‘Journalism industry needs to be rewired’
New approaches needed to improve mental health in journalism
New books explore the crisis and long term impacts of poor mental health within journalism.
By Valérie Bélair-Gagnon
Field manuals have been blooming with PEN America offering a series of training webinars for the US election focusing on journalists’ safety, from police tactics to protest management weaponry. With global political unrest and change, professional associations and media organizations have taken steps to support journalists’ well-being.
“News organizations are getting smarter,” said Hannah Strom author of the new book Mental Health and Wellbeing for Journalists: A Practical Guide. In an increased political polarization, attempts to vilify the press and the rapid rise of atypical work, there is much to do to address the systemic issues facing journalists.
In my co-authored book (with Professors Avery Holton from the University of Utah, Mark Deuze from the University of Amsterdam, and Claudia Mellado from Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile), Happiness in Journalism, an array of international authors explored how dire the situation is even as hope and solutions emerge. Errol Salamon from the University of Stirling argued for the collective bargaining agreements of unions in which journalists' unions express working resistance and legal defense to labor issues as a place to include some of the structuring principles that would make journalists happy. He writes: “Despite similarities with the first collective bargaining agreements of unions in other sectors, several Writers Guild of America, East online media collective bargaining agreements include innovative language, recognizing the distinct nature of digital journalism work, setting standards around paid time off (PTO), and establishing unique committees.”
Well-being for journalists is more than just a constant state of happiness. It is both enjoying what you do and finding meaning in what you do. As Hermann Wasserman from Stellebosch University in South Africa points out, it is an ideal informed by an understanding that journalism is very different from other media work. The challenges journalists experience – such as how they rate and perceive their autonomy, and what precarity means to them – vary globally and is highly contextual.
Some of the efforts to support journalists have emphasized an individualism rather than systemic or institutional solutions. Moving beyond individual solutions remains a challenge news organizations have to reckon with globally. In this context, journalists have found ways to balance the impacts of the constantly connected nature of online work, often through forms of disconnection, as our recently co-published The Paradox of Connection: How Digital Media is Transforming Journalistic Labor showed (with Diana Bossio, Avery Holton and Logan Molyneux). Disconnection tactics journalists include creating private spheres for interaction, not engaging with certain platforms or users, using technical boundaries like blocking or muting, and taking “micro-breaks” from an online connection. But what can journalists do when they have no choice but to connect as part of their job?
In The Paradox of Connection, we argued that one of the best ways to support journalists is to provide institutional space for strategic disconnection from social media. Organizations should incorporate forms of disconnection into daily life. These recommendations include limiting exposure to distressing images and stories, participating in social activities outside work, and ensuring adequate self-care through attention to sleep, nutrition, and exercise. These new skills and practices should center on compassion, safety, and engagement with online audiences.
As these solution-oriented books have shown, the story of journalism has been one of adaptation with new business models, change, online culture, and trustworthy relations with audiences. If the goal of journalism is to produce and provide quality and trusted journalism, then, well-being needs to be at the forefront of the work of news leaders.
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. That is not turning away from what journalism ought to be. Rather, treating well-being as a core tenet of journalism will allow journalists to do what they love by enabling new connections that protect them from doing the everyday labor, while also upholding the ideals of journalism.
