For two days about 60 news leaders and mental health experts gathered for API’s Local News Summit on Mental Health and Sustainability earlier this month in Atlanta. We shared solutions and served as co-conspirators for opportunities to support the mental health and well-being of an entire industry of first — and last — responders. Many mentioned forwarding this October Mental Health challenge to their teams. Some even answered calls during the event with “you’re going to get me in trouble” because they knew the optics of dividing their attention between a summit on mental health and daily meetings, deadlines and DMs.We didn’t compare trauma stories. We didn’t detail the daily stressors of the job. We didn’t have to. We were in the room because we know the stories, we feel the stress, and we want better — for ourselves and for the journalists we lead.Something else we didn’t explicitly talk about was the systemic change needed to create a healthier news organization. We haven’t mentioned this yet in the October challenge either. But as many participated in the daily challenges and as summit attendees named their measurable objectives, it’s clear that this work points squarely at the organizational systems causing our industry so much harm. Let me explain.
Origen: Driving systemic change one behavior at a time – American Press Institute
