This self-directed course features content from the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas' massive open online course (MOOC) titled “Mental health and journalism: How journalists can responsibly report on it and take care of themselves.” The five-week course took place from June 27 - July 31, 2022.

The course was taught by Kim Brice, Mar Cabra, and Stephanie Foo. They created and curated the content for the course, which includes video classes, readings, exercises, and more.

 The course materials are broken into five modules, along with an introductory module:

• Intro Module: Introduction to the course
• Module 1: The facts about stress and mental health - we are all potentially at risk! 
• Module 2: Working and collaborating in a healthier way in the digital world
• Module 3: Raising awareness and generating a healthier working culture: normalizing mental health and well-being in the media
• Module 4: How to tell stories that build empathy, not pathology
• Module 5: How to care for your subjects

We encourage you to watch the videos, review the readings, and complete the exercises as time allows. The course materials build off each other, but the videos and readings also act as standalone resources that you can return to over time.

We hope you enjoy the materials. If you have any questions, please contact us at journalismcourses@austin.utexas.edu.

Meet the Instructors

Kim Brice is co-founder of The Self-Investigation. She provides personal leadership coaching and mindfulness-based stress reduction and resilience trainings to a broad public, including journalists and change makers from around the world. Prior to starting her personal development work, she served as a global freedom of expression activist and later as a funder and then organizational advisor to many media, journalism and social justice support programs around the world. She believes creating a more balanced, compassionate and sustainable world starts with nurturing those qualities in ourselves.

Mar Cabra is co-founder of The Self-Investigation. She is a Pulitzer prize-winning journalist, digital wellness educator and Acumen fellow working on raising awareness on how technology is changing the way we interact with ourselves, each other and as a society. She writes a column in Spanish newspaper El Confidencial on this topic. She’s committed to creating a healthier working culture in journalism to prevent others from burning out like she did after leading the technology and data work for the Panama Papers investigation.

Stephanie Foo is a writer and radio producer, most recently for This American Life. Her work has aired on Snap Judgment, Reply All, 99% Invisible, and Radiolab. She is the author of What My Bones Know: A Memoir of Healing from Complex Trauma. A noted speaker and instructor, she has taught at Columbia University and has spoken at venues from Sundance Film Festival to the Missouri Department of Mental Health. She lives in New York City.

Introduction Module: Welcome to the introduction module of our course! 

In the introductory module, you will get an overview of the course structure. After watching the welcome video, please explore the rest of the introductory materials, including the syllabus and recommended readings. 

 Introduction

  Materials

1. Self-care tips for journalists — plus a list of several resources [Nasseem S. Miller, The Journalist's Resources]

2. Digital Wellness: Your Playbook for Surviving Thriving in the Remote Work Era [Digital Wellness Institute]

3. Journalism Resource Guide on Behavioral Health [The Carter Center]

Module 1: The facts about stress and mental health - we are all potentially at risk! 

How can we take care of our mental health? This module equips you with some basic theory, facts, and tools about stress and other common mental health issues and what to do to address them. You will learn how to be more aware of when your physical and mental health is at risk and how to take better care of yourself under pressure. This module will also provide you with some basic concepts that are fundamental to mental health reporting.

This module will cover:
- Healthy versus unhealthy levels of stress
- How to manage your stress levels at work
-Key concepts that are fundamental to preserving your well-being and to mental health reporting
-Basic self-care skills and burnout prevention in the newsroom

Guest speakers: 

Caroline Clauss-Ehlers, professor of Psychology in the Department of Psychology and the Ph.D. Program in Clinical Psychology in the School of Health Professions at Long Island University, Brooklyn. She’s also a former Rosalynn Carter Fellow for Mental Health Journalism and currently serves as an advisory board member for this program.

 Video Classes

 Readings

Module 2: Working and collaborating in a healthier way in the digital world

How can we stay healthy in an always-on culture? In this module you’ll get the facts about how digital technology could harm your physical and mental health if not used correctly. We’ll also cover why it’s essential to your well-being to set boundaries with yourself and with others in the newsroom. You’ll learn practical tips and tools about how to work remotely and how to have efficient digital communications as a team. Finally, we’ll also address the increasingly common issues of vicarious trauma and online harassment.

This module will cover:
- Setting digital and physical boundaries to reduce stress and frustration at work
- Experiencing why multitasking is bad for your brain and learning how to be more productive through deep work
- Best practices when working remotely
- How to prevent vicarious trauma and deal with online harassment

Guest speakers:

• Amy Blankson is the CEO of the Digital Wellness Institute and the bestselling author of The Future of Happiness. A member of the UN Global Happiness Council, Amy focuses her work on how to cultivate happiness in a digital era. She is a graduate of Harvard College and Yale School of Management, a Fellow of the World Innovation Organization, and is a contributor to Harvard Business Review and Forbes.
• Shaunelle Curry is the Founder and CEO of Media Done Responsibly, a media and digital literacy organization that works to amplify humanity-centered and socially responsible media. She is a Professor of TV, Film, and Media Studies, Journalism, and Pan-African Studies at California State University-Los Angeles and serves as the Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at the global Digital Wellness Institute. Shaunelle envisions a world in which our humanity evolves as swiftly as our technology.

• Nina Hersher is Co-founder of the Digital Wellness Institute and author of the bestseller, Your Playbook for Thriving in the Remote Work Era. As a pioneer of the Digital Wellness movement, her work has been featured at Spotify, The King Abdulaziz Center, Dolby, and in publications including The Stanford Social Innovation Review, Al Jazeera, and Voice of America.

• Nadine Hoffman is the International Women’s Media Foundation Deputy Director. As an expert in journalism safety, she has spearheaded the organization’s expanding safety and security work, overseeing the creation of physical and digital safety training opportunities as well as growing emergency assistance efforts. She began her career as a reporter in Boston before transitioning to non-profit work.

• Dean Yates is a former Reuters foreign correspondent and has just finished writing a book about healing from PTSD and moral injury. Dean covered the Iraq War, the Boxing Day tsunami and the Bali Bombings. He was also head of mental health at Reuters until he left the company in early 2020.

 Video Classes

 Readings

Module 3: Raising awareness and generating a healthier working culture: normalizing mental health and well-being in the media

There continues to be stigma and discrimination around mental health issues. Within newsrooms, there’s a belief that you cannot be a reliable and good journalist if you have mental health challenges. This module focuses on what you can do to support your colleagues, raise awareness in the newsroom, and integrate well-being into company policies.

This module will cover:
- You can be an excellent journalist and have mental health challenges
- How to introduce conversations about mental health in your newsroom
- How to influence the integration of well-being into company culture

Guest speakers:

• Hannah Storm and John Crowley, the co-directors of Headlines Network, which creates connections and drives conversations towards improving mental health in the media and communications industries. Over the last two decades they have led newsrooms, journalism safety charities and run news sites. Both are qualified mental health first aiders and bring knowledge and lived experience around mental wellbeing.
• Tanmoy Goswami publishes Sanity, an online newsletter that publishes independent mental health journalism for independent minds. He is also an advisor to a pioneering initiative to rate the quality of suicide reporting in India’s English newspapers, and a jury member for the country's first award for responsible media reporting on suicide.
• Sisi Wei is the Co-Executive Director at OpenNews, where she envisions and executes transformative initiatives for journalism, especially for journalists of color and local journalists. As part of her work, Sisi founded the DEI Coalition For Anti-Racist, Equitable, And Just Newsrooms in 2020, and launched the DEI Coalition Slack space in March 2021.

 Video Classes

 Readings

Module 4: How to tell stories that build empathy, not pathology

This module describes the dangers of pathologizing mental health conditions, explores the idea that mental illness is a social construct, and suggests general storytelling practices that build nuance and empathy.

This module will cover:
- The long-term impact of trauma on our brains and bodies
- How mental “illness” is in many ways a social construct, and how it can come with real advantages
- Learning about how pathologizing mental health conditions prevents people from healing, and how to prevent pathologizing and stigmatizing in your work
- Storytelling tips for creating nuanced, empathetic hopeful work

 Video Classes

 Readings

Module 5: How to care for your subjects

This module delves into how we can respect and care for our subjects and their communities in our reporting process, in order to keep them safe.

This module will cover:
- How to research mental health conditions ahead of time, and basic tips on respectful terminology
- Best practices for interviewing someone with a mental health condition
- How to communicate and collaborate with your subject and their community
- The ethics of how to care for your subject’s mental health before and after your story comes out

Guest Speaker: 

Alia Dastagir, a reporter for USA Today and a former Rosalynn Carter Fellow for Mental Health in Journalism. In 2020, she won the American Association of Suicology’s Public Service Journalism Award for her responsible coverage on suicide.

 Video Classes

 Readings