mental health


public. However, others misused drugs and alcohol, or used ‘gallows humour’ to avoid their feelings – several expressed fears of being reassigned or losing their job if they talked about it with their managers. Some editors were supportive, for example ensuring that one day a week they were given ‘happy stories’ or not assigned to crime stories. “Anna Blundy, who runs Mind Field, warns of the risks of “Going into a profession with short deadlines, where you’re only as good as your last story, especially if you’re going to be a foreign or war correspondent in the field.” Her organisation specialises in providing therapy by video for journalists and


“ ”


I think people leave it until they aren’t sleeping or are using all the classic defences of drinking, drugs, and promiscuity


aid workers who work in areas affected by conflict and humanitarian catastrophes. All their therapists are former journalists or aid workers and have field experience. She sees “a lot of people with pre-existing stuff going on


really, which is then massively exacerbated by loneliness, stress and trauma”. Mind Field puts together a block of therapy sessions that employers can buy and staff can use anonymously. Mortimer believes it is “incredibly important” to provide a high level of confidentiality as many employees are isolated and do not have a good relationship with their employer, which might discourage them from being open about a mental health problem. She says people she sees tend to be in a poor state by the time they get to her. “I think people leave it until they aren’t sleeping or are using all the classic defences of drinking, drugs and promiscuity.” Employers could do more in terms of making people aware of those warning signs and encouraging them to seek help early, she feels.


Going through user-generated content, including images


from war zones, also has an impact on journalists. “Increasingly it’s young, inexperienced journalists who are recently out of their university programmes who are being asked to look at this content,” says Duncan. “Sometimes, I don’t think they have the emotional experience, the emotional literacy to deal with what they are seeing.” In May 2020, Facebook agreed to pay $52 million to current and former content moderators who had developed PTSD. This followed the case of Selena Scola, who sued Facebook after developing the condition in the course of moderating content for the website including videos of rape, murder and suicide. The tech giant also committed to providing weekly mental health support for staff in these roles. “When I got home in the evening, I had been seeing images


where you’d blur things out – I’d see those without blurring.” Sarah worked on user-generated content (UGC) desks at several media organisations. “I was there for the Belgium [terrorist] attacks – it was just really intense, you just get on with the job, you do it. You’re on adrenaline – everyone is professional.” The stress and trauma of the job caught up with her after her shift ended. She sank onto to her kitchen floor and started crying. She had had no time to process what she had seen. Sarah says this is common and people work on the UGC desk until they get sick. “You can sometimes say ‘this is not nice’ to the person who’s sat next to you, but you’re just doing the job and it hits you,” she says. Ann Luce, an academic at Bournemouth University, believes


newsrooms should, as a minimum, learn from other frontline professions and establish a debrief system whereby staff can share what has happened, particularly if there has been a traumatic event. “It’s very possible that a journalist who graduates from my programme could walk into a newsroom tomorrow and their first story could be a murder, could be a suicide, and how are they going to deal with that?,” she asks. At the moment, the answer is still too much of an unknown. Looking back, on the Raul moat case and his other


experiences David feels fortunate that the team he was in at the time of his crisis were “superb”. He feels there was a lot of support and understanding. His employer kept giving him day rather than night shifts, put no pressure on him to return to night shifts and his boss offered personal support. “If I said I needed anything, then it was able to happen,” he says.


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