Entering the high-pressure world of journalism can have effects on a person’s mental health. Aaron Stokes explores the stresses that the job entails and what needs to be addressed in the industry to help reduce the strain on journalists' mental health.
The mental health of journalists has been steadily declining since the pandemic, according to journalism.co.uk. The result of this has been a record increase in post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, anxiety, and burnout.
The Self Investigation, a non-profit organisation working for a healthy work culture within the media and communication industries, has said: “Tackling mental health in the media is an urgent issue.”
Ax Mina, part-time Program Director at The Self Investigation believes there are two areas to focus on when tackling mental health. She said: “I think of it as two vectors.
“There’s personal work and then there’s structural work. The personal work that is really important to make time for the self-care practices that are important.”
What does the research say?
This comes after data in 2022 from Canada, Ecuador, and Spain revealed that 60 percent of people who work in the media industry have reported high levels of anxiety.
Research conducted by the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OCSE) revealed out of 164 journalists, 82.3 percent said journalism is more stressful than most professions. When this research investigated some of the reasons that contribute to journalists’ stresses, the leading factors were short deadlines with a great number of work tasks alongside being underpaid with financial uncertainty accounting for 56.1 percent of answers each.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has defined stress as “a state of worry or mental tension caused by a difficult situation… Everyone experiences stress to some degree.”
A cause for concern that was raised within the data from the OCSE is that some journalists are not identifying stress factors, instead, they are considering it a part of the job and they are becoming “normal”.
Ax added: “It’s part of the culture change that is needed.
“Also, it is important to let people know it is okay not to be okay.
“It is also expected almost that you might not be okay because it is such difficult work.
“If that is the baseline and we understand that this work is difficult and trauma facing, it becomes almost expected and needed that there are resources to support rather than just tough it up.”
One of the ways the WHO recommends combatting the symptoms of stress is by addressing the quantity of sleep you get. Allowing a good amount of sleep lets the body repair, relax, and rejuvenate which can help reduce the effect of stress.
What has been said in the industry?
Dr Natasha Hirst, President of the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) explained what changes the NUJ has noticed with members’ mental health: “[There have been] increased levels of stress across the board.”
These levels of increased stress have been attributed to some of the following reasons from Dr Hirst: “We have younger workers telling us that they tend to get given the sort of shifts that nobody else wants to do.
“[Younger workers] often are not on permanent contracts, both in print and broadcast.”
Alongside these reasons, the current uncertainty that is faced by journalists with their jobs as the industry is experiencing large-scale redundancy. Across the UK and North America, at least 8,000 journalism jobs have been cut, according to Press Gazette.
Dr Hirst added: “Experiencing redundancy processes where their job isn’t safe [is] just incredibly stressful on top of the demands of the job itself.”
Ax added: “There is a structural issue here, because of the layoffs and cuts one of the patterns I see, is that the people at work right now is that they stress about if they will have a job.”
How does social media affect this?
Alongside pressures from the industry, an increasing worry for journalists can come from having to use social media and being public-facing online. As students are training during their degree, they are often encouraged to put themselves out there on social media.
Kate Owen, a student journalist at Birmingham City University feels social media is a barrier to her career. She said: “I don’t really love it if I’m honest because I don’t really use social media a lot in my day-to-day life.
“I like to have a divide between my work life and private life, but social media makes it feel like that’s not possible.”
Alongside this, there is also the issue of trolling that can be experienced by journalists and student journalists on social media.
During her second year of studies, Kate published a TikTok as a part of her assignment. However, once it was published, she experienced trolling to the stage where she had to turn the comments off due to what people were saying.
Kate explained: “I posted a video about a law Scotland passed for trans rights and getting a gender recognition certificate.
“In the comments, people were just berating me. They were saying things about being a sex offender.
“They were saying that I was a bigot, I didn’t care about children.”
After this experience, Kate wants to offer some advice to those who are training to enter the industry around social media.
She said: “Turning off your notifications can be a good idea if you still want to have that conversation in the comments section. Building on this, you can apply a filter on the comments. This hides the comment if it contains one of the filtered words.”
Being on social media sites can help when it comes to sourcing stories, interviewees, and even industry contacts. However, one of the downsides to this is that it allows for those who are training to be journalists and those in the role to be easily contactable. This can have an impact on journalists’ mental health.
The NUJ has been negotiating with employers to try and ensure that journalists have the right to switch off.
One of the ways that they have done this, is by having health and safety representatives within organisations. Dr Hirst added: “They have statutory rights; they can highlight issues.”
Alongside the addition of health and safety representatives, the NUJ is looking to ensure that employers understand that they have a duty of care that they are not meeting according to Dr Hirst.
If you are experiencing a mental health emergency contact emergency service on 999.
If you require someone to speak to about your mental health, call the Samaritans on 116 123.
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