"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 ex
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perience 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)
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"It is crucial that any initiatives focussing on the safety of women journalists exist within the broader framework of conversations aimed at meeting the specific targets of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal 5 to achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls, and recognize that much
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of the violence that women journalists face stems from more deeply rooted gender-based discrimination and inequality in the media industry, and society at large." (Introduction, page 77)
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"Objective: To explore the emotional health of journalists covering the migrations of refugees across Europe. Design: Descriptive. A secure website was established and participants were given their unique identifying number and password to access the site. Setting: Newsrooms and in the field. Partic
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ipants: Responses were received from 80 (70.2%) of 114 journalists from nine news organisations. Main outcome measures: Symptoms of PTSD (Impact of Events Scale-revised), depression (Beck Depression Inventory-Revised) and moral injury (Moral Injury Events Scale-revised).
Results: Symptoms of PTSD were not prominent, but those pertaining to moral injury and guilt were. Moral injury was associated with being a parent (p*=*.031), working alone (p*=*.02), a recent increase in workload (p*=*.017), a belief that organisational support is lacking (p*=*.046) and poor control over resources needed to report the story (p*=*.027). A significant association was found between guilt and moral injury (p*=*.01) with guilt more likely to occur in journalists who reported covering the migrant story close to home (p*=*.011) and who divulged stepping outside their role as a journalist to assist migrants (p*=*.014). Effect sizes (d) ranged from .47 to .71.
Conclusions: On one level, the relatively low scores on conventional psychometric measures of PTSD and depression are reassuring. However, our data confirm that moral injury is a different construct from DSM-defined trauma response syndromes, one that potentially comes with its own set of long-term maladaptive behaviours and adjustment problems." (Abstract)
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"This book explores the complex organisational issues surrounding the capture or kidnapping of journalists in areas of conflict and risk. It explores how journalists 'becoming news' is covered and the implications of that coverage, how news organisations prepare for and respond to such events, and h
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ow kidnapping and ransom insurers, victim recovery firms, journalists' families, and governments influence the actions of news enterprises. It considers how and why journalists are kidnapped, how employers and journalists' organisations respond to kidnappings and why freelancers are particularly at risk as well as suggesting best practices for preventing and responding to kidnappings." (Back cover)
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"The vulnerability of journalists to kidnappings was starkly illustrated by the killing of James Foley and Steven Sotloff by Islamic militants in 2014. Their murder underscored the risks taken by journalists and news organisations trying to cover developments in dangerous regions of the world and ha
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s forced news enterprises to more clearly prepare for and confront issues of safety. This book explores the complex organisational issues surrounding the capture or kidnapping of journalists in areas of conflict and risk. It explores how journalists ‘becoming news’ is covered and the implications of that coverage, how news organisations prepare for and respond to such events, and how kidnapping and ransom insurers, victim recovery firms, journalists’ families, and governments influence the actions of news enterprises. It considers how and why journalists are kidnapped, how employers and journalists’ organisations respond to kidnappings and why freelancers are particularly at risk as well as suggesting best practices for preventing and responding to kidnappings." (Publisher description)
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"This report is based on the findings of a global survey on harassment and violence against female media workers, which was launched in August 2013 and completed by almost 1,000 women from around the world. Nearly two-thirds of survey respondents said they had experienced some form of intimidation,
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threats or abuse in relation to their work, ranging in severity from name-calling to death threats. The survey found that the majority of threats, intimidation and abuse directed toward respondents occurred in the work place and was perpetrated most often by male bosses, supervisors and co-workers. It also found that most incidents of harassment and violence were never reported, even though a majority of women who experienced them said they were psychologically affected." (Executive summary)
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