World Mental Health Day spotlights support for those covering crises
It’s World Mental Health Day today (Friday 10 October), and this year’s theme is “Access to services - mental health in catastrophes and emergencies.”
It’s a timely reminder of the toll routinely reporting and writing about human suffering can take on journalists’ mental health, and an opportunity to highlight the support available.
Natasha Hirst, NUJ Equality Council co-chair, said:
“Our members juggle multiple pressures in their working lives that can impact on their mental health and wellbeing. Workload and job precarity are common stressors. Other issues such as safety concerns, poor pay, redundancies and the inappropriate use of AI also negatively impact many members.
“Additionally, we are working in environments where we frequently witness, report on, or review distressing content. In a world that feels increasingly unstable and stressful, it's so important to take steps to protect our mental health and look out for our colleagues, including our reps. When dealing with emotionally heavy scenarios, talking to a colleague about your experience is known to help reduce the risk of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, or to identify if additional support is needed.
“Employers and NUJ chapels have a vital role in safeguarding and supporting staff, but we mustn't forget our freelance members. Branches and other structures and networks in our union can offer spaces for freelances to seek support and solidarity, and influence the NUJ's campaigning work to improve the working lives and wellbeing of all of our members."
Increasing levels of abuse
Members reporting on crises are so often exposed to abuse for simply doing their job. Analysis by the Reuters Institute and University of Oxford highlights an increasingly hostile environment for journalists, particularly on online platforms that provide a direct line to contact journalists.
Newsrooms worldwide have not yet figured out how to address this issue, with journalists under attack repeatedly reporting inadequate newsroom policies and insufficient organisational support when coping with personal and aggressive attacks and threats, the report said.
UNESCO reported that 73% of women journalists surveyed experienced online violence. Our own evidence recorded that 51% of UK journalists reported online abuse in a single year, leading to the launch of the NUJ's Journalists' Safety Tracker. The NUJ continues to campaign for greater protection against online abuse as well as calling for more to be done in workplaces to support journalists to carry out their jobs.
Duty of employers to protect workers
The Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 obliges employers and those who commission freelances to carry out risk assessments of everyone's workplace and then adopt "reasonable precautions" to minimise the risks.
Liz Else, NUJ Health and Safety Committee chair, said:
"Employers should, as a matter of course, have carried out these risk assessments, so World Mental Health Day is a good time for NUJ members, through their chapels, to ask to see those assessments covering potential exposure to trauma and work-related stress.
"Risk assessments should be available within a reasonable time, having been carried out by an appropriately competent person on behalf of the management. If they are not available within, say, a week, and even if they are, it's a good reason to start negotiations to review an organisation's approach to mental health across the board.”
Managers also play an important role in helping to implement these measures.
The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) for England, Scotland and Wales has published a ‘Talking Stress Toolkit’, which provides a comprehensive list of questions managers should ask as part of their risk assessments as well as the reasonable precautions that should be in place to protect everyone. Similar laws exist in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland with enforcement agencies like the HSE.
Else added: "Don't forget, all reps should take the NUJ's free health and safety training, not least because being elected a health and safety rep by a chapel allows them to do such training in work time. It also offers them legal protection at work from any detriment to their employment while they perform health and safety functions as a workers’ rep or as a member of a Health and Safety Committee."