The effects of COVID-19 on the mental and physical health of journalists
Journalists play an essential and risky role during the COVID-19 pandemic since they cover events on the spot. Online work for most of them is not an option, and that has had its effects on both their physical and mental well-being.
The number of journalists’ deaths since the beginning of the pandemic is indicative of the huge consequences of the virus on people in the field. “In one year, at least 840 journalists died from Covid-19 in 68 countries, more than 2 per day on average, the heaviest toll in the media community since World War II,” states the Press Emblem Campaign (PEC). This is a Geneva-based non-governmental organization aiming to protect media and journalists who go on dangerous missions.
A survey from October 2020, conducted by the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) and the Tow Center for Digital Journalism, was released about the effects of COVID-19 on journalism and its practitioners. ICFJ is an American non-profit organization that promotes journalism around the world. The Tow Center is an institute within Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism that seeks to develop the field of digital journalism.
The “Journalism and the Pandemic” study published by the two organizations ranks the top three challenges journalists experience in the face of COVID-19. “Seventy percent of our respondents rated the psychological and emotional impacts of dealing with the COVID-19 crisis as the most difficult aspect of their work, “states the report. Financial difficulties and the amount of work are the two other top-ranked difficulties, according to the journalists.
The most common psychological reactions to the pandemic are increased anxiety, exhaustion and burnout, more difficulty sleeping, sense of helplessness, and many others, as the report states.
“It has been somewhat ruinous to my own mental health, and it is very difficult to not be able to unplug from it,” says Ed Yong, a staff writer from The Atlantic magazine, when talking about the effects of covering COVID-19. Yong said this in a video called “Journalist as Essential Worker,” released by the Poynter Institute, a non-profit journalism school and research organization.
Apart from the mental well-being that has clearly been affected by the pandemic, journalists’ deteriorating physical health has to do with poor working conditions. The Journalism and the Pandemic report states that many employers have neglected the health of their employees.
“At the most basic level — providing appropriate safety equipment to prevent frontline reporters from contracting or spreading coronavirus — employers appear to have failed in their duty of care. Thirty percent of our respondents said that their news organizations had not supplied field reporters with a single piece of recommended protective equipment,” says the report.
In the Poynter Institute’s video, Beth Nakamura, a photojournalist from The Oregonian, a daily Portland-based newspaper, speaks about the process of covering COVID-19. “It’s so overwhelming that all you really can do is take care of yourself, get a good night’s rest and get up in the morning and do it all over again.”
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Daria Naidenova is a sophomore student at AUBG majoring in Journalism and Mass Communication and Business Administration. She is passionate about journalism and psychology and tries to see the cause-and-effect relationship in different situations.
