This week’s action: Choose one relational action to try out.
Journalists in every role may experience direct and indirect trauma on the job. Your compassion may fatigue. Your surge capacity may empty. Your interactions inside your newsroom may trigger an intergenerational trauma response. Your sight line into both business and editorial decisions could, at times, be morally injurious.
And yet, most journalists have been called into this service, or have found themselves developing a call that started because they were “good at writing” or “always liked stories.”
These hazards are a given. They aren’t going away. While some news cycles will be more harmful than others, the work in managing the hazards of being a journalist should never have a reactive start — that you only care about what to do because of a traumatic exposure. It is far better to care before you need the knowledge and tools. We should work to become trauma-informed news leaders — no matter where we sit in the shop — and be intentional in practicing this when the stakes are lowest.
And when the stakes rise, you will need responsive muscle memory to read the nonverbal cues in the tone, volume and language of the conversations across your newsroom.
Quick reflection: Think of the last time you struggled to cope after working on a difficult story. Did you speak to a colleague? If so, what made you feel like you could approach them? If not, what kept you from reaching out?
If you want a colleague to be honest with you when they’re struggling, you need to repeatedly prove that it is safe to do so. You can do this by building relational currency and contributing to a psychologically safe workplace (more on this next week).
What it means to be a trauma-informed leader
When a person is exposed to a traumatic or stressful event, how they experience it greatly influences the long-lasting, adverse effects of carrying the weight of that trauma. To be trauma-informed as a news leader or journalist is to know that what happens to us is important, will influence behavior and health, and will motivate us to act uniquely and accordingly.
Try this
Start here (10 minutes): Choose one relationship you’d like to foster. Build relational currency by…
- Showing up to meetings early just to small talk
- Sharing a source or contact strategy
- Confiding a mistake and how you grew from it
- Giving specific praise or feedback with good intentions
- Making space for conversations the team wants to have — even when those topics aren’t on the priority list
- Developing intention and patience with difficult personalities
Quick reflection: Trust is easier when it’s reinforced during lower-stakes moments. How are you reinforcing trust in day-to-day interactions?
Dig deeper
There are lots of opinions, frameworks and research beyond what’s been covered here to help you become a trauma-informed leader or reporter.
- Join API on May 19 for a free webinar on trauma-informed leadership
- How psychological safety can enhance journalistic well-being by Sam Ragland
- Trauma-informed reporting best practices, DART Center for Journalism and Trauma
- Taking care: A guide for participatory and trauma-informed journalism, jesikah maria ross
- What bosses need to know about trauma, National Press Foundation
- Trauma awareness journalism: A news industry toolkit, International Journalists’ Network
- How to have psychologically safe conversations about difficult topics (with guide), Change Coaching with Latonya Wilkins
