'Cost Of The Story': Journalists Need Trauma-Informed Care

Once considered the fourth estate of democracy, traditional views of journalism have overlooked and, at times, underestimated the role of journalists and the weight many carry as they report on injustice. Released earlier this summer, a two-part study, “The Cost of the Story: Journalism, Trauma, and the Ripple Effects of Harm,” explores trauma impacting journalists and offers concrete recommendations for repair.

Produced in collaboration with academic partners at West Virginia University’s College of Creative Arts and American University’s School of Communications, the two-part study examines how contemporary approaches to news coverage affect journalists and the communities they cover. Researchers cast a wide net, discussing with journalists from legacy media outlets to independent entrepreneurial journalists working in close connection with the community.

Building on lessons and experiences from their own work over the last decade, Black Alder co-founders Chelsea Fuller and Takara Pierce shared personal reflections and insights into the groundbreaking research in a sit-down with NewsOne’s Managing Editor Monique Judge.

“Over the past decade, we were hearing so much about the ways in which being in proximity to really traumatic events was not only impacting the way that journalists were approaching the stories in terms of how they set up their ability to report, but also that they were feeling impacted,” Fuller said. “People that were impacted by the issues they were covering and in the toll that that was taking on them, also then having an effect on the communities that they were interacting with.”

Fuller discussed how the pattern was systemic and cyclical, impacting a broad cross-section of journalists from large legacy media outlets to enterprising independent journalists. The Black Alder team took time getting to the heart of what was happening in newsrooms and the professional ecosystem overall.

“We spoke to dozens of journalists and community members and media advocates and communicators who shared their stories vulnerably and really powerfully about their interactions with journalists at sometimes the most traumatic moments of their lives,” Pierce said. “They really opened up and gave us a full breadth of what it looks like to experience that kind of emotional turmoil while also having their story kind of highlighted in the media.”

Since the start of the current administration, we’ve seen a steady stream of attacks on journalists and the media field at large. Coupled with the blatant disinformation and lies being disseminated from the highest levels of government, the stakes for journalists are higher than they have been in recent years.

Bearing witness and elevating truth-telling come with consequences.

Journalists, including community-trained media makers, have taken a clear stance in the face of escalating ICE raids across cities like Los Angeles, Chicago, and Washington, D.C. But the question remains: who protects not only journalists who take a stand, but also the methods of care available to them?

Pierce explained that eroding people’s ability to bear witness and report on what’s happening in society is a tool of white supremacy and authoritarianism. When people are overwhelmed, traumatized, and depleted, they cannot keep standing up and fighting back.

“Newsrooms need to see care as a structural necessity in the fight against authoritarianism [and] rising authoritarian movements,” Pierce said. “They thrive on fear, on misinformation, on dehumanization, and we believe that integrating care is how we make sure that journalism has the stamina and the integrity to counter authoritarian power.”

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‘Cost Of The Story’ Highlights Journalists Need For Trauma-Informed Care was originally published on newsone.com