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Historically, the news industry’s response to the traumatized journalist has been: Suck it up.
Even though reporters often suffer the same psychological fallout as other first responders, only recently has that been somewhat acknowledged. And even then, most news organizations are at a loss about what to do about it.
Dave Seglins, a veteran CBC investigative reporter, suffered his own bout of PTSD after covering a particularly wrenching murder trial. The experience led him to do his own investigation into trauma, a process which eventually led him to become the organization’s “well-being champion.”
Now in his second year of that position, Seglins has been advocating for better trauma education and proactive newsroom responses when there has been trauma. In this Talking TV conversation, he explains how the industry is still only in the most embryonic stages of engaging the issue and what first steps any newsroom can take towards addressing a problem that is worsening continuously as attacks on journalists proliferate.
Episode transcript below, edited for clarity.
Michael Depp: Hello. This is Talking TV. I’m Michael Depp, the editor of TVNewsCheck. Today I’ll be talking with Dave Seglins, a veteran investigative journalist at the CBC in Canada, and as of the past year, the organization’s “well-being champion.” What that means is he’s essentially the CBC’s point person on journalist mental health.
Journalism has always been a tough job, and like many other first responder jobs, journalists see some pretty horrible things that can take a toll on their