WELL-BEING IN NEWS

"When journalists spend hours, days, weeks, and months with people who have experienced severe trauma like a mass shooting, the lines blur. There is more gray than black and white. Emotions are raw and it is natural for journalists to feel emotions about 19 children and two of their teachers being killed in their elementary school. If they don’t have an emotional response to it, that may be more of a concern."

"For 89% of our study’s participants Uvalde was the first mass shooting they covered and they overwhelmingly reported that they felt woefully unprepared… Many said they felt ‘cheated’ or ‘let down’ by their news managers and the industry for throwing them in the deep end with no relevant trainings.”

"Gen-Z has inherited an industry that today is now 24 hour news, driven by lightning fast social media, defined by multi platform journalism, pronounced distrust and hostility toward news media - all with pay that hasn't kept up which has made it harder for younger journalists."

“Our ultimate goal is that, within the next few years, every media company in the world incorporates proactive actions to take care of the wellbeing of their most valued asset: its people,”

Low pay, long hours, better opportunities among top reasons local journalists are quitting the profession, according to a survey of 600 U.S. news professionals.

The journalism industry needs to be rewired to experience and understand well-being. It is not just a question of making particular groups of journalists or individuals happier. It is a question of the bottom line, related to retention and recruitment. It is also setting up journalists to do their best work without the potential for self-censorship or burnout.

Virtual reality, actor simulations and video ‘micro learning’ are being used to teach journalism students how to cover trauma, disasters, and human suffering.

I highly recommend this book to any and all newsroom leaders, journalism students and news professionals looking for a one-stop window into current thinking and debates around industry mental health.

We’ve all made mistakes as journalists.  Here are a few of mine.

I’ll never forget the day I knocked on the door of a woman who’d recently been attacked by a serial killer. Thinking I’d stumbled on a dramatic scoop, I raced to interview her and put this survivor on the radio news without first thinking about the impact on her, let alone the community. 

My ‘scoop’ only compounded her misery.

Join us for “Taking Care In News,” a series of industry discussions on mental health and well-being for news professionals featuring leaders making important changes in their own workplaces and newsrooms.

FREE, via Zoom. Register at journalismforum.ca/events

Brought to you by the Canadian Association of Journalists (CAJ), Carleton University's School of Journalism and the Canadian Journalism Forum on Violence & Trauma.

Moral Courage: 19 Profiles of Investigative Journalists, released this week, explores the motivation and resilience of journalists who’ve suffered imprisonment, physical attacks and death threats at the hands of criminals and oppressive regimes.

It’s vital we uncover just how frequently our people suffer mental injuries from our work — for our own awareness and to ensure our news companies pay attention, examine the risks, and take appropriate action to better protect people who routinely cover trauma and human suffering.