Strains of stress D


Stressed-out journalists don’t have to suffer in silence, says Samir Jeraj


avid had struggled with mental health problems since he was a teenager and, by the time he became a journalist, his main source of support was his partner. The unpredictable hours and stressful


situations that are routine in journalism started to have an impact. There were also harrowing stories that he covered, such as the hunt for murderer Raul Moat across Northumbria in 2010. Moat went on the run after killing one person and wounding two others, finally committing suicide. “I heard the gunshot that he killed himself with,” he says. The shock was almost immediate: “I remember going back that night and sitting on the balcony of my home and my partner waking up at nine o’clock in the morning and finding me drinking whisky on the balcony – I had no idea what I was doing.” Things continued to get worse as David moved home and


went freelance, just as his relationship started to break down. “I think the nature of starting to freelance – you’re trying to make an impression, trying to ingratiate yourself – so I was doing lots of shifts, lots of night shifts,” he says. There was no guidance or support around how to work night shifts and look after your health, he adds. The relationship breakdown led him to focus more and more on work, leading to yet more night shifts and more strain. “It just got to a tipping point where there was a night where I was considering killing myself and, luckily, rather than doing it, I rang up a friend.” He was prescribed antidepressants and went into therapy for three and half years. He feels things since have gone “very much upwards”.


The reporting of mental health has improved, although there are still frequent examples around the world of distressing and damaging stories. In the newsroom, a prevailing macho culture sits alongside a growing recognition of the long-term effects of trauma among war correspondents. However, little has been done about the effects of the job on domestic reporters covering traumatic crimes, major events with significant injury or loss of life, horrific car collisions or just dealing with the stresses of an increasingly casualised and high-pressure sector. Since 2020, journalists have been under even greater pressure, reporting on a global pandemic while job security vanished. At least eight UK journalists have died from suicide since 2015, four of those in 2019. That number is almost certainly an underestimate for a number of reasons. There is no clear boundary of who a journalist is – if we include the production staff who sift through images and video, the comment


14 | theJournalist


moderators and support staff, we would undoubtedly get a higher figure. That said, it is important “not to corelate the work of journalists with their decision to kill themselves”, says Dr Sallyanne Duncan, a senior lecturer in journalism at the University of Strathclyde. “Suicide is a very complex issue with many factors in their lives that cause them to take that decision,” she adds. However, the lack of robust data means it is extremely difficult to see if there is evidence of such a correlation. “I think that education in covering trauma and interviewing victims of trauma is lacking in higher education,” says Professor Natalee Seely, who studies the effects of everyday trauma on journalists in the US and found its frequency and intensity were linked to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) problems, even when taking into account previous personal trauma. She worked as a reporter for four years, covering crime on her first job. “I wasn’t trained or prepared to interview victims or their family members,” she remembers. “There’s this idea in society that journalists are superhuman,


that they are not affected by what they do,” she says, they were not meant to let things get to them. Stories that involved harm or violence to children and animals, shootings and serious car collisions were the stories that stuck with the reporters she interviewed. “One reporter said she didn’t let her husband drive the car any more after a really bad car accident she covered,” she says. Some journalists cope through exercise, cathartic activities


– writing or crying to ‘get it out’, or talking with colleagues, a partner or therapist. Many start off talking to their spouse or close personal friend but quickly stop. Seely explains: “They didn’t like to burden their spouses or their significant others with the things they had seen and done, and what they were feeling.”


She adds that several journalists she interviewed took comfort from the fact their role was important in serving the


How the BBC helps worker wellbeing


THE BBC uses a counselling programme based on the Ministry of Defence’s Trim programme to support journalists who are feeling emotionally affected by stories they are working on. In a statement, the BBC


says it places “the utmost importance on the mental


health and wellbeing of all those who work for us”. Its support includes online


mental health and resilience sessions, access to more than 1,000 staff mental health first aiders, wellbeing courses for staff and managers, an employee assistance programme,


which includes a confidential 24hr helpline, and access to a remote GP. This is also open to freelances. Employees are also able to access trauma support sessions through occupational health. Most recently, the


corporation has established an online platform that provides a confidential service to help individuals track and understand their wellbeing and mental health specialists.


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