IJNotes: An IJNet podcast

This episode is the first in a series on mental health and journalism.

From crime scenes and road accidents to natural disasters and wars, journalists often report on the frontlines of the world’s most challenging events. Today, journalists around the world are working overtime to cover the COVID-19 pandemic.

Covering these developments, whether major international stories or events much closer to home, can take a mental toll on those reporting. This can lead to issues like post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in some cases, but more likely anxiety, stress and burnout.

For journalists in the field, finding resources or someone to talk to can be difficult. To kickstart this conversation about journalists’ mental health, we spoke with Anna Mortimer, journalist, therapist and co-founder of The Mind Field, a platform that connects international development workers and journalists with therapists.

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The COVID-19 pandemic threatens more than our health, but also our freedoms.

Threats to press freedom are cropping up all over the world, taking the form of physical and political attacks on journalists, the criminalization of journalists’ work, restrictions on free access to information and increased surveillance.

ICFJ global director of research, Dr. Julie Posetti interviews Prof. David Kaye, UN special rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression, and Dr. Courtney Radsch, advocacy director at the Committee to Protect Journalists.

This episode is part of the ICFJ and IJNet Global Health Crisis Reporting Forum.

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Journalists are tasked with telling the truth, but sometimes it comes with a cost. 

Paolo Borrometi, a Sicilian investigative journalist, knows this cost all too well. When his reporting on the Italian mafia made him a target, he was forced to uproot his life. Years later, he still lives under 24/7 police protection, often confined to his own home. 

However, Borrometi is undeterred. He continues to report for his own news website, La Spia, and TV2000. He also serves as the president of Articolo 21, an association dedicated to freedom of expression, and the deputy director of AGI, the Italian Journalistic Agency.  

Borrometi visited our offices when he was in the U.S. accepting the 2019 Peter Mackler Award for courageous and ethical journalism. Listen to the latest IJNotes podcast to hear our interview about his work, the attacks he’s endured, life under protection — and meeting the Pope.

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On our first episode, we sat down with Jacopo Ottaviani, a Pan-African ICFJ Knight Fellow who works at Code for Africa as its Chief Data Officer, helping newsrooms on the continent create data desks and use data more efficiently in their reporting.

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In episode three of IJNotes, we interview Maya Srikrishnan, an immigration reporter for Voice of San Diego. Srikrishnan is one of the International Center for Journalists 2019 Bringing Home the World Fellows. As part of the fellowship, she traveled to San Pedro Sula, Honduras on a reporting trip.

In this episode, she shares the challenges, discoveries and lessons she learned covering the other side of immigration.

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We sat down with Ruth Betz, the head of digital transformation at Funke Mediengruppe, one of Germany’s largest newspaper and magazine publishers. Betz oversees the print to digital conversion of Funke Mediengruppe’s news outlets, working to ensure they adopt sustainable business models as they transform from print to digital-first publications. 

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