on media


Mental health is too often overlooked


Studies highlight journalists’ wellbeing, says Raymond Snoddy T


here has always been an inherent tension in the air between media academics and practising journalists


– the ancient gulf between teaching and analysing and actually doing. There is a half way, slightly more respectable stage – hackacademics – those who were journalists and use that experience to inform their teaching and research. As a generalisation, rather than being cynical, tough guys, journalists tend towards being thin skinned. They are not always welcoming of critics of their work, particularly when it comes from media academics exploring this or that perceived bias. Yet a recent conference on the Future


of Journalism held by the Cardiff School of Journalism, Media and Culture demonstrates just how enormous the range of topics being investigated by media academics is, including of course, investigative journalism. The virtual conference, featuring, four simultaneous live streams, dealt with everything from local and regional reporting of Covid to sexual harassment in African newsrooms, one hundred years of letters to the editor in Danish newspapers and an ethnographic study of the working lives of women journalists in Saudi Arabia. The conference dealt with more than 220 papers. But two papers with complementary themes stood out for their immediate relevance dealing with the difficult reality of the working lives of many journalists. One is by Mark Deuze, author of Media Life, which shows how embedded and interconnected media is in everyday life, and Johana Kotisova, from Charles University in Prague. The


title: Journalism as an Occupational Hazard: Understanding the Mental Health and Well-Being of Journalism. The other, Vitrolic Public Harassment of Journalists on Social Media, is by Marcel Broersma from Groningen University in the Netherlands. The second topic, which could of course lead to some of the problems highlighted in the first, warns that journalists are increasingly becoming victims of harassment on social media, particularly if they are women, people of colour or from religious minorities. In places like the US, covering a political beat can lead to heaps of abuse and the creation of what the Washington Post described in an internal memo as ‘a malicious mob mentality, fuelling online campaigns’. One was launched against Post political reporter Seung Min Kim, who was accused of sinking the nomination of Neera Tanden as President Joe Biden’s choice as budget director by showing a hostile Tanden tweet to Republican senator Lisa Murkowski. Whether she should have done that or not, the point is that employers encourage journalists to engage on social media to attract and maintain audiences, and staff have to walk a tightrope between being personal and remaining detached and impartial. According to Broersma, when


journalists make an online gaffe or provoke an online row, they are often not supported by their newsrooms. “Becoming victim of trolling and concerted personal attacks regularly results in personal trauma, self- censorship and reporters getting fired or quitting their jobs,” he warns. The idea that the very work of being


a journalist is an occupational hazard comes from a Poynter Institute report.


The threat to mental health can be caused by what is close to a perfect storm – covering emotionally laden events, conflict and trauma combined with decades of newsroom restructuring and redundancies. Then you add the pressures of


working remotely during Covid; a survey last year found 77 per cent of journalists were suffering frmo work-related lockdown stress. Deuze and Kotisova emphasise that


mental health problems arise not just from intense emotions experienced at work. Ill effects ‘often result from a commitment to suppress those feelings’. They argue that the concept of


wellbeing is understudied and that the happiness of journalists is a blind spot in journalism studies apart from a clear link between professional autonomy and job satisfaction. A sense of wellbeing and happiness


“ ”


Mental health problems arise not just from intense emotions at work but also from suppressing those feelings


is important because it can act as ‘preventative maintenance’ for journalists, enabling them to ward off potential problems and breakdowns. But what makes journalists happy? You don’t have to be a journalism professor to know that. Apart from being lucky enough to have a job that pays the mortgage, the definition of happiness for journalists is as old as the hills – scoops, impact, attention and being followed up by rivals. The wider implications of the two research papers are that journalism studies and media employers should pay as much attention to mental health as physical safety. Employers, if they have not done so, should also clarify the rules of engagement for social media and resist panicking at the first hint of a Twitter storm, which can pass as quickly as an autumn shower.


theJournalist | 19


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