NEW: Despite a mountain of headline-worthy media departures, I believe our industry has failed to properly examine the ways reporters covering the pandemic are struggling—and what can be done about it. This is my attempt to correct that. https://studyhall.xyz/the-reporters-are-not-okay-extremely-not-okay/

Here’s what I found: My drowning while COVID reporting wasn’t unique. A dozen reporters and editors told me they don’t feel supported by their newsroom leaders, don’t have the tools they need to handle trauma they’re absorbing, and don’t think their bosses even really care.

For mass shootings and natural disasters, most people get that these are traumatic for the victims, first responders, witnesses, and survivors. It’s less acknowledged inside and outside of the news industry that this is also true for the journalists who tell the stories.

If we can agree that the coronavirus is a mass casualty event rife with trauma at every level—and that the reporters seeing the piles of bodies and interviewing grieving families every day will be affected by it, then we must conclude that pandemic reporting is trauma reporting.

Journalists at the most widely read news sites in the nation told me they’re sobbing after meetings, on calls during work, when the day ends. “Work very hard and be miserable and not complain about it,” said one former reporter. “I just know I had to leave for my mental health.”

The pandemic completely changed the weight of the job, said one reporter who currently works at a national outlet and has repeatedly broken exclusive stories this year. Many of us felt, as she explained, that “people could literally die if we did our jobs wrong.”

Reporters said they also blamed themselves at times for the intensity of the pandemic. “The worst-case scenario was repeating... Why hadn’t Texas and Arizona learned from New York and New Jersey? Was that partly the media's fault? Should we have written stories a different way?”

A local journalist—whose coverage area included one of the first cases of COVID-19 in the US—told me that after interviewing grieving families, she began to see individual deaths she covered as evidence of “falling short in my duties” to prevent them.

“By the election last year, I found myself randomly crying during the day, crying between calls,” said another national reporter. “It wasn't until I unexpectedly started crying mid-conversation with a colleague that I thought, gosh, maybe this is not normal.”

“Some of the best journalists are the ones where you can hear, in their voice and their story, that they [understand the weight of the trauma they’re writing about],” said UCLA’s Dr. Vickie Mays. “You have to ask yourself, does this take a toll?”

Per Bruce Shapiro, of the @DartCenter, reporters who covered the front lines and the big-picture numbers spent the year “closer both to the loss, the grief, the suffering of COVID patients” and to “the full reality which most of us can keep at the fringes of our consciousness.”

Many said their individual bosses made things more bearable, but an entire industry can’t rely on the humanity of a few good editors; it must be accompanied by policies to safeguard workers and address the psychic burden of the work.

If you can agree that COVID reporting is trauma reporting—which ample research has shown can cause or worsen the mental health of the journalists doing the job—then trauma itself becomes a work hazard. And reimbursement for mental health services starts making a lot more sense.

Take the time to speak to the journalists in your newsroom and you’ll find that they’re proposing many of the same ideas as experts do. Look at any newsroom union: many have been busy lobbying for more money for mental health services, fairer wages, more time off, more training.

And for any media company that would claim these measures might not be economically feasible, I’d ask you to consider the long-term financial benefit of retaining top talent while keeping them healthy and happy enough to produce excellent work.

“Companies can do a lot more to help retain their journalists and keep them from burning out,” said the Seattle-based journalist. “They need hazard pay, more time off, and more employees hired in the newsroom. Keep squeezing people, and they'll keep leaving.”

Look, this piece was gutting to write, but I have faith that it can do real good. And I feel compelled to actively participate in the discourse on trauma and journalism—and what we can do about it—in order to help make sure there is a humane, sustainable industry to return to.

With that in mind, here’s my advice: Whether you’re a newsroom leader or a reporter or an intern—even if you feel like you’re admitting defeat—please ask for help on this issue. That’s how I found solidarity and support, and it’s how I was able to write this story.

I also want to mention that there were many, many reporters at very big outlets who were terrified that participating in this story—even anonymously—would cost them their jobs. To editors: Many of your best reporters are sobbing at work every day and are terrified to tell you.

Judging from my DMs, I would say we vastly underestimate how many reporters are already diagnosed with PTSD. I don't know that even I had structural solutions to this problem before I went through the process of writing my story. But now that I do, I hope people are listening.

I’m so touched by how many of you have reached out. I will respond to every email and DM, I promise. I’m so overwhelmed by the sheer scope of this problem our industry has clearly ignored for years. It has made this extreme vulnerability feel worth it, and I’m so grateful.