Document details

Mental Health and Wellbeing for Journalists: A Practical Guide

London; New York: Routledge (2024), xiv, 185 pp.

Contains index

ISBN 978-1-032-38245-6 (pbk); 978-1-003-34417-9 (ebook)

Signature commbox: 10-Journalism-E 2024

"This book offers a first-of-its-kind practical, person-centred guide to managing and contextualising journalists’ emotional wellbeing and mental health. Drawing on the author’s experience as a storyteller, journalist, and media safety consultant, this book combines significant lived personal experience with reflections from an international network of journalists and mental health experts to collate industry good practice and guidance. It takes readers through a history of mental health discussions in the industry, which have moved from a focus around war correspondents and post-traumatic stress disorder to considerations of vicarious trauma, moral injury, and the impact of online harm on journalists. It shows how pressures that were already facing the industry have been exacerbated by the global pandemic, giving rise to the prospect of a mental health crisis in the media if unaddressed. As a counter to this concern, Storm shares insights from experts on what leaders can do create safer workplaces and processes, how they can channel the empathy that is core to healthy journalism to promote the health of its people, and how they should consider mental health as intersecting with other issues such as physical safety, diversity and inclusion. Insights from science shed light on resilience levels, how our brains and bodies respond to trauma, and strategies that can be adopted to recover from challenging experiences. Whilst finding that some news organisations are starting to take note, Storm shows how others need to do more, offering ways in which newsrooms can learn from the lessons of recent years to bring about long-lasting change." (Abstract)
1 Introduction, 1
2 The evolution of mental health conversations in journalism, 5
3 Averting a mental health crisis: a clarion call for change, 21
4 Culture, coping and conditioning, 34
5 The journalist’s brain, 44
6 Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), 54
7 Vicarious trauma, 67
8 Moral injury, 80
9 The mental health impact of online harm, 93
10 Journalists and burnout, 109
11 The pandemic and a perfect storm of pressures, 121
12 Self-care and supporting others, 135
13 Managing with empathy, and effective leadership, 152
14 Conclusion: When journalists thrive, so does journalism, 165