Journalism and trauma are unbreakably linked.

“Journalists are first responders. We run towards crises,” Nicole Schilit of ICFJ said at NPF and RTDNA’s Crime Coverage Summit. “We’re often willing to sacrifice our own well-being for this work … You don’t want to miss the next assignment. You don’t want to be more eligible during the next round of layoffs. And also it’s just innate in the journalist work. We hustle. We work really hard. We don’t want to slow down.”

But sometimes we should. And if newsrooms want to keep reporters reporting, it’s up to editors and managers to set healthy expectations.

5 takeaways:

➀ Make a plan.

No leader can stop traumatic news from happening, but they can prepare for it.

“Have a plan for ongoing stress and a plan for the school shooting kind of stress. ‘Today we’re on this protocol. I’m going to be checking in with your managers. Your managers are going to be checking in with you. I will be available at this time,’” said Gretchen Schmelzer, author of Journey Through Trauma. “Following the event, you can also then say … what worked well? What didn’t work well? What would be even better?”

When facing a crisis, leaders should ask of themselves and their employees:

• What are some of the strengths I can rely on?
• What are some of the routines that can support me/us? “Routines are the invisible healers,” Schmelzer said. “When our brains are stressed, being able to rest on something predictable is super helpful.”
• Who is on our team/what roles are served? Who can give the hard answers? Who brightens our day? Who can we lean on?
• What are some good practices or activities that help us feel at our best? Mindfulness? Strategic planning?
• What are the things that help you feel grounded and more effective at what you do?
• What are our signs of stress? How do we know it’s time to slow down and regroup?

A plan is important because trauma – whatever overwhelms your ability to protect yourself – leaves you to react with your brain stem and limbic system. “Your thinking brain is offline,” Schmelzer said.

She notes two ways to regulate:

1) Deep breathing – the kind that would happen if the stressor were a tiger, for instance. “You have to trigger it yourself because if you’re at a really stressful meeting, you can neither punch people nor run away screaming, so you have to intentionally do it.”

2) Find a calmer brain. “We’re an open loop system. Our limbic systems connect to other limbic systems, which is why as a leader, it is so important to be emotionally intelligent. Why your calm state actually creates a calm state in another brain.”

➁ The difference between a good leader and a great leader is emotional intelligence.

“Emotional intelligence is about choice. I get to choose how I behave. I can then self-manage,” Schmelzer said.

If you’re self-aware of your thoughts and feelings, you’re also more likely to have empathy toward others.

It benefits both employees and employers.

“You get 30% more discretionary effort from people without having to reward them in any way other than they feel like they can bring their best game and they feel like they matter,” Schmelzer said.

The trouble is, trauma affects emotional intelligence or EQ (emotional quotient).

“Under stress, we often both narrow our focus and we seek information from people like us. We get less empathic, we get less inclusive,” Schmelzer said. She noted that with acute trauma, leaders become hypervigilant but often about the wrong issues, and with repeated trauma, they become numb. This is often when people become judgmental. “Well, I’m handling this fine. What’s wrong with them?”

This may play out as generational differences in the newsroom.

“I think the younger generation has more language … when you get the older generation to slow down and talk to each other about the impact of things they’ve lived through, I don’t think it’s different. I think it’s a language divide, not an experience divide,” Schmelzer said. “Their defense against trauma, their drug of choice, was hard work. They threw action at it and they didn’t have to feel helpless. That’s an unsustainable answer to that problem.”

➂ Resilience has its limits.

There are three forms of resilience, Schmelzer said.

• Personal strength
• Support networks
• Connection to something bigger

“That could be my faith, but it’s also my purpose, my why, my values. Why is it worth it to go through this stress right now? Because there’s a higher purpose to it, right? Because I care. … I get to live out my purpose. That makes me resilient,” Schmelzer said. “

But “if people are constantly living in their resilience mode, that’s not sustainable. That would be like driving on your spare tire. At some point, that thing’s going to blow.”

A constant need for resilience is also an indication that there’s a problem with the system, not the individual.

“If this stress is too enduring for too long, that’s when you see burnout and breakdown,” Schilit said. “The good news is that journalists are a resilient group. Studies have shown that journalists have lower rates of PTSD than other trauma-facing professionals, and that’s partly because of built-in factors … data has shown that when strong ethics and mission and purpose are coupled with a supportive work environment, that increases resilience.”

Good bosses should know the resilience boosters of the people that work for them, including their strong skills and traits, good relationships and “something bigger.”

➃ Of special concern to journalists …

While journalists are resilient, there are unique ways in which they may be affected by trauma and that could compound the effects.

“The increase in threats against journalists in general, social media, the trolling, the doxxing, the rhetoric against journalists, the distrust, disinformation,” all add to the stress, Schilit said. “I would say about 80% of the journalists in the U.S. who request trauma support – it’s workplace dynamics that exasperated their condition and why they’re seeking help. And this also has to do with a lack of diversity, especially as journalists are covering race politics, Black Lives Matter, and different protests.”

Vicarious trauma: Also called secondary trauma. “Just hearing about other people’s stories can impact us and witnessing it can impact us. And it could be frontline people, it could be editing people,” Schmelzer said. “It happens in any field where you just see an onslaught of things, right? And we have to help each other because actually, that numbness isn’t serving us and it’s not serving our work. It helps us not feel horrible. I get that. But it doesn’t actually help us be effective.” Symptoms of vicarious trauma are similar to those of “actual” trauma, she noted, adding that “making a distinction is really pointless.”

Survivor’s guilt: The anguish over people who’ve been through worse than you is sometimes a barrier to journalists seeking care. “It’s indulgent to seek help … it’s such a privilege after you’ve witnessed and reported on such a horrific thing,” Schilit said, but adding your suffering does not help anyone.

Moral injury: Occurs when “we cover events that breach our moral compass … and really challenge how we identify as individuals and as journalists,” Schilit said.

It also affects people’s self-perception.

“We like to think, ‘I’m the kind of person who, in a really dire situation, would do X.’ And people who haven’t experienced trauma or been around it a lot get to hang on to their fantasy … people who’ve been around trauma don’t have that luxury. They run into what they actually did in that moment and it often falls short,” Schmelzer said. “This goes beyond psychology. This isn’t a disorder. This is humanity. And learning how to help people have conversations about what they could and couldn’t do is one of the biggest things … you can do because the antidote to moral injury is community and connection. It’s about not holding it yourself.”

High-adrenalin jobs: The best place for your body and brain is called your “window of tolerance.” But people in high-adrenalin jobs are often on a rollercoaster flying above the window of tolerance into hyperarousal while at work, then plummeting below it into hyperarousal when they go home and self-soothe with food, alcohol or TV. Schmelzer called this the “I’m done” feeling.

“Once you go below the line, physiologically without any intervention it would take you 18 hours to reset to center,” Schmelzer said. Because most journalists don’t have 18 hours, you must get to the center of your window of tolerance intentionally by finding healthy ways of soothing yourself if you’re too high or energizing yourself if you’re too low.

“When you come back in contact after being numb, you’re actually going to feel some emotion … so you have to prepare for that,” she said.

➄ ‘But I can’t do it alone.’

The experts acknowledge that bosses are under particular pressure.

Schilit recommends “having a lot of the conversations to begin with so that [employees] are self-aware about their habits, their coping mechanisms because it’s not all your responsibility. It’s also theirs.”

Schmelzer recommends identifying people in the newsroom who could be part of a “resilience team” who would each have a number of one-on-one check-ins to do on high-stress days. The team could even develop a list of questions to work from.

“Not, ‘Are you fine?’ or ‘You can talk to me,’ but actually, ‘How is this affecting you? What are you doing to take care of yourself? How will I know you need help?’ And ‘Is there anything else that we can do to support you today?’”

Schilit also recommends resources outside the newsroom:

• Connecting with an individual therapist, if possible, rather than getting generic advice. “I think what’s hard about [EAPs] is that journalists are a specific breed and I think they often feel misunderstood because it’s not just trauma, it’s trauma in journalism. It’s not post-traumatic, because there’s no post. They’re always working. They can’t take a break.”
• Peer support through the ICFJ Pamela Howard Forum on Global Crisis Reporting discussion groups. “Colleague-to-colleague communication has shown that it really provides a sense of validation, and just talking to people who understand the context and the content of the work is something you can’t get elsewhere.”
• Journalist Trauma Support Network from DART
• Self-directed online (and currently free) Journalism & Trauma course from Poynter
• Hostile Environment and First Aid Training (HEFAT) “Historically, it’s been reserved for conflict journalists, but every journalist should do a HEFAT course … It should be ingrained into the protocols you have.”

If you are a journalist who covers mental health issues, apply for the $10,000 Mattingly Award by March 15.

Crime Coverage Summit 2023: Beyond ‘If It Bleeds, It Leads’ was sponsored by Arnold Ventures and hosted by NPF and RTDNA. NPF is solely responsible for this content.