Not only did we bear witness to how millions of people were coping and surviving, we were forced to do the same. We, too, had families – parents, children, spouses – with all the same health concerns and fears that were the focus of our work.

Jeff Zucker, Chairman of WarnerMedia News and Sports & President of CNN Worldwide

June 22, 2021

2020 In Our Words, an exclusive digital series with a behind-the-scenes look at how CNN transitioned to covering a once-in-a-lifetime global pandemic remotely, while broadcasting 24/7 on air and publishing around the clock in every time zone online. Available June 1st to registered users on CNN Digital properties, journalists and staff candidly reveal what it was like to report the story in real time – from the first cases in Wuhan to the March shutdowns in the US and one of history’s largest vaccination campaign in this nine-part series.

From newsrooms to living rooms, from control rooms to couches — interviews with nearly 60 CNN executives, journalists and staff provide a window into the unique challenge of covering tumultuous times while worrying about loved ones at home and how the news — and CNN — keeps going 24/7.

“What made the coverage of the pandemic so unusual is that we were reporting on it while we were also living it,” said Jeff Zucker, Chairman of WarnerMedia News and Sports & President of CNN Worldwide, in an exclusive forward note introducing the series, “Not only did we bear witness to how millions of people were coping and surviving, we were forced to do the same. We, too, had families – parents, children, spouses – with all the same health concerns and fears that were the focus of our work. At the same time, history was being made in an election year like this country had never seen before, which came on the heels of a summer of racial reckoning in America that changed us forever. Quite simply, the news never stops”

The world will never be the same again, and the way CNN works won’t be, either. As we await a return to a “new” normal. 2020 In Our Words provides a look forward.

Debuting on CNN’s 41st anniversary, the full series is exclusively available on CNN Digital properties to registered users on June 1. The first chapter will be accessible on CNN.com without registration on June 15, and the full series in September 2021.

View the series here.