The study “Teaching Safety of Journalists: Student Responses and Solutions to Occupational Risks and Hostility” by Signe Ivask from University of Tartu examined 11 students’ (9 were Czech) reactions to a Safety of Journalists course through interviews, field notes, study diaries, written tasks and chat logs.

The recent growing concern for journalists’ safety has attracted research and a need to shape journalism education to better prepare journalists for hostile encounters. These solutions go beyond the traditional “grow a thicker skin” still witnessed in many newsrooms. 

Nevertheless, resilience is central and trained for in journalist education, since the diverse nature of attacks against journalists make other one-size-fits-all solutions by newsrooms difficult to implement. Resilience training here means a positive mental health instruction for individuals working in high stress situations. A person’s resilience is affected by  individual psychology, circumstances, attitudes, knowledge, and skills.

The course in question here was structured in two parts. There was a lecture part of 1,5 hours that provided an overview backed by newest research findings that introduced the students to the hazards of the field. The practical portion was also 1,5 hours long and focused on providing students with coping strategies, self-defense techniques and had resilience-building exercises.

The foundation of the course was based on D.A. Kolb’s (1984, 2014) experiential learning theory (ELT), which has been used by numerous journalism researchers. In ELT, most learning occurs through reflection on experiences. However, this necessitates time, guidance, and willingness to set aside things such as prejudices. There was such guidance in this course, too. 

In ELT, it is acknowledged (Morris 2020) that real-world experience is important. Here, it was not possible for all the students to have real-world experience, therefore, there were meetings with actual journalists working in war correspondence and such, and tasks where students work together as a group.

There were two research questions in the study. They were:

Research Question 1 (RQ1): How do journalism students react to potential occupational hazards?

Research Question 2 (RQ2): What solutions do journalism students find to address the hazards associated with the journalism profession?

The course was taught in English in Masaryk University in Czechia, and of the 11 participants, most had experience as working professionals or as journalism interns. The researcher/author was also in the position of the lecturer here. Written notes of the course were taken by a colleague of the author, and students maintained a study diary and asked questions from the lecturer. 

All the data for the study was analyzed in written form and it consisted of: transcription of the focus group (40 pages), field notes (10 pages), study diaries (132 pages), written tasks (44 pages), and Teams’ chat (100 pages). The thematic analysis was done in six stages.

During the analysis, four themes emerged: journalism students’ experiences and reactions, reflections on understanding the experiences, finding solutions, and teaching challenges. 

The students pointed out that journalists might lack skills in protecting themselves, as a reason why the “thick skin” response prevailed. Students mostly had a realistic expectation of the hostilities they might face, but the scale and extent of the hostility came as a surprise. 

As a solution, students saw the importance of developing self-assurance and assertiveness within oneself. The absence of clear boundaries was identified as a cause for potential burnout for novice journalists. A couple of students identified boundaries as necessary to protect the private sphere from cyberbullies.

However, they acknowledged that setting boundaries with well-meaning close ones is difficult. Hence, each journalist must find their own means and rules. Proper self-analysis and assessing oneself was also identified as a necessary skill. Taking care of mental health was also of importance.

As for more novel approaches, self-regulation on topics that are covered was proposed by a couple of students – balancing negative stories with positive ones. The students who had encountered hostility also benefited from the course by realizing they are not alone. 

When it comes to the newsroom, the students had the perception and sometimes the experience that newsrooms do not offer much support to journalists targeted with hostility. In fact, the prevalent attitude experienced was that of “if you don’t like it, leave”. They were skeptical of change, even if some insisted that they must instigate the change. 

The lecturer/author also sought to support the students in their struggles and adapt their teaching to the field, while at the same time acknowledging the limited training to do so (like a psychologist might have).

In summary, the author considers it important for journalism educators to pay attention to the students’ personal means of protecting themselves, as journalists cannot necessarily rely on their organization. Nevertheless, they should also inform the students of the regulatory rights of journalists and rights as a worker.

The article “Teaching Safety of Journalists: Student Responses and Solutions to Occupational Risks and Hostility” by Signe Ivask is in Journalism & Mass Communication Educator. (open access).

Picture: Untitled by Tim Gouw.

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