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I’m grateful for Steven’s honesty and courage.
Journalism’s culture makes reporters believe we have to subsume our own feelings for every story. It’s harmful, and it ultimately makes us worse at our jobs. Because we have no business telling stories we can’t feel. https://twitter.com/dataeditor/status/1278785851082891285
Journalism’s culture makes reporters believe we have to subsume our own feelings for every story. It’s harmful, and it ultimately makes us worse at our jobs. Because we have no business telling stories we can’t feel. https://twitter.com/dataeditor/status/1278785851082891285
I’ve always struggled with anxiety and self loathing, but I first started having panic attacks after covering the mass shooting in Las Vegas in 2017.
There would be weeks when I couldn’t taste my food or catch my breath. When I had to go to a stairwell to cry every day at work.
There would be weeks when I couldn’t taste my food or catch my breath. When I had to go to a stairwell to cry every day at work.
Even after years of therapy, I don’t understand why my body chemistry makes me this way. But I think it has to do with the conviction that I’m not good enough, sorrow at all the pain I can’t fix, & guilt that I am so incapacitated by heartache when I know others deal with worse.
I’m still figuring out the combination of meds/therapy/self care that works for me.
But I also hope journalism can become a place where people aren’t made to feel they have to hide the emotional impact of this work.
But I also hope journalism can become a place where people aren’t made to feel they have to hide the emotional impact of this work.
I feel strongly that reporters must make themselves vulnerable. When you’re talking to a survivor of a shooting or a hurricane or covid, you need to *feel* their pain.
Otherwise, what you’re doing is extractive. You’re treating it like a story and not someone’s life.
Otherwise, what you’re doing is extractive. You’re treating it like a story and not someone’s life.
But that’s really hard, and it needs to be okay to say it’s hard. To say that we need time to recover.
Otherwise, we go to the next story with a little bit less of ourselves. And the people who are sharing their stories with us deserve better than that.
Otherwise, we go to the next story with a little bit less of ourselves. And the people who are sharing their stories with us deserve better than that.
It‘s also to struggle for reasons entirely unrelated to reporting! We are humans too. We have our own hardships and heartbreaks.
Whoever you are, whatever you feel, for whatever reason — your feelings are valid. You deserve to find wholeness. All of us do.
Whoever you are, whatever you feel, for whatever reason — your feelings are valid. You deserve to find wholeness. All of us do.
One last thing: in this moment where America is reckoning with racism, and so many Black journalists and other people of color are being pushed into the public eye to illuminate and interpret these issues, I hope managers will be conscientious about what this means.
I can never know what it’s like to move through the world carrying the burden of racism, or what it’s like to be the “only” in almost every room I’m in. And I’m really grateful for the resilience of my colleagues who persist through that, because we desperately need their voices.
But it’s an emotional burden and a physical risk. I’ve seen the vitriol directed at Black journalists who speak on these issues.
Newsroom managers and white employees need to make space for that. And we need more journalists & editors of color who know & can share this weight.
Newsroom managers and white employees need to make space for that. And we need more journalists & editors of color who know & can share this weight.
