Preventing Burnout

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Since the pandemic started, journalists have been forced to grapple with the coronavirus, new working arrangements, and major social and political events – all while their jobs quite literally came home with them. In recent months, several high-profile journalists have been courageous enough to say they need breaks for both their and their newsroom’s well-being. In this session, we’ll discuss how news organizations can support the mental health and wellness of their workers and reduce burnout. We’ll go beyond the basic techniques for self care and focus on how newsrooms can integrate these ideas and priorities into their structures and workflow processes, and how they can move towards tangible structural and culture change.

Panelists

Jean Hodges, Gannett
Jean Hodges is senior director of news culture and communications at Gannett. She works on projects from onboarding to employee retention, and has met the challenge of the virtual newsroom with training geared to virtual leadership and coping with burnout. Jean also has worked on content strategy and initiatives, and before moving into the corporate world of news, she worked in newsrooms in California, New Mexico, Texas, England and Illinois. She lives in the Chicago suburbs with her family and her pandemic puppy.

Stacy-Marie Ishmael
Stacy-Marie Ishmael is a writer and editor currently based in Austin, Texas. She was most recently the Editorial Director of The Texas Tribune.

Samantha Ragland, Poynter
Samantha Ragland is a leadership faculty member at The Poynter Institute. She is director of Poynter’s flagship Leadership Academy for Women and she co-directs the Poynter-Koch Media and Journalism fellowship program, which serves up to 60 early-career journalists across disciplines every year. Formerly director of digital content strategy for GateHouse/Gannett Media’s Florida Group, Samantha was responsible for growing digital audience and acumen across 22 newspaper markets through niche products, alternate business models and accessible digital training.

Geri Alumit Zeldes, Michigan State University
Geri Alumit Zeldes, Ph.D. is a tenured Professor in MSU’s School of Journalism and serves as the College of ComArtSci’s Faculty Excellence Advocate who helps recruit and retain staff and faculty. Zeldes doubles as an academic and practitioner with a dozen best paper awards from international communication associations and 100+ honors and screenings for her documentary films. Those honors include the Dr. Suzanne Ahn Award for coverage of social justice issues from the Asian American Journalists Association, Edward R. Murrow and Unity awards from the Radio Television Digital News Association, two national Best of Festival Awards from the Broadcast Education Association, and four regional Emmys® Her latest award was Best Documentary from the Society of Professional Journalists in Michigan for “Breed & Bootleg” – an hour-long story about hip-hop legends from Flint who placed the city on the rap music map.

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