NEW BOOK: “Mental Health and Wellbeing for Journalists: A Practical Guide”
Hannah Storm’s new book serves up wisdom from interviews with a ‘who’s who’ of global experts and journalists.
There’s change happening in the journalism industry.
Too slow, in my mind. But there are more signs than ever that we're finally talking seriously about mental health in a business that for too long prided itself on a ‘suck it up’ culture, and swept inconvenient casualties of burnout, booze and PTSD under the carpet.
Major news organizations are getting smarter to address psychological health and safety. Journalists are demanding better. Educators are reshaping training. Journalists and industry leaders are planning a global Mental Health in Journalism Summit in October 2024.
Hannah Storm’s timely new book Mental Health and Wellbeing for Journalists: A Practical Guide (Routledge, 2024) dives deep into all of it and sounds a ‘clarion call’ for more change.
** Full disclosure. I was interviewed for the book, and consider the author a friend and colleague. We sing from a similar hymn book!
Storm begins by telling her own PTSD story, and details her journey as a journalist, researcher and former head of the International News Safety Institute.
From this vast experience, the book’s greatest strength is the rich assembly of global experts, news editors and journalists that Storm interviews to gather insights, research and advice.
Woven throughout are 14 candid accounts by journalists from around the globe who speak bluntly and on the record about their personal mental health challenges on the job.
“We've spent so many years, either in silence or shouting into a vacuum,” Storm told me in a recent interview.
She says a series of simultaneous forces have accelerated discussions around mental health: the pandemic, growing public distrust of media, and the difficulty of covering recent wars.
“I do think there's a stronger reckoning now. I think it became more normalized,” Storm said.
“But there are big pockets of industry that are still burying their heads in the sand or paying lip service. Some people call it well-being washing.”
Storm writes about journalist’s self-care. Seen here in new educational video series TraumaAwareJournalism.org
While an optimist about the shift underway, she says she wrote the book, in part, because the change is only just beginning and is not reaching all quarters.
“It's also clear to me that there is still a bit of a mountain to climb in terms of having the conversations where we really, really deeply recognize the impact of people's work on them.”
The book offers a brief history of psychological safety in the industry, and then does an excellent survey of news culture, emerging science (on PTSD, vicarious trauma, moral injury), and the scourge of online harassment.
Storm pulls together a ‘who’s who in the Zoo’ of global experts and mines them for their stories and wisdom, and offers easily accessible advice on leadership, self-care and the importance of protecting journalist health.
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.
What I wished for from the book was more on the title’s promise of a “practical guide.”
I wish there was a blueprint, a magic bullet, a manifesto or five-point plan for all newsrooms and journalists to simply flip a switch to make the news business healthier and more sustainable.
As Storm’s book reflects - we’re not there yet.
While there’s urgent need for reform in how we operate day to day, the wider news business is only starting to recognize we have a problem.
But importantly, in diagnosing and exploring the symptoms, this book helps us all get one step closer toward solutions.
