Peer support, EMDR and body scanning: MediaStrong 2025 highlights solutions to protect journalists’ mental health

Dr Glenda Cooper, Head of City’s Department of Journalism, said:

9/11, 7/7, and learning from reporting on terror to researching journalist ethics

Dr Glenda Cooper (City) reported on two terrorist attacks in her career as a journalist – reporting on 9/11 in New York for The Washington Post and on the 7/7 terror attacks in London for The Standard (now the Evening Standard).

It was only writing a reflection on the 20^th anniversary of 9/11 attacks that she made a connection between her past experiences of reporting on traumatic experiences, and her research focuses on humanitarian reporting and ethical journalism.

“As the old cliché has it, at the scene of disaster, the only people running towards it are emergency workers and journalists,” she said. “At the time, all I told myself was that I was lucky to be at the heart of big news stories.”

Ethical reporting and looking for sources like “shopping for potatoes”

Fellow journalists-turned-academics Dr Zahera Harb (City) and Dr Lea Hellmueller (City) reflected on ethical trauma reporting.

Dr Harb noted how some foreign correspondents exploit local journalists to look for the most traumatic story they can find, a practice she condemned as dehumanising.

She referenced the infamous book Anyone Here Been Raped and Speaks English? by Edward Behr, likening foreign journalists’ laundry-list of requests for sources that were trauma survivors and spoke English to be the same as “shopping for potatoes”.

Dr Hellmueller discussed the concerning decline in journalists following ethical codes, according to research by City St George’s about journalists in the 2020s.

The academics unveiled a new “Ethical Decision-Making Tool”, developed at City St George’s, which helps journalists navigate reporting dilemmas with sensitivity and ethical clarity.

Video and vicarious trauma

Schams Elwazer (CNN) highlighted the often-overlooked vicarious trauma experienced by video editors and producers exposed to distressing material.

“Unlike the teams in the field, there is no flight home for video editors,” said Elwazer. “We have to reckon with that. Nowadays the trauma is leaping towards us.”

Citing research from the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma, she noted that over 20% of journalists exhibit PTSD symptoms, with nearly double experiencing secondary trauma (witnessing something traumatic second hand).

This was echoed by Tristan Werkmeister (Reuters), who is a social media journalist and whose work reporting on terrorist attacks in France meant screening Isis propaganda content including a video of a beheading.

With hindsight, Werkmeister shared practical tips for managing exposure to graphic content: turning off autoplay on social media, muting the sound on videos, avoiding consuming traumatic material at night or in personal spaces like bedrooms.

Tools to prevent online harassment turning into real-world violence

The online world brings further challenges in the form of the targeted harassment of journalists, through doxxing (when personal information like images, phone numbers and personal addresses are leaked online without consent) or trolling.

This happens particularly regularly against journalists who are women and people of colour.

Fiona O’Brien (Journalists Without Borders - RSF) reminded the audience that online violence is closely linked to physical violence, and therefore needed to be taken very seriously.

Clarissa Ward (CNN) remembers the “outpouring of support” following her kidnapping in Sudan in October 2024 during a reporting field trip but believes the ongoing trolling and death threats she receives online are just as harmful.

“Online violence is very real-world,” agreed Jon Laurence (AJ+), who has personally been doxxed. “We must start looking at our digital presence through the eyes of someone who wants to harm us.”

Laurence urged journalists to review privacy settings across all their social media accounts, to activate two-factor authentication, to limit the amount of personal information shared online and ask their loved ones to do the same. He reminded them to review old, inactive social media accounts (Facebook pages, Myspace accounts, Reddit threads, old blogs), particularly before publishing a big story.

Dr Rebecca Whittington added that blocking accounts that were less than six months old was another effective tool in removing the noise from troll bots.

Peer-to-peer support, body scanning and trauma therapy

Dave Seglins, investigative journalist for CBC in Canada who got PTSD after covering a court case, described how structured peer-to-peer networks are now helping journalists process trauma.

The CBC peer support model, now being adapted across Canada and internationally, helps freelancers and local journalists access the care often missing from smaller outlets.

Similar networks were highlighted from Germany, the Philippines, and a new initiative launched in the UK.

James Bessant-Davies, documentary-maker, described suffering flashbacks and “moral injury” after being detained while reporting in Lebanon. PTSD therapy helped him re-engage with work and he now feels well enough to apply to work in Ukraine.

Jon Laurence (AJ+) explained how he listens to his body to help him make better editorial decisions. He does a body scan before and after reviewing a video. He holds his trauma in his right shoulder and knows that if he feels discomfort elsewhere in his body, the video might be too triggering for others to publish.