To prepare for the 2024 election, WITF’s Director of Journalism asked staff to share what went well and what didn’t in 2020. The result: a resource guide for resilience that prioritizes honest conversations and self-care. 

Project Summary

“Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” It’s ironic that journalists — those of use who are writing the first draft of history — are so often guilty of ignoring this particular advice. Caught in the churn of a daily newsroom, a regular cadence of legislative sessions and elections, we rarely pause long enough to meaningfully reflect on what did and didn’t work for us and for our audience or community the last time we covered it. 

At best, this hustle and grind pattern of covering elections in particular leads to serviceable journalism produced by steadfast but tired staff. It can also result in robotic journalism produced by staff who — despite their passion for the trade — are on the brink of burning out. The latter scenario is one that played out across the country in recent years Even innovative newsrooms like WITF in Harrisburg, PA saw reporting staff leave after the 2020 elections, and leadership recognized signs of exhaustion in those who stayed or joined the team since then.

That’s why, ahead of the 2024 elections, Director of Journalism Scott Blanchard said he started an internal listening campaign. As this election came into focus, and as he and his staff braced for a tumultuous year, he said, it became clear that he needed to safeguard his staff both emotionally and physically. To do that, he began reaching out to current and former WITF news staff who covered the 2020 elections to find out what went well and what they might want to change this time around.

Objective

There wasn’t a preconceived outcome of this listening project, Blanchard said. For him and his newsroom, it was clear this was going to be another challenging year to be a journalist, so looking to the past just made sense if they wanted to set their current news team up for success.

Blanchard sought insights from all the staff who worked in the newsroom during 2020 — 17 people in total. While he hoped for 100% participation, he ended up hearing from to 13 of those he reached out to, some of whom responded through an anonymous Google form while others he spoke with directly. And, he said, the one-hour confidential conversations he had were productive and positive.

“We wanted to see if there were any workplace changes that we could make,” he said. “We didn't want to get to the first week of October and have people burning out or really struggling and say, well, we should have done something eight months ago”

The Challenge

With full participation, the project had the potential to require 17 hours for one-on-one interviews. Thanks to trust and buy-in from his station leadership, Blanchard said he was able to carve out the time to prioritize a listening campaign. Still, it took months for the project to go from an idea into a reality.

“The idea really solidified when I was at an API conference in October, and I don't think I did the interviews until January,” Blanchard said. He spent the months in between slowly clearing his schedule to create the space for these one-hour conversations.

Then, there was the matter of getting people to respond to his request for an interview. Ultimately, there were four people who chose not to participate. Blanchard said while he’d hoped for 100% participation, some drop off was to be expected.

“You know, it was hard [in 2020]. It was hard for everyone,” Blanchard said.

The Solution

After wrapping up the listening sessions and discussing his findings with other newsroom leadership, Blanchard collected the feedback he heard and created a resource guide for their news team he called the Journalists’ resource guide for resilience in 2024 and beyond. Organized by what worked in 2020 and tips for 2024, he said the document reflects a larger culture of caring about mental health in the newsroom.

One thing that stands out in the guide as a throughline from 2020 to 2024, is the importance of the newsroom’s mission when it comes to mental well-being. In 2020, staff said having a strong sense of purpose helped; in 2024 staff said that finding meaning in the work was a touchstone.  

Blanchard and his team also presented what they learned to WITF’s HR department, but he doesn’t expect any bigger organizational changes to happen quickly. In the meantime, he’s focused on prioritizing his team’s wellbeing through means he does have control over, like keeping the dialogue open and supporting time off.

“At one point we just gave everyone a long weekend without having it count against their vacation,” Blanchard said. “We cycled it through the staff, and had people sign up.”

The Takeaways

While an internal listening tour is what worked for WITF, Blanchard said the most important thing is that journalists take the time to reflect. “If they have that feeling that they went through a lot of crap in 2020 or in anything since then, or before, it's good to talk about this stuff and acknowledge it.”  Any form of open discussion about the hard things news teams have gone through will help build up staff’s resilience.