Some help for the journalist

The Society for Professional Journalists is actually doing something useful.

For once. 

This is like using a belt-fed machine gun to hit a pie plate target at 1,000 yards. Sling enough lead and you're bound to hit the target, eventually.

Anyway, the SPJ is hosting a conference on stress and journalism March 9 in Savannah.

Some topics on the agenda:

• Are you having a hard time handling the stress of burnout?

• Do you need resources to help a colleague that is having a difficult time?

• Did you have a hard time processing the trauma of a crime scene or disaster?

• Are you afraid of the stigma of asking for help, to share your emotions?

• Do you need to know that you are not alone in how you are feeling and it's okay?

• How can we support ourselves as journalists?

In case you don't wonder, I answer:

Sometimes Sometimes Sometimes Sometimes Sometimes #1 thing - quit being flaming infected hemorrhoids toward each other.

IT'S A ROUGH JOB

Coming up through the ranks many years ago I was told journalists suffer an unusually high level of alcoholism compared to other industries. I no longer believe that to be as true. https://www.businessinsider.com/most-alcoholic-jobs-2011-10

Journalism is rough though. As I remember, France dictates a month of vacation for professional working journalists because of the stress. But France does a lot of things that make me wonder.

I don't know of any other career that has the same kinds of stress-inducers. Certainly, other professions have their share and many overlap. ER workers, law enforcement, and fire, EMS, dispatchers come to immediate mind. Some less-expected professions that have some of the same major stresses are minister or preacher, politician, human resources. You can probably add many more to this.

But journalism stands unique. Only journalists are called on to be in any profession at any time. We can spend one day being a police officer, another day as a commercial fisherman and yet another day as a funeral director. Good journalists try to understand the people we write about and that means learning what they do and how they do it. Sometimes it means hands on. It always means observation.

At the same time, journalism is unique because at the end of the day, we get to walk away from that job and move on to something which may be a polar opposite. Whether we can actually leave that temp job is another matter entirely. The rough stuff stays with us. The good stuff stays too, but the bad parts are more durable.

On any given day a journalist can see the very worst humans can do to each other and then all the way to the very best. Then, we have to process that and present it to our audience. That kinda stuff sticks with a person.

Journalists also don't have a lot in the way of stress support. Example: Journalists can get PTSD. I have it. Unlike soldiers who have a support network, whether it is effective or not is beside the point, journalists do not have that (however effective) safety net. Soldiers have thousands of comrades who went through the same thing. Journalists may have a handful.

So thanks to the SPJ for finally doing something worthwhile. I seriously wish I could attend the conference, but it is not gonna happen. Y'all who do attend, I hope you are able to find a way to beat down those demons that haunt us all.