 111).During the pandemic, forms of publicness have been (re)invented and people have experimented with modes of communication (121)(122), whereas (television) journalism has adapted its methods of bridging physical distance and creating discursive proximity in an attempt to operate as a valid social interface (García-Avilés 2021; Libert, Le Cam, and Domingo 2022;Perreault and Perreault 2021;Saptorini, Zhao, and Jackson 2022).
With the COVID-19 crisis signalling the "return" of television to the centre of people's information ensemble (Nielsen et al. 2020, 8-9;Mihelj, Kondor, and Štětka 2022, 14), this study investigates how television journalism has been (re)configured during the COVID-19 crisis by theoretically reconsidering the "visibility"-"visuality" relationship.While visibility concerns the public in the sense of "publicness', namely, what is visible and accessible to the citizenry (Dahlgren 1995, 90), it is incorporated in the normative public sphere conditions and foundations of modern journalism.Visibility refers not only to the equal possibility "to see" and "be seen" of those involved in a visible dispute, but also equality of control over "seeing" and "being seen" in the public sphere, as shown in journalism's intertwined relations with power and the citizenry (Dahlberg 2018;Thompson 2005).In contrast, the visuality of television journalism reflects technological innovations made in visual communication and the dominant institutional tendencies of newsroom procedures and routines, the conventionalised visual-aural news form and interactional particularities of evolving media technologies (Ekström 2002;Epstein 1973;Griffin 2012).As a set of practices, visuality reproduces the "mirror analogy" (Epstein 1973, 13-25) and its historical claims of indexical quality incorporating the visual-aural news form of immediate and naturalised renderings of reality by (re)constituting the veracity of television journalism through the routine and conventional (Ekström 2002, 279;Griffin 2012, 178).
The main goal of the study is to explore how the (re)negotiated visuality of television journalism during the COVID-19 crisis has (re)articulated in the visibility as a normative condition of the public sphere.Continuing earlier research on the (re)configuration of the journalistic roles during the pandemic (Vobič 2022), the study considers the implications held by news production constraints due to the changing health safety measures and restrictions, resonating not only in the visual-aural news form and televisual interactions, but also in "seeing" and "being seen" in the public sphere during the pandemic.There are two reasons for this focus.First, the investigation of visuality practices and visibility prisms provides insights into the complexities of the material and symbolic aspects of the reconfiguration of television news production and renegotiation of television journalism's veracity.Second, by complementing recent research on COVID-19 television journalism that shows a "shift" in routines (Saptorini, Zhao, and Jackson 2022, 1), the study enables a better understanding of television news production adaptation and the boundaries of visibility.
The study explores Slovenian television journalism during the first wave of the epidemic in the country in the spring of 2020 defined by the disturbance, confusion and uncertainty in public life, resonating in certain tensions in the journalism-power-citizenry nexus (IPI 2020).Using the ethnographic content analysis (Altheide 1987), COVID-19 news coverage was examined in the programmes of the public television and leading commercial broadcaster by exploring visuality practices and visibility prisms through the "rules and procedures for defining, recognizing, selecting, organizing and presenting information as news" (69).The reasoning underlying these adaptations was also explored using "long interviews" (McCracken 1988) conducted with editors and journalists of the two newsrooms.

Theoretical and Contextual Framework
Visibility, the Public Sphere, and Journalism While being central to the normative groundings of the public sphere, the notion of visibility derives from "critical publicity" and refers to the disclosure or opening of norms and political power to scrutiny by all persons affected by the freedom to "form", "express" and "publish" their opinions by participating in public life (Dahlberg 2018, 35).This principle was conceived as a "critical impulse against injustice based on secrecy of state actions" and as an enlightening ideal or abstraction of making persons equal in the "public use of reason" (Splichal 2002, 23).Visibility has historically transformed with respect to the changing journalism-power-citizenry relation and the technological development of media, reconstituting the boundaries between public and private life, "publicness" and "privacy" (Thompson 1995, 120-125).
The normative condition of the "visibility of dissensus" refers to accommodating the disagreements over what is understood and agreed as the proper way of organising social life and the divisions concerning the terms and procedures for dealing with disputes in society.The relations of those affected by a dissensus should simultaneously be defined by the visibility of reasoning and information on one hand, and participation equality, an equal possibility "to see" and "be seen", as well as having control over "seeing" and "being seen" on the other (Dahlberg 2018, 37-38).In this sense, "intervisibility" as in a public mode of interaction involves the optimal distance, recognition, but not intrusion in the sense of the "sociality of loose bonds" distinctive of online communication (Dahlgren 2013, 55).Public-sphere-visibility conditions also relate to the citizenry-power relations in the following terms (Dahlberg 2018, 38-40): visibility in the exposure and revelation of relations and practices of power holders to scrutiny, rendering them "accountable" or supporting interrogation, contestation and change; invisibility or autonomy of discourses from coercive and institutional forces of power; and the visibility of the public opinion as in recognition of its constitution by the representatives of formal decision-making bodies.Further, referring to exclusionary and undemocratic moments of other conditions, the "requirement for counter-visibility" "follows from, and helps to realise, the ideal of democracy as self-critical and self-revolutionising" (40).
Journalism's normative foundations arising from the process of professionalisation largely correspond to the conditions in the public sphere and to the complexities of "mediated visibility" (Thompson 1995;2005).Professional journalism (cl)aims to have developed a particular news apparatus that monitors disputes, deviances and changes, making them visible through the "news of the day" for people in their relations with power.This dominant "monitorial" function has appeared in variations defined by distinct intellectual currents and traditions (Christians et al. 2009, 139-157), shown in a particular conceptualisation of responsibility and visibility.The visibility as in exposure and revelation is reflected in the "watchdog" model where journalists act on the public's behalf to draw attention to possible abuses of power and the media are positioned outside of the political process (Sparks 1995, 52).Simultaneously, the monitorial function also relates to the visibility of reasoning and information by presuming the functions of journalists through "organized scanning" (McQuail 2013, 99).This dual function of societal intervening that contributes to the visibility of public opinion was reasserted by the "Hutchins Commission" in the mid-twentieth century, which declared that the press should assume "a new public responsibility" of providing a contextualised "truthful, comprehensive, and intelligent account of the day's events", while providing "a forum for the exchange of comment and criticism" (Blanchard 1977, 30).The idea of the press as "common carriers of the public expression" (ibid.)resonates with equality in "seeing" and "being seen", but only partly with having control in participation.Namely, the concept of professional autonomy defined by the dominant idea of freedom of the press sustains the principle of publicity as "a critical impulse against injustice based on secrecy of state actions" (Splichal 2002, 23), but neglects it as "an extension of individuals' freedom of thought and expression" (8).Correspondingly, the articulation of "counter-visibility" is somewhat limited in journalism's primary orientations, while it can be traced in its "facilitative" and "radical" normative roles (Christians et al. 2009, 158-195).
COVID-19 has introduced greater uncertainty into societies following the (initial) scarcity of knowledge about the virus, the (almost full) retreat to privacy and intimacy with the orientation to society redirected, and political participation (substantially) being disrupted by the overabundance of (mis)information (Trenz et al. 2021, 111).However, public life has not been suspended, only altered with reconfigured modes of visibility.While restrictions on media, enhanced surveillance and increased censorship have become the norm (Papadopoulou and Maniou 2021), people have experimented with modes of publicness, reinventing the boundaries and dynamics of public and private life (Trenz et al. 2021).They have adapted and relocated the public sphere, including in the field of news (ibid.).The unique increases seen in audience attention to and trust in traditional media (Newman et al. 2021, 9-10) signal the "return" of television and the further "decline" of print (Mihelj, Kondor, and Štětka 2022, 14).Mediated interactions have evolved through expanded news coverage by the media and its online extensions like Twitter (Zhang and Zhu 2021).Still, this intensification has not resonated in an expansion of reciprocal, reflexive and inclusive pandemic public life, but in processes that hardly contribute to fostering participation, if not actually hindering it.Namely, in some contexts, pandemic uncertainties have translated into a "disruptive, unpredictable and exhausting media event" with people's engagement marked by "privatization" and "depolitization" since during the pandemic an overall sense of integration and unity has been lacking (Mihelj, Kondor, and Štětka 2022, 15).
While journalism struggled to control the narrative during the "infodemic" (Unesco 2020), the media and its online extensions have (re)developed its visibility prisms by relying on established mechanisms to retain their authenticity and authority in the demanding 24/7 pandemic news flow.For instance, research indicates a varying yet strong role of the state in constructing pandemic news and the clear elite orientation of routine news coverage, also in its online adaptations (Mellado et al. 2021, 19-21).Further, in data-driven coverage, such as on infections, deaths, recoveries and vaccinations, state sources have emerged as dominant and been constructed as "objective", making the narratives "particularly powerful, precisely because external forces that shape this news become hidden from view" (Wu 2021, 14).In some contexts, "more press releases, press conferences, less real reporting" have defined television journalism while importance has been given to live-ness due to the production constraints (Saptorini, Zhao, and Jackson 2022, 9), indicating not only the boundaries of the pandemic's visibility, but also indicate the (re)configuration of the visuality of television journalism.

Visuality and Television Journalism
While television etymologically stands for "seeing at a distance", Thompson (1995, 98) coined "televisibility" with a distinctive feature of combining "audio-visual presence" with "spatial-temporal distance".Television and its continuous technological innovation are responsible for evolving forms of visibility re-configured through the "field of vision" shaped by a range of social and technological considerations as well as by the new types of interaction (Thompson 2005, 35-36).It is not only the technology of the visual, but also the dominant material and symbolic tendencies of news productionits institutionalised procedures, routines and conventionalised visual-aural formthat establish the boundaries of visibility and define what is understood here as "visuality".While visuality is influenced by the changing socio-technological features of the medium, its continuous social (re)negotiation can be observed through the industrial, textual and interactional prism (Dahlgren 1995, 25).
Through the industrial prism, the visuality of television journalismeither commercial or as a public broadcastingis constructed at the intersection of institutional and organisational structures, professional frameworks and political economy (Dahlgren 1995, 26).The main tendencies of these connections are reflected in the working rules and routines, institutionalised procedures, and systems for the "classification of reality" of television news production, strengthening the cohesion, reducing the uncertainty, and establishing veracity under the constant time pressure of news production (Ekström 2002, 271).The role and treatment of the visual in journalism is "paradoxical" (Griffin 2012, 162-169).While an ideology of news promotes the "mechanical objectivity" of the camera and television as "a mirror of society", an authoritative, authentic and vicarious experience of the world is created by the "pictures from an organisation" generated by the institutional constraints, organisational needs and operational demands of news production.In this context, the "predetermined" news consensus (Epstein 1973, 37) sets the boundaries of the autonomy of television news crews in their daily production routines and interactions with viewersthrough competitive visuality rather than critical visibility.Television journalism's visuality has a repetitive and formulaic textual nature and is determined by the relative stability of frames of social perception, and cultural familiarity with prevailing discourses and genres that denote its "polysemic" character" (Dahlgren 1995, 31).Symbolisation and dramatisation play a central role in the dominant television news form where "art and artifice" hold higher priority than "authenticity and precision" (Griffin 2012, 169), while sculpting the emotive and simplified visuality overwhelms the rational and complex visibility.In its restricted symbolic repertoires, television journalism communicates with systems of codes, conventions and expectations, typifying the social reality and relations through discursive mechanisms of visualising "out-there-ness' by using mechanisms of constructing authenticity, live-ness and omnipresence in the news programme or packaged coverage, also of events of "journalists' own making" like studio debates, interviews or on-location "stand-ups" (Ekström 2002, 266, 277-279).The television news programme thereby operates a "curious hybrid" (Hall 1971(Hall /1996 , 8) , 8), reproducing its "naturalistic fallacy" (9) while (cl)aiming the veracity of its references.Television journalism "does "objective" news" (Tuchman 1973) by codifying particular types of camera work and editing conventions that have defined correspondence or how viewers see the reality "with them" (Dahlgren 1995, 35), confirming the "mirror" quality of television (Epstein 1973, 13-25) and reproducing the "illusion of live actuality" as an aesthetic and social matter (Hall 1971(Hall /1996, 6), 6).
As a socio-cultural experience, television journalism emerges through its "thematic dimension", like in journalism's referential function in representing social reality, as well as its "pragmatic" one that is concerned with fostering (particular) interaction among viewers, helping them to transcend their status as the "audience" and to interact as citizens (Dahlgren 1995, 50).In the midst of these dynamics lies the mechanism of the "corroboration" of multiple sources and traces of evidence (Ettema and Glasser 1998, 137), also establishing veracity when they contradict each other.Further, eyewitnessing is one of the main markers of journalism's veracity that implies physical presence, enabling journalists to do their work authoritatively and craft news based on their ability to "see events unfold" (Zelizer 2017, 39-40).Yet, in its present digitised form, eyewitnessing not only neutralises its human dimension with the assistance of remote newsgathering, but also extends to non-journalists who complement and also challenge journalism's role in news (41-60).The visuality of eyewitnessing transcends the "televisual quasi-interaction" (Thompson 1995, 98) with its distinct mix of presence and absence in the production-reception relationship, lacking fundamental forms of reflexivity and reciprocity not only in the sense of providing a factual account of the world "as is', but also in symbolically depicting the "as if" (what could, should or might be) through news (Zelizer 2011).This (dis)connection has enabled television journalism to continue to adhere to visibility based on reason, certainty and truth and to negotiate its visuality of emotions, contingency and imagination.
Research on COVID-19 journalism shows that the working rules and routines, institutionalised decision-making, and systems of representation have been adapted because journalists were forced to (partially and temporarily) abandon their physical newsrooms by converging their professional and private lives through teleworking and establishing virtual ones using various online technologies (García-Avilés 2021; Libert, Le Cam, and Domingo 2022; Perreault and Perreault 2021).As research indicates, while journalists have faced challenging professional and personal conditions, work overload, emotional distress and employment insecurity, paradoxically they have reinforced their commitment to the normative and professional ideals of journalism, foremost through mediation and verification.At this critical juncture, journalistic professional conduct has been limited as the "new normality" has brought "new" manifestations of "old" threats to journalism: political-economic, legal, technological, psychological and physical (Papadopoulou and Maniou 2021).A study on COVID-19 television journalism (Saptorini, Zhao, and Jackson 2022) reveals that production has been considerably disrupted and its visuality altered.The work of journalists has been defined by difficulties in accessing sources and obtaining responses due to the lack of physical contact and dependence on tools for instant messaging and videoconferencing, affecting the veracity of news coverage by reproducing unchallenged information and source dependency (11).Since the dominant live television news formulas have been descriptive, speculative and unanalytical, while not coinciding with the event being reported, the repetitively constructed out-there-ness has created a "delusion of proximity" as journalistic eyewitnessing has "perpetuated the sense of placelessness" (15).

Main Research Question, Contexts and Methods
This review of recent scholarship demonstrates that television journalism has not attracted much attention, despite re-emerging as a central and trusted information source for people across contexts during the COVID-19 crisis.This calls for a detailed exploration of the contradictions of visuality with respect to the renegotiations between the tendencies of the "pre-pandemic" television news production in order to investigate the visual-aural presence and spatial-temporal distance of the visibility of the "pandemic" world.The main research question is as follows: How was visibility (re)articulated through the (re)negotiated visuality of television journalism in the early stages of the COVID-19 crisis?
By tackling the main research question the study analyses institutionalised procedures and relations of production and the conventional visual-aural news form by interrogating journalism's (cl)aims of bringing relevant events and disputes to the attention of the public, uncovering hidden social realities, and enabling people to engage in public life.Television news in Slovenia has been importantly defined by the shift in the mid-1990s, from a "distinct" television form in terms of iconography, rhetoric and ideology toward the daily news as "styled entertainment and social event" defined by amalgam of information, drama and visual spectacle reproducing the ideologies of common-sense and professionalism (Luthar 2000, 7).Later studies in Slovenia show that television journalism's visuality has been characterised by "hybridity", defined by narrativization, personification, dramatization, and editorializing (Laban 2007, 151-170), shaping conventions and symbolic repertoires of the television news form and implying problems of visibility that correspond to those discussed above.
The analysis concentrates on the first wave of the epidemic in Slovenia in the spring of 2020, when a right-wing government has just taken office, adopting a comprehensive approach while developing measures and strengthened the "lockdown" of public life (Government of RS 2020).The media imposed organisational health safety measures in its various workplaces, re-organised news production and journalistic fieldwork, while imposing "distance work" on journalists to a great extent (DNS 2020).In the political realm, journalists were subjected to insults and veiled threats from the top of the political establishment, mostly on online social networks and in media establishments with ownership ties to the ruling Slovenian Democratic Party.In his essay War with the Media, Prime Minister (Janša 2020) criticised the media, particularly the public RTVS and the leading commercial broadcaster POP TV, stating their ties to the "deep state", their "average and below-average call-up journalists" and implying they are manipulative, "[I]t is very healthy not to watch, read or listen to those "media" where it is clear in advance how they will turn things around".
Throughout the lockdown, mass anti-government "bicycle protests" were organised in response to restrictions, among others, limiting freedom of expression and of the press (IPI 2020).While the media faced continuing political attempts to "discipline" and "subordinate" them through various mechanisms (Splichal 2020), newscasts of the public television (TVS 2020) and commercial POP TV (2020) both recorded sharp rises in audience ratings early on in the epidemic.The combination of deep social uncertainties and intense political tensions make the study of the (re)articulations of the COVID-19 crisis' visibility and the (re)configuration of television journalism's visuality in Slovenia a unique one.Qualitative interviews with television journalists and editors along with ethnographic content analysis (ECA) of associated television newscasts were conducted.
First, the study conducted 18 "long interviews" (McCracken 1988) with journalists and editors of public Television Slovenia (TVS) (Dnevnik) and the commercial POP TV (24UR) with a view to shedding light on the inner logics of news production and its rationale.By controlling the complexities of television news production, the final sample of interviewees consisted of editors-in-chief and daily editors who had worked in one or the other newsroom during the epidemic as well as journalists who had been covering the fields of public health, political affairs, and/or social issues (Table 1).The interviewed journalists on average had about 13 years' journalistic experience (min: 4; max: 25), while the editors were senior newsroom members on average holding 24 years' experience in journalism (min: 20; max: 28).
The conversations were adapted to specific situations and interviewees, but were also steered by the interview guide structured according to the research focus.Besides the (re)configuration of the journalistic roles during the pandemic (Vobič 2022), the interview guide also covered the changes in news production organisation, its symbolic and material implications for television journalism, and disruptions in journalism-power-citizenry nexus with a particular focus on the role of television journalism during the COVID-19 crisis.The interviews were conducted using the Zoom videoconferencing system, except for two held by telephone (jDnevnik6; j24UR4).Prior to the conversation all the interviewees have signed an informed consent form, developed in accordance with the guidelines of the Social Science Data Archives (ADP) in Ljubljana.The conversations were done in the Slovenian language and audio recorded the transcripts are filed in ADP archives in Ljubljana (Vobič 2021).The "five-stage process" of interview analysis (McCracken 1988) was used to identify converging and diverging dynamics in the interviewees' narratives with respect to the (re)organising of news production.Second, to analyse the visuality of television journalism and determine the epidemic's visibility, the ECA was constituted through a "complex and reflexive interaction process" (Altheide 1987, 65) aimed at the systematic analysis of television newscasts as "products of social interaction" (66).While the ECA was focused on evening newscasts produced by the TVS (Dnevnik) and POP TV (24UR), the unit of analysis was the lead news package starting each programme during 81 days of the first official epidemic in Slovenia (12 March-31 May 2020).To analyse the "news of the day" as a "format", as in the "rules and procedures for defining, recognizing, selecting, organizing and presenting information as news" (69), an interview guide was constructed to provide both data on the three categories and their (sub)dimensions: numeric and narrative data, COVID-19 themes, and news-form dimensions (Table 1 and Table 2).
The progression from data collection to interpretation was "reflective rather than serial", permitting a rich and intertwined analysis of narratives, themes and news-forms to explore the visuality practices and leading mechanisms for veracity and, correspondingly, to interrogate the dominant COVID-19 visibility prisms.

Findings (Re)organising of News Production
The interview analysis showed the news production of both TVS and POP TV had been adapted considerably in response to the preventive health measures.As newsrooms strived to reduce the chances of virus transmission, they instructed their journalists to reduce the time spent in the newsroom and encouraged them to telework, at least in Journalists from both newsrooms found such partial remote work limiting not only in technological terms, such as the low quality of the audio recording equipment and apps, but mostly with respect to interactions with other newsroom members.Most interviewees gradually opted to return to the newsroom, realising "how essential it is to be there" (j24UR1), adapting their routines to the preventive health measures imposed inhouse like wearing required personal protective equipment, disinfection routines and physical distancing.
Our house is a huge structure and our work requires really a lot of contacts to get things done in the end.To a certain extent, we are limited by how many measures we can take at all or to what extent we can prevent infections.(jDnevnik5) The workspaces at TVS and POP TV saw considerable changes upon spatially (re)organising them into smaller news teams, (re)arranging work shifts across programmes and days, establishing physical distances among journalists, editors, anchors and other staffers, such as video editors and language checkers.Interactions have become fragmented with inperson editorial meetings being replaced by distance one-to-one meetings and video editing as a rule being finalised by video editors alone without journalists being physically absent.While the interviewees stated that mobile telephones were the technology most commonly used to bridge physical distance in the newsroom, journalists also experimented by setting up messaging apps (Viber at POP TV) (j24UR3), organising through collaboration tools (Trello at TVS) (jDnevnik1) and using chatting through the in-house CMS (iNews at TVS) (jDnevnik2).
The interviewees also acknowledged that fieldwork had become an exception for news teams, particularly in the first weeks of the epidemic at POP TV, whereas live stand-ups were reaffirmed as a daily routine for journalists working in the newsroom or at home.Journalists later went into the field more often where attention was paid more to "technicalities" than to "content" (j24UR3) with continuous disinfections of equipment, changes in the division of work, and the use of boom pole microphones while interacting with sources.
Still, interacting with sources via digital technology has remained a rule throughout the first wave of the epidemic.Journalists mostly used videoconferencing systems (Skype and Zoom) to record conversations, affecting "in-person" relationships with their network of sources, especially for political journalists (j24UR2; jDnevnik4).While the government streamlined its crisis communication, centralising it to its daily news conferences organised over a distance through a video link or videoconferencing, some journalists stressed the source and official information dependency.
I have significantly worse access to information, or at least real information.I am forced to operate with what I get and be content with the fact that I will not be able to ask followup questions.(…) All in all, it is very, very limited.(j24UR7) Given that the interviewees generally stress problems with accessing the field and sources and producing original visual material, some have experimented with creating discursive proximity.For instance, one journalist reported asking her sources to record their statements and sending them with other visual material via calling and messaging apps (Viber) or file transfer services (WeTransfer), for instance in a retirement home.
She [the head of the retirement home] said, "What else do you need?"And I said, "Let your hands record how she [the retirement home resident] types."A little filmed by a lady, a little by the principal.So, I got two sources.That's how we help each other.(j24UR6) Further, health journalists from both POP TV and TVS had created a mobile instant messaging group (Viber) and invited the public relations officers of the University Medical Centre Ljubljana to join, trying to influence their responsiveness, decisions on soundbites of medical staff, and obtaining visuals from the hospital.
We said let's create one such mini pressure together.Essentially, we support requests; let's say I write that I need a statement from the infection clinic and then another writes that it would be really nice to get that.And then there's some joint pressure and it's easier to achieve than if we ask for something individually.(j24UR4) Some official matters are still through official channels, such as information or obtaining an official response.This [Viber group] is used for: "What can we expect today?Can you record this and that for us?Can we come for this and that statement?".( jDnevnik3) With respect to the studio dynamics, the newsrooms gradually abandoned in-person studio interviews by adopting distance stand-up interviews on location and, in the case of TVS, from an improvised open-air studio.Journalists were compelled, as the interviewees stressed, to rely heavily on archival, news agency, stock and PR materials and also to affirm the video wall graphic presentations in the studio and live stand-ups on or off location as defining visuality practices.This shouldn't remain the standard, as television could become radio.Not all is well, although we are careful.Beggars can't be choosers.(jDnevnik6) (Re)producing the pre-pandemic visuality As indicated by both the interviews and the ECA, the visuality of television journalism loosened its restricted symbolic repertoires, renegotiating the codes, conventions and expectations of the news form.The interview analysis reveals these renegotiations were based on the interviewees' discursive exclusion of the visual ("picture", "packaging", "image", "aesthetics", "what's visible") from the notion of news ("information", "content").
The epidemic has revealed the behind-the-scenes of television, but there's nothing wrong with that.It's not as neat television like before the epidemic, but I think it's just okay.We are working under emergency measures with some [new] technological solutions that aren't optimal and that is visible.(…) It's part of contemporary televisionthe message is important, the message is the most important.(ecDnevnik) Content is king.If you have good content and if it's clear it's packaged differently for a reason, it's a plus and not a minus.(…) If you don't have good content, you can hide that by good packaging, but actually content is the most important.(ec24UR) This separation has normalised the "pandemic" reorganising of news production on one hand and reaffirmed, quite contradictorily, the "pre-pandemic" news formits systems of representations and predetermined ways of substantiating knowledge in television journalism.As the ECA of the lead news packages of Dnevnik and 24UR indicates, the visuality reproduced is grounded on the rearticulation of the leading mechanisms for veracitynot consistently, but with internal contradictions of the news form.
Correspondence.With respect to correspondence, close connections and equivalences between aural-visual material and the matters being reported on were created not only by using timely original video from the field, for instance of desolated streets, restaurants and schools at the start of the lockdown (e.g., 24UR 15/03; Dnevnik 18/03), but also, contradictorily, by scrambling it with in-house archives, stock, news agency and PR visual materials without any clear distinctions and only rarely with attributions.
This was evident in sequences repetitively combining the same aural-visual materials without clear attribution of the visual sources, especially when 24UR visualised health measures and their implications using images of streets and parks, hospitals, different sectors of the economy and schools from various sources (e.g., 24UR 12/04; 16/04; 18/ 04).Yet, veracity was also established by using distinctions between timely and archival original visuals to correspond between "then" and "now" after "life has returned again" when certain measures had been lifted (24UR 04/05) or by splitting the screen to strengthen the contrast, for instance when public transport was restarted (Dnevnik 11/05).
Corroboration.Veracity was also constructed by corroborating multiple sources and traces of evidence.The official epidemiological data on infections and deaths as well as future projections, often graphically presented on studio video walls, were corroborated with government, medical or health expert sources' statements, constructing facts about the epidemic.This was particularly salient in reporting on the first "casualties" (e.g., 24UR 14/03; Dnevnik 14/03), sharp rises in the number of infected (e.g., Dnevnik 05/04) or on days when no new cases of infections were detected (e.g., Dnevnik 03/05).Here, the veracity of newscasts rested on a circular relationship between data reasoning and attribution.
A salient example of the corroboration mechanism is the confirmation or support shown in the statements of journalists, authorities, experts or other actors about people respecting or breaching measures by sequencing aural-visual materials as evidencealso in cases with a weak or even contradictory connection between what was said and what was seen.For instance, in a feature about disruptions to public life TVS corroborated the interior minister's statement about seeing "a lot of people taking our decree seriously" in front of a post, pharmacy and supermarket with visuals of people waiting in lines at the required distance (Dnevnik 20/03).Further, in late March, POP TV reported on the "flood" of daily tourists from in-land municipalities to the seaside by corroborating statements made by local residents and authorities, with visuals of individuals and small groups strolling and photographs of car registration plates from different parts of the country, representing them as "proof" that people were not complying with the measures (24UR 28/03).Similar contradictory corroboration logics were used by TVS in its reporting from the Alps (Dnevnik 22/03).In early April, 24UR opened its programme with a "completely different picture at the seaside than a week before", describing it as "strangely calm", corroborating it not only with location images but with studio video wall analysis of "concrete" Google geolocation data as well (24UR 04/04).
Eyewitnessing.These and other examples of journalists monitoring the citizenry also built veracity with the eyewitnessing mechanism, for instance going into the field with policemen doing checks on the roads (e.g., Dnevnik 03/04; 04/04; 11/04).By visualising journalists' physical presence on location or bringing viewers to the location through aural-visual presence newscasts reaffirmed their authority by seeing matters for themselves and created validity by enabling viewers to see and even feel with them.As fieldwork was substantially limited in the early weeks of the epidemic, journalists appeared as eyewitnesses mostly in cases of their own making, for instance with a recorded stand-up in the middle of the main road during the lockdown depicting changes to public life, "We are, so to speak, in the centre of Ljubljana, where it is usually very lively at this time, but these days there is a scary silence" (Dnevnik 20/03).
Later on, both newsrooms reported changes in the measures adopted by doing features on location not simply with visible journalists wearing masks and keeping a distance, but also engaged in the matter being covered.For instance, TVS did a feature from one of the largest hospitals in the country, eyewitnessing the care and conditions of patients (Dnevnik 15/04).24UR (20/04) eyewitnessed, for example, the opening of shops, visualising the new health safety regime and doing vox pops among customers.Another example, when retirement homes had reopened, TVS published a feature with personal stories of relatives meeting again with camera close-ups and field tone segments, as well as, with the journalist's own emotional involvement, "The employees were moved and so were the cameraman and myself" (Dnevnik 07/05).
Out-there-ness.Such modes of eyewitnessing contributed to the perception of outthere-ness, which was mostly visualised by using mechanisms for constructing authenticity, live-ness and omnipresence.Authenticity as a quality of undisputed origin was based on the mechanical objectivity of video technology.Both newscasts presented news by stressing an authoritative and vicarious experience of the world through auralvisual material.One example from early on in the epidemic, "How this, to put it mildly, unusual day has passed, we see in the footage of our cameras" (Dnevnik 16/03).24UR also referred to the vicarious authority of technology, for instance while covering the mass anti-government protests, "This is how the footage looks.(…) The police are, as we can see, really at every turn" (24UR 08/05).Simultaneously, authenticity drew from professional authority and the moral obligation to make matters visible, by using phrases like "our teams are finding out" (24UR 20/03), "according to our unofficial information" (24UR 24/04; Dnevnik 27/04) and "looking for answers" (Dnevnik 25/05).
Moreover, throughout the first wave of the epidemic Dnevnik and 24UR created outthere-ness by visualising live-ness and omnipresence, where the studio and anchor performed as an interface between the aural-visual presence and the spatial-temporal distance.Besides live interviews in the studio or on location, chiefly with ministers being asked for "the latest" or "more" information on the measures (e.g., 24UR 21/03; 15/04; Dnevnik 19/03), in one instance both newscasts partially transmitted a live address made by the prime minister, "In a few minutes Prime Minister Janez Janša will clarify when some of the restricted measures can be lifted" (24UR 07/04).The most dominant way of creating live-ness was stand-ups on location that coincided with the events reported, for instance from the protests (24UR 08/05), or did not, mostly somewhere near the television building, like while reporting about "the first victim" (Dnevnik 14/ 03).These pre-determined conversations between the anchors and journalists were further visualised using timely original visual material, but also, quite paradoxically, archival and even stock video (e.g., 24UR 16/03; 17/03; 22/03).The anchor played a pivotal role in visualising the omnipresence by managing the split-screen ("3-plex" or "4-plex") with images from different parts of the country, for instance at the start of the lockdown (Dnevnik 16/03) or of journalists ready for stand-ups covering protests in different towns (Dnevnik 08/05).

Prisms of Pandemic Visibility
The ECA of the lead news packages of Dnevnik and 24UR reveals that both reproduced the "pre-pandemic" visuality of television journalism by adapting "pictures from an organisation" to the "pandemic" constraints of news production.The analysis of visibility shows the newsrooms approached the COVID-19 crisis according to a predetermined news consensus.This means both newscasts created the dominant visibility prims defining opacity rather than providing clarity and recognition, and reproducing the moral order, surveillance and nationhood rather than accommodating dissensus and nurturing participation, while the exposed alleged abuses of power were subjected to the degrading rhetoric of power holders as the newscasts engaged in balancing acts rather than critical contestation.
Visibility of opacity.By (cl)aiming to provide the "news of the day", the two news programmes made reasoning and supporting information visible while covering the epidemic's development and its implications for the health system (e.g., hospitals and intensive care units) and social care (e.g., retirement homes).Dnevnik and 24UR both largely relied on the official data provided by the health ministry or the national public health institute, corroborating it with government sources, chiefly the prime minister, health minister and government spokesperson, or health and medical experts.As a rule, such reporting was intertwined with news on the measures adopted and the consequences they held for people's lives.Early on in the epidemic, the interior minister expressed his gratitude to journalists after a decree had been adopted (24UR 21/03).
Minister: I would also like to thank you, dear journalists.We kindly urge you to direct your work as you have done in recent days to make our citizens aware that they need to respect the decree.
Anchor: And we do that all the time.Minister, thank you very much for the answers and your visit to the studio.
The close connection between the epidemic data, its corroboration and corresponding governmental measures was explicitly confirmed in some cases.For instance, in such a manner 24UR (12/04) reported on "encouraging numbers".
Journalist in the report: Life as we knew it before the epidemic will not be our reality for some time to come, and that is why we cannot expect the government to end the measures it has taken to contain the coronavirus soon.
Journalist in the studio: Despite encouraging numbers and having reached the peak of the epidemic, we are at a turning point where the curve can still rise high or finally, as we all want, turn down.
For instance, TVS reported about a letter written by 25 epidemiologists reproaching the government for not "taking the opinion of experts into account", but "sanctions the critical assessment of the measures implemented" (Dnevnik 05/04).The letter was relativised by the head of the government advisory group for Covid-19: These measures are being adopted by the whole world, all the countries struggling with this epidemic.We are all aware that they are not well founded in any case.However, there is a good chance that they will contribute to controlling the epidemic.(ibid.) With the letter coinciding with alleged changes made to the top of the national public health institute, a statement by the prime minister refuted the allegations, "All the measures adopted by the government were taken on the basis of the opinion of experts.However, it is true that the so-called experts were not in agreement in Slovenia" (ibid.).
Visibility of the moral order and nationhood.According to the ECA, the visibility prism of opacity translated into the prism narrowing the (self-)recognition of citizens' position, boundaries and contradictions in relation to the health crisis' structural consequences, and making the "stay-at-home" moral order and surveillance of public places visible by (re)producing nationhood.
Although the lockdown measures had changed over time, both news programmes reproduced the stay-at-home moral order through individualism embedded in nationalism.As the ECA reveals, early on in the epidemic the stay-at-home moral order was established, particularly by TVS, by referring to or publishing statements by sources, for instance the prime minister and a COVID-19 patient.
Prime Minister: Each of us can contribute to limiting the spread of the coronavirus epidemic.
COVID-19 patient: Stay home, this is not a slogan, this is not a pamphlet that someone has come up with.This is a fact that must be adhered to, this must be respected.
Later on, this morality was (re)affirmed by the journalists and anchorsalso during the time the strictest measures were being lifted.
Journalist on a live stand-up: Moving, yes [of the elderly out from retirement homes back home], but the rest of us mostly have to stay home.(Dnevnik 02/04) Journalist in the studio: Of course, everything will depend on our continued observance of self-protection, isolation measures and, of course, compliance with the restrictions.
Anchor: That's right.We still need to stay at home.(24UR 12/04) 05) balanced the political arena by confronting the parliamentary coalition and opposition representatives' statements, particularly after the interpellation against the Minister for the Economy had been lodged.Second, the TVS newscast balanced the accountability between the government and the whistle-blower, revealing parts of the government's report on the procurement of the protective equipment, reporting in detail on "irregularities" identified by the Ministry for the Economy in some of the contracts signed by the whistle-blower, and ending the news package with the following, "We are still waiting for Ivan Gale's explanations" (Dnevnik 29/04).
Paradoxically, the exposure and revelation of the alleged abuses of power were relativised by journalists themselves.Nevertheless, critical contestation resonated in the mass "bicycle" protest movement with only one anti-government demonstration in the lead packages of the analysed newscasts (24UR 08/05; Dnevnik 08/05).

Conclusion
By exploring how visibility was (re)articulated through the (re)negotiated visuality of television journalism during the first wave of the epidemic in Slovenia, the study confirms previous findings about the substantial reorganisation of news production during COVID-19 (Perreault and Perreault 2021;García-Avilés 2021;Libert, Le Cam, and Domingo 2022), particularly for television (Saptorini, Zhao, and Jackson 2022).Namely, both newsrooms reorganised their procedures by employing "new" tools or adjusting "old" ones to be able to create the "news of the day" for hundreds of thousands confined to their homes.The resulting "not as neat television like before the epidemic" was characterised by video-conferencing and other ways of digital communication, relying heavily on archival, news agency, stock and PR materials, and employing different ways of studio or on-location live reporting.These changes indicated outlines of the new pandemic news form, yet a detailed analysis of the mechanisms for veracity in the lead news packages revealed "business as usual" in television journalism.
The study's original contribution is twofold.First, the interviewed editors and journalists normalised the "new" "not as neat television" by contradictorily reaffirming the established news form through separation of the visual from the notion of news.Analysis of lead news packages confirmed this finding by revealing the veracity mechanisms, constitutive for the "mirror analogy" (i.e., correspondence, corroboration, eyewitnessing, outthere-ness) and identifying their adaptations to the pandemic constraints of news productioncharacterised by inner contradictions rather than consistency in visuality practices.Second, the reproduction of the "pre-pandemic" visuality has decisively shaped the pandemic's visibility.Although the two newsrooms (cl)aimed to be performing in line with the normative foundations of journalism, chiefly monitoring disputes, deviances and changes, making them visible for people in their engagement with public life and encounters with power, the analysis of the lead news packages suggests an articulation of what may be called the "kaleidoscopic vision" of television journalism.Namely, the dominant prisms provided the visibility of opacity and power, moral order and nationhood, and the exposure and revelation of power holders to power, reproducing COVID-19 as a "divergent communication phenomenon" (Gollust et al. 2020) defined by competing, conflicting and dysfunctional narratives articulated in the contradictory (dis)connect within the journalism-power-citizenry nexus.In this context, television journalism provided a shifted, fractured and scrambled vision of the COVID-19 crisis, making it difficult for people to orient themselves amidst the suddenly disrupted and redirected private and public life.
The study's findings indicate a combination of particularities and commonalities contributing to the kaleidoscopic vision of television journalism during the COVID-19 crisis.On one hand, the ways in which news production was reorganised and the news form renegotiated reflected the particular disturbance, confusion and uncertainty in Slovenian public life and deepened tensions in the relations between journalism, power and citizens during the crisis.The corresponding divergence and fragmentation of communication created unprecedented difficulties for newsrooms to "do television" according to journalism's normative foundations and contribute to the resilience of the public sphere.On the other hand, the shifted, fractured and scrambled vision indicates a divide between televisualising the "news of the day" with the "old" veracity mechanisms on a daily basis and monitoring divergent communication phenomena such as the ongoing pandemic that continues to permeate every pore in society.This divide only adds to the pandemic as a "disruptive, unpredictable and exhausting media event" (Mihelj, Kondor, and Štětka 2022, 15), hardly providing public life with recognition, clarity and vigour.
The interrogation of the visibility of the COVID-19 crisis based on analysis of the visuality of television journalism at the start of the pandemic in Slovenia is limited in its capacity to comprehensively assess the public sphere's resilience and the reinventions of its modes of functioning.Future research should not only expand the scope and time by conducting longitudinal comparative studies of television journalism and news in an international perspective, but also go beyond television and journalism and explore evolving forms of digital news and other communication modes that dissect private and public life.As the COVID-19 pandemic is continuing with evolving implications for society in the long run, theoretically informed and methodologically diverse investigations are essential for better comprehending and seeing the pandemic world and being seen in it, for addressing the contradictions and coerciveness of control over visibility in the public sphere, and for developing ways of tackling the dominant discursive and material tendencies behind the "infodemic".

Table 2 .
ECA categories and (sub)dimensions.While POP TV set up work stations able to access the content management system (CMS) in almost all of the interviewees' homes, at TVS this was only done in individual cases.