Just asking questions
But not in that ill-intentioned way.
I always have questions. I can be curious about almost anything — even baseball, which I find pretty boring (much to the disappointment of my six-year-old nephew, who loves the Mets). This mindset served me incredibly well as a journalist, and it turns out it’s pretty valuable for a grad student as well.
Part of the reason I launched this Substack was as a requirement for my Fundamentals of Digital Journalism class. Professor Meg Heckman built me a custom set of assignments, taking my prior journalism experience and grad school goals into account. (I’m so grateful for this. It has been so encouraging to have someone support my ideas and want to help me figure out how to make them reality.)
Check out Meg’s Substack here:
Back to the questions: Meg asked me to share some of the questions that I want to approach in my grad school work. I don’t expect to answer all of them in the next 1.5 years or perhaps in my entire career. But I’d like to make some headway on them and build my thinking and research around them.
They’re all built around my big question:
How can news leaders better care for the mental wellbeing of journalists, particularly in local television newsrooms?
I think answering that question will first require answering a bunch of smaller questions. So, here’s an incomplete list of those smaller questions, broken down by the 5Ws+H:
Who
…is already doing this work?
…in local TV newsrooms are affected by this issue?
…are the overlooked groups in the current conversation?
What
…research already exists on this topic?
…are the unique challenges for local TV newsrooms (vs. network TV, print, digital, etc)?
…kind of solutions have already been tried?
…are the other industries that face similar challenges and what can we learn from them?
Where
…do journalists encounter experiences that affect their mental wellbeing?1
…are news leaders already trying to help?
When
…do TV journalists often need help and support?
Why
…aren’t newsrooms already doing this? What obstacles do they face?
How
…can this work/knowledge be applied to help news consumers?
…will this work help newsrooms attract and retain employees?
This is just a starting place. If you have questions you’d add to this list — or any early ideas about answers — let me know below or send me a message.
Finally tonight…
The photos above are from my time at Chronicle, both taken by Jennifer Platt-Ure, one of the team’s three videographers. She’s creative, talented, and warm-hearted. On every shoot, Jenn makes sure the interview and video look excellent for TV, and she often takes behind-the-scenes pics too! You should check out her beautiful Instagram and follow her.
It’s not just out in the field - I’ve heard about challenges for people working in newsrooms, edit bays, control rooms, and TV studios.