Six steps to protect newsroom mental health
FORUM SEEKS WAYS TO CURB BURNOUT, STRESS, TOXICITY IN THE NEWS BIZ - RECORDING BELOW
‘The toll is serious’ says Sewell Chan, editor of the Texas Tribune, about daily exposure to trauma for photographers, image editors and not just field reporters.
“How can we prioritize mental health and create a culture of well-being in newsrooms?”
It’s a burning question as the journalism industry faces growing harassment, economic downsizing, toxicity in newsrooms and trouble attracting new talent.
Finding ‘practical steps for newsrooms’ was the mission of a virtual-town hall this week hosted by The Journalist’s Resource’s Naseem Miller and the Harvard Kennedy School’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy.
I was thrilled to be asked for my two cents, alongside Sewell Chan, editor of the Texas Tribune; Elana Newman, research chair of the Dart Center For Journalism And Trauma; and Scott Blanchard, board member for the Trust for Trauma Journalism and a Dart Fellow.
To me, the overarching need in our industry is literacy.
The sooner we get better informed about stress, trauma and mental health in our jobs, the sooner we can normalize discussion and get moving to put in place better safeguards and supports.
Here are my six practical steps I think newsrooms must adopt:
Talk about it
Ask people how they are
Acknowledge daily that covering news - often involving death, tragedy, violence, suffering - can take its toll on frontline witnesses
Create space for newsroom discussions through lunchtime talks, guest speakers, company town halls on ‘how to improve well-being’ at work
Seek employee feedback, conduct surveys, seek data on what’s working / what’s not and talk about the results openly as you seek solutions
Start internal newsroom letters about mental health, written and edited by employees
Training
Get trained on ‘trauma awareness in journalism - how we report on it, but also how trauma can affect news professionals
That training - for supervisors, managers and frontline staff should include:
the science of how stress and trauma affect the brain
newsroom ‘best practices’ to prepare for and monitor trauma coverage
self-care for journalists (who seldom take time to eat lunch!)
trauma-informed reporting / interviewing
Expertise
Require new leadership hires to have training in trauma-awareness
Create/develop journalist ‘well-being champions’ to lead internal initiatives
Seek advice from experts on how to improve newsroom practices and supports (some large news organizations employ occupational psychologists, nurses, or chief medical officers to advise news leaders)
New job postings should seek candidates with mental health awareness and skills
Protocols
Adopt a standard Plan For Big Trauma Stories - before/during/after
Excellent guide on ‘how to’ here from The Dart Center, pages 9-11
Monitor ‘trauma load’ of staff over time. Consider rotations, changes, back-up, down-time
Talk about and be clear - ‘What is newsroom policy if someone needs off a story?‘
Define supervisors’ roles and responsibilities to pull people off if someone is showing signs of distress. Make it okay for employees to decline an assignment.
Headlines/Google News Initiative, Vicarious Trauma Guide for Journalists & Newsrooms p. 14
Peer Support
Create formal peer support, with colleagues trained to offer confidential support
Create ‘non work’ opportunities for colleagues to get together socially, laugh, unwind and decompress
Improve Counselling
Ensure all employees have access to counselling support suited to news professionals
Review whether company EAP counsellors have trauma-awareness or any understanding of the unique stressors of the news profession.
Develop a roster and refer staff to counselors who actually understand journalism
Journalism is an amazing profession. We get to witness the wonders of human experience - from tragedy to triumph - and churn out ‘the first draft of history.’
But we don’t need to ignore our own health and safety in the process.
It’s time for a culture change, toward a healthier, more sustainable kind of journalism.
