Workload, job cuts, uncertainty threaten journalists’ mental health
‘PSYCHOLOGICAL SAFETY’ REPORT PINPOINTS RISKS IN CANADA’S NEWS INDUSTRY
Newsrooms and media companies are required by law to protect employees’ health and safety on the job, and to take steps to shield them from known hazards.
It’s why, for example, it has become best practice for newsrooms to train employees and equip them with protective gear, safety plans and first aid kits when assigned to cover wars or wild fires - to protect them physically.
But what is best practice when it comes to protecting colleagues' psychological safety?
What does ‘psychological risk’ even mean in a stress-filled industry where it is the norm to work long hours, amidst relentless deadlines, reporting on disaster, human suffering and trauma, be it in war zones or covering local courts, crime, and accidents?
In fall 2024 the Canadian Association of Journalists (CAJ) sponsored a series of industry focus groups to ask colleagues directly. We met with roughly 100 reporters, editors, photographers, assignment supervisors, and media managers to ask what they see as the greatest ‘psychosocial’ hazards on the job.
At the top of the list? Concern about resources, job security, heavy workload, and a continuing pressure to ‘get it right’ in the face of an increasingly hostile public.
READ THE REPORT: Psychological Safety In Canada’s News Industry
I led these focus group discussions, talking confidentially to participants from across Canadian media (Bell, CBC, Global, Toronto Star, Black Press, among others). The results are compiled in a new report Psychological Safety in Canada’s News Industry.
As a news industry trauma researcher and trainer, I was surprised that while participants commonly identified exposure to trauma as a significant risk factor, it wasn’t their top concern.
Instead, basic working conditions, a lack of resources and uncertainty over editorial standards and the future of the industry were named hazards most likely to impact on colleagues' psychological health.
But what can be done to minimize these risks and hazards, especially at a time where newsrooms seem trapped in a cycle of ‘do more with less’ and where legacy media companies are stretched, cutting back or facing existential funding crises?
This is the challenge of the moment.
News professionals, their organizations, associations and unions need to develop strategies that address these risk factors - to specifically address workload, job security, pace, fatigue if they are to protect and improve psychological safety.
Some news organizations are already working on solutions and new best practices.
But listening to employees, and confronting these specific risk factors is the first step.
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