J-Talks Live - Risk and Injury: Journalists, Mental Health and COVID-19

Nov. 19, 2020 -

When the pandemic arrived, journalists on all beats experienced high levels of stress as they pivoted quickly to cover COVID-19, the fastest-moving story of our time. According to the early results of a study conducted in June by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford, participating journalists from around the world showed signs of anxiety and depression—70 percent suffering from some level of psychological distress—due to the many challenges and high stakes they faced in covering the crisis, sometimes in the absence of reliable information. In this ongoing reality, how can journalists take care of their mental and emotional well-being and how can newsrooms best support them?

Join the study’s authors: Dr. Anthony Feinstein, professor of psychiatry at the University of Toronto and a neuropsychiatrist whose specialties include exploring how journalists are impacted by the traumatic events they report on, and Meera Selva, director of the journalist fellowship program at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism in Oxford, in a conversation with Anna Maria Tremonti, host of the CBC podcast More.