Emotional Wellbeing of Journalists

Finding Joy as Journalists

Gregory P. Perreault

In: Happiness in Journalism

Valérie Bélair-Gagnon; Avery E. Holton; Mark Deuze; Claudia Mellado (eds.)

London; New York: Routledge (2023), pp. 25-32

"This chapter finds that journalists find joy in numerous aspects of their work: the opportunity to provide perspective, show compassion to their community and display gratitude for their own experiences in life." (Abstract)

Establishing Individual, Organizational and Collective Practices for Journalists' Well-Being through Disconnection

Diana Bossio

In: Happiness in Journalism

Valérie Bélair-Gagnon; Avery E. Holton; Mark Deuze; Claudia Mellado (eds.)

London; New York: Routledge (2023), pp. 96-104

"This chapter explores broader use and negotiation of online connection and disconnection within news organizations and professional bodies. It argues that improving the happiness of journalists means centering methods of care in the profession, within individual practice and organizational editoria ... more

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Has Journalism Forgotten the Journalists?

John Crowley

In: Happiness in Journalism

Valérie Bélair-Gagnon; Avery E. Holton; Mark Deuze; Claudia Mellado (eds.)

London; New York: Routledge (2023), pp. 187-189

"This essay argues that more qualitative research is needed to assess why journalists are reporting burnout, taking time off work, and in some cases leaving the profession." (Abstract)

Exploring Trauma Literacy Quotient Among Indian Journalists and a Way Forward in Post-Pandemic Era: A Case Study of India

K. Shilpa, A. Kumari, M. M. Das, Tanushree Sharma, S. K. Biswal

Journalism & Mass Communication Educator, volume 78, issue 2 (2023), pp. 267–288

"The American Psychological Association defines trauma as “an emotional response to a terrible event. . . .” Trauma can be experienced as a response to either physical or emotionally disturbing circumstances. The Journalism and the Pandemic Project from the International Center for Journalists ( ... ICFJ) and the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University, in their global survey of journalists, have studied the impact of the pandemic on journalists across the globe. The COVID-19 pandemic has caused varying degrees of disruptions in the personal and professional lives of journalists. Traumatic experiences like covering traumatic events up close, COVID-induced health issues, job loss, pay cuts, and insecurity at the workplace have consumed journalists like never before. Overwhelming emotions like shock, helplessness, loneliness, depression, and anxiety are some of the reactions observed by mental health experts. Indian journalists, too, like their counterparts across the globe, have had to take on the challenges posed by this unprecedented crisis. This article intends to study the impact of the pandemic on Indian journalists both from physical and emotional perspectives. The objectives of the study include—(a) to analyze the journalists’ response to traumatic experiences during the pandemic, (b) to study the nature of trauma experienced by journalists during the pandemic, (c) to analyze how traumatic experiences affected the journalists, and (d) to explore and analyze how journalists managed to cope with the traumatic experiences. The study adopts social cognitive theory (SCT) as the framework. SCT comprises four goal realization processes: self-observation, self-evaluation, self-reaction, and self-efficacy. The four components are interrelated, and all influence motivation and goal attainment. Social cognition includes diverse processes linking the perception of social information with a behavioral response, including perception, attention, decision-making, memory, and emotion. The post-traumatic reactions include re-experiencing the traumatic event in flashbacks, recurrent nightmares, and intrusive memories, hypervigilant arousal, impaired concentration, depression, sleep disturbances, self-devaluation, avoidance of reminders of traumatic experiences, emotional detachment from others, and disengagement from aspects of life that provide meaning and self-fulfillment, which impair intrapersonal, interpersonal, and occupational functioning. The scope of the study covers the journalists’ responses to traumatic experiences specific to the pandemic. The study adopts a mixed research method with a thematic analysis of the qualitative data from interviews of journalists followed by a factor analysis of the quantitative data from the survey of the journalists." (Abstract) more

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“I Definitely Would Appreciate a Little More Validation”: Toward an Ethics of Care in College Newsrooms and Journalism Education

Taylor Arrey, Chelsea Reynolds

Journalism & Mass Communication Educator, volume 78, issue 2 (2023), pp. 142–164

"Drawing on interviews with 10 U.S. student journalists, we introduce an ethics-of-care approach for trauma-informed journalism pedagogy. We express grave concern for mental health in journalism programs, offering an empirical snapshot of students’ traumas and coping strategies. We confirm that st ... more

How online harassment affects Korean journalists? The effects of online harassment on the journalists’ psychological problems and their intention to leave the profession

Na Yeon Lee, Ahran Park

Journalism, volume 25, issue 4 (2023), pp. 900-920

"This study examined the effects of online harassment on journalists’ psychological trauma and their intention to leave work. It also investigated whether journalists’ psychological trauma mediates the effects of online harassment on their intention to leave the profession and whether gender mak ... more

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Psychological and Physical Lived Experiences of Journalists Covering Terrorism in Kenya

Benjamin Muindi

Journalism & Mass Communication Educator, volume 78, issue 2 (2023), pp. 251-266

"This research is based on 28 in-depth interviews with Kenya-based journalists who report terrorism. The objective of the research was to recount their lived experiences. The theme of safety of journalists comprised psychological and physical safety of the newspeople, and there were various ways in ... more

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Journalists Considering an Exit

Jana Rick

In: Happiness in Journalism

Valérie Bélair-Gagnon; Avery E. Holton; Mark Deuze; Claudia Mellado (eds.)

London; New York: Routledge (2023), pp. 11-18

"This chapter examines the results of a number of studies that considered whether and why journalists sought to leave the profession. They found that freelance, female, and low earning journalists were the most likely to leave." (Abstract)

Reporting Trauma: Conflict Journalists’ Exposure to Potentially Traumatizing Events, Short- and Long-Term Consequences, and Coping Behavior

Magdalena Obermaier, Annemarie Wiedicke, Nina Steindl, Thomas Hanitzsch

Journalism Studies, volume 24, issue 11 (2023), pp. 1398-1417

"Due to the nature of their jobs, journalists reporting from theaters of war, destruction, and violence are frequently exposed to potentially traumatizing experience. This study explores how journalists go about trauma exposure, how they deal with its emotional fallout, and what support they get in ... more

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Self-Employment in the News Industry

Sarah Van Leuven, Hanne Vandenberghe

In: Happiness in Journalism

Valérie Bélair-Gagnon; Avery E. Holton; Mark Deuze; Claudia Mellado (eds.)

London; New York: Routledge (2023), pp. 157-165

"This chapter highlights the position of freelance or self-employed journalists in the news sector from the pessimistic observation that news organizations tend to push journalists into a freelance status to cope with decreasing revenues and are inspired by neoliberal thoughts." (Abstract)

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How Newsroom Social Media Policies Can Improve Journalists' Well-Being

Logan Molyneux, Jacob L. Nelson

In: Happiness in Journalism

Valérie Bélair-Gagnon; Avery E. Holton; Mark Deuze; Claudia Mellado (eds.)

London; New York: Routledge (2023), pp. 78-86

"This chapter draws on a discourse analysis of newsroom social media policies, and in-depth interviews with journalists focused on their reactions to the social media policies within the newsrooms in which they have worked, and their recommendations for how those policies should be improved." (Abstr ... more

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Terror without training: First-hand experiences of student journalists covering the 2019 Christchurch mosque shootings

Karen Neill

Journal of Applied Journalism & Media Studies (2023), [no pag.]

"In 2019, 51 people were killed in terror attacks at two mosques in Christchurch, a city on the east coast of the South Island of New Zealand with a population of around 400,000 people. It was the deadliest mass shooting in the country’s history and the first terror attack of its kind on home soil ... more

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“Living a lie at the workplace”: Ghanaian Media Practitioners’ understanding of emotional labour and response patterns

Collins Badu Agyemang, Maxwell Asumeng, Benjamin Amponsah, Christopher Charles Mate-Kole, Feikoab Parimah

IFE PsychologIA, volume 31, issue 1 (2023), ?? pp.

"The authors saw the need to explore the emotional labour experiences of media practitioners owing to the sparse literature on the phenomenon from an African perspective. The study explored how media practitioners explain emotional labour, the factors that predispose them to emotional labour experie ... more

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Championing a Security-Sensitive Mindset

Jennifer R. Henrichsen

In: Happiness in Journalism

Valérie Bélair-Gagnon; Avery E. Holton; Mark Deuze; Claudia Mellado (eds.)

London; New York: Routledge (2023), pp. 105-114

"This chapter examines the intersection of journalist security and safety with the condition of happiness to proffer solutions at the individual and organizational levels, including vis a vis boundaries, mental models, and security champions, with the aim of contributing to journalistic happiness, s ... more

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Engaged Journalism and Professional Happiness

Lambrini Papadopoulou, Eugenia Siapera

In: Happiness in Journalism

Valérie Bélair-Gagnon; Avery E. Holton; Mark Deuze; Claudia Mellado (eds.)

London; New York: Routledge (2023), pp. 175-184

"This chapter identifies what motivates and professionally satisfies an engaged journalist. Instead of happiness, it suggests the notion of contentment." (Abstract)

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Cognitive Dissonance in Journalistic Trauma

Danielle Deavours

In: Happiness in Journalism

Valérie Bélair-Gagnon; Avery E. Holton; Mark Deuze; Claudia Mellado (eds.)

London; New York: Routledge (2023), pp. 127-137

"The chapter proposes solutions for unhealthy coping techniques, such as ignoring, only positive focus, and diminishing negatives, and modifying only the dissonance-inducing behavior are not long-term solutions for most individuals." (Abstract)

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