What are news companies doing to protect staff from non-stop death and trauma?
Survey asks news corporations about their ‘duty’ to journalist mental health
We asked 14 news corporations about their responsibility to staff mental health. (Illustration)
News organizations are divided over how best to protect the psychological health of their journalists and news teams covering a constant stream of death and suffering.
That’s according to a survey we conducted of fourteen major news outlets in the U.S., Canada and United Kingdom over the last month.
And what a month it’s been in the news business: catastrophic earthquakes in Turkey and Syria, the death of Tyre Nichols, war in Ukraine. Here in Canada, a city bus slammed into a daycare center – killing and injuring small children.
Horrible stuff. But all of it is news. And cover it we must.
Our survey arises from growing evidence that cumulative exposure to death, suffering and trauma on the job can cause journalists lasting harm including anxiety, depression and PTSD.
Based on the responses we’ve collected, the answer is mixed. News organizations are using vastly different approaches and have vastly different understandings of the issue and their duty of care.
Mounting legal responsibility
Employers face a growing legal onus to protect psychological health of staff, according to Canadian workers’ rights lawyer Randy Slepchik.
“If you are a news organization that is regularly requiring your workers to deal with these really traumatic issues, you want to look at having supports in place,” Slepchik said. “The law is saying to news organizations in these circumstances ’You need to be prepared to address situations where your reporters are facing these impacts from this very difficult work that they do … and you need to be responsive to them.’”
Five questions for news bosses
Talking openly about this can be tricky. Work-related mental health issues are often shrouded in privacy and stigma. They can wind up as disputes between news companies, employees and their unions. Corporations fear legal liability and even reputational harm.
Nonetheless, we can all do much better as an industry if we talk about these challenges and seek best practices.
So, we asked fourteen news organizations five questions:
What is your duty to protect against cumulative exposure to trauma?
What practical measures are you taking to mitigate risk?
How many of your staff have been psychologically injured on the job?
How does your company address on-the job trauma injury?
What is your news company’s responsibility in these cases?
The good news? Some newsrooms are adopting trauma training, advance planning and specialized support systems.
The bad news? Some organizations aren’t. Or they didn’t respond. Or they simply point employees to counselling if they get psychologically injured on the job.
To read the complete responses (or lack thereof) from BBC, CNN, CBC, Reuters, USA Today, Al Jazeera, SkyNews, LaPresse, Toronto Star, Postmedia, Globe & Mail, New York Times, Reuters and CTV/BellMedia click here.
‘Moral and legal duty’ of newsrooms
The BBC deserves kudos for the clearest, most direct statement we received from a news company accepting responsibility for its “duty of care” to its people.
“The BBC recognises its moral and legal duty to protect their employees from foreseeable occupational risks, including primary and secondary trauma, as far as is practical,” wrote British Broadcasting Corporation spokesperson Charlotte Morgan in a statement. “We use a risk-based approach to reduce potential exposure to trauma, alongside training on reducing the risks, and spotting signs of trauma early.”
The BBC didn’t answer all of our questions. It didn’t get into details or say just how many of its people have been injured by vicarious trauma. It’s clearly aware of the challenges, has adopted trauma awareness training and uses risk assessments to try to protect staff.
The Toronto Star also explicitly acknowledged its responsibility to check-in, monitor and allow staff to “step away” from stories that are traumatizing.
“As employers we have a duty to protect our journalists from the risk of exposure to trauma, and it’s a duty we take very seriously as an organization. Over the past few years we have put in place a number of processes and supports to ensure that duty is front of mind for all of our people,” wrote the Star’s editor in chief Anne-Marie Owens in a statement.
We’d welcome input from staffers of any news company on how all this works in practice. Comment by joining our Well-being In News / Journalism industry discussion here.
We hope that by asking these questions of our own industry we can have an open discussion and together share emerging best practices – as well as identify gaps – to help journalists, news leaders and HR departments get better at ensuring the health and safety of our people.
Consider ‘psychological risks’ from beginning
The New York Times was the only outlet to provide a detailed, on-the-record video interview about its strategy to address trauma exposure.
“News organizations beginning to address it is relatively new,” said Jason Reich, vice-president of safety and security for the NYT. “There's still a lot that we're going to learn. So I'm certainly hesitant to call anything 'best practice' at this point.”
Training, risk assessments and support are key to addressing vicarious trauma, says Jason Reich, New York Times
Reich says the NYT’s approach involves two prongs: “preparedness” and “support.”
Preparation begins with awareness training, which is now embedded in the Times’ hostile environments training. But education, he says, must also be coupled with psychological risk assessments on trauma-heavy stories.
Originally, they planned for a two-hour training session to deal with the psychological safety component. But he says that changed.
“We just learned, frankly, that the information was going in one ear and out the other. So we modified it. We actually begin right at the beginning of the course with integrating psychological safety into the risk assessment that they’re doing on the very first day,” he said.
View the full NYT interview transcript here or video here.
Here’s a summary of the NYT approach outlined by Reich:
Preparedness
Assessing psychological risk in all regular “risk assessments”
Trauma awareness training for domestic and foreign teams
Psychological safety embedded in intensive hostile environment training
Workshops for specific desks/teams by Dart Center
Manager/supervisor trauma leadership training
Response Strategies
Crisis/incident response support from Dart Center
Check-ins during and after assignments
Counselling provided by an Employee Assistance Plan (EAP)
Specialized “journalism-aware” counselling (JTSN )
Large news organizations have the benefit of greater resources, Reich acknowledges, but they can be slow to change. However, he says there is a culture shift underway across the news industry and smaller newsrooms are adopting similar strategies which don’t need to be expensive.
Check-ins, before people are struggling
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation has also embarked on new training, is implementing protocols for how trauma stories get assigned and is beefing up psychological counselling for journalists.
“We have a growing range of specific training courses: psychological well-being training, training related to managing exposure to graphic content at work, and we now include well-being training within our domestic safety and high-risk safety training courses,” wrote Tracy Seeley, senior director of CBC News, Current Affairs and Local.
“As supervisors, we are developing a more methodical approach to tackle risk before, during and after assignments that have a higher risk of secondary trauma. We are also piloting a relationship with a company that specializes in mental health supports for journalists covering stories with a high risk of trauma exposure. That involves more of an automatic check-in after assignments, rather than a protocol where you wait for people to raise their hands because they’re struggling.”
(Authors’ note: Dave works for CBC, and is directly involved in spearheading some of these initiatives.)
Other news organizations, such as Canada’s CTV News/BellMedia also says they are enhancing training, but primarily for employees heading to international conflict zones.
Reliance on counselling support – after the fact
USA Today/Gannett, CNN/Warner and Postmedia (owner of numerous Canadian dailies) all provided statements pointing to medical benefits, EAPs or counselling as their key tools to address workplace exposure to vicarious trauma.
“Postmedia takes the issue of the health and safety of its journalists very seriously but considers any disclosure of medical information in violation of the privacy rights of our employees,” wrote Phyllise Gelfance, vice president of communications for Postmedia.
(Note: we did not ask for any personal medical information other than how many Postmedia journalists have been psychologically injured on the job.)
“That said, we offer a variety of services to all of our staff through Employee Assistance Programs, customized care and accommodation in some cases, and courses on online harassment avoidance and identity protection.”
But counselling and EAPs aren’t enough, say experts. EAPs for news professionals are increasingly coming under scrutiny due to their lack of trauma expertise or clinicians familiar with the unique challenges and culture of journalism.
“News organizations need to revisit their EAPs and other referral pathways to make sure that journalists have access to clinicians skilled in evidence-based trauma treatment. This is a must,” says Bruce Shaprio, executive director of the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma at Columbia Journalism School in New York.
Manager training and improved counselling are crucial to enhancing well-being says Bruce Shapiro, head of the Dart Center for Journalism & Trauma. (Photo: Dave Seglins)
Shapiro says a better bet is to invest in education to help news leaders and journalists be better prepared before staff require counselling.
“News teams need basic education in self-care and peer support. Managers and executives need basic training in fostering resilience and providing effective, appropriate support for trauma-exposed colleagues, and for assignment planning which takes psychological safety and resilience into account,” he said.
We received no reply to numerous requests for comment from Al Jazeera, Globe and Mail, MSNBC, SkyNews and Reuters.
But we know the Globe and Mail has been training editorial staff on mental health first aid, La Presse has begun staff training on trauma and well-being, and Reuters is an acknowledged leader in the industry for journalist peer support.
For resources on how newsrooms and journalists can better manage vicarious trauma, check out these helpful guides:
