By Marcus Brown
An often-overlooked component of journalism is the psychological toll it can have on the people writing the news. When one thinks of jobs where one would run the risk of “bringing the work home with you,” journalism is often not one of the occupations that immediately come to mind.
Doctors, police officers, EMT first responders, and the like are professions that would not be difficult to associate with considerable mental and emotional strain as a direct byproduct of the work performed.
There is a level of firsthand experienced trauma that is more apparent when examining the manner in which we engage with the work we must perform for society, but that does not make the second trauma that accumulates from simply reading the news on a regular basis any less legitimate.
The criticisms extended toward millennials and the perceived apathy they supposedly have towards the world’s affairs is very much a byproduct of this same mentality. It is no difficult task to reconcile the difficulties of living within a world ravaged by generations that came before while simultaneously trying to make a place for oneself in it. It would seem our inheritance is fixing a world we didn’t break, and some of us have this responsibility coupled with the additional task of ingesting harmful information on a daily basis with the intent of dissemination in the least problematic manner, even if we must pay the price ourselves.
It is no secret that the world is in shambles, and the precarious situation we have now found ourselves in is entirely self-inflicted. However, most people can move through the world with the luxury of being able to turn off or at the very least reduce their exposure to the reality of how horrible the world is. News reporters and journalists do not have that luxury. The crux of their occupation is digesting the best and worst of the world’s current events and regurgitating it into the mouths of the general public much like a mother baby bird feeding its babies.
It is important to acknowledge that this is not a sterile exchange of information. The news shapes the reporter just as much as the reporter can shape the news. In order to best write on the news, one must empathize at some level with the subject matter one seeks to engage with, and that is not always an easy task. Save your friendly neighborhood sociopath, the majority of us have a baseline for how much negative stimulus they can take in themselves and still be able to function in a healthy and productive matter.
To be a consistent and successful journalist often times demands one to exceed that baseline for the sake of work, and there is danger to this. In order to give the coverage a subject may deserve requires an emotional investment that doesn’t end when the article is submitted to an editor. Even at the level of a college publication, the strain is just as apparent if not more so given that as a college student the stories we are covering will more than likely drastically affect the outcomes of our future.
We are not simply covering the news. We are living it, but with the additional burden of trying to dissect and analyze the madness surrounding in such a way that may prove beneficial and informative to those around us.