Should journalism curriculae include trauma resilience training? An evaluation of the evidence from a scoping literature review and findings from a pilot study
We investigated the claim in literature that exposure to work related traumatic events affects the wellbeing of journalists. We did this through a scoping review of studies on practising journalists; studies on journalism curriculae and reflections on findings of a questionnaire pilot study of journalism students’ experiences of exposure to traumatic events through teaching materials. We found evidence to suggest that practising journalists who are regularly exposed to traumatic events are susceptible to a range of adverse psychological reactions including post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD); and that the teaching of resilience is not widely included in journalism curriculae. The pilot study indicates that teaching materials did not evoke adverse psychological reactions with damaging effect to students’ wellbeing. Nevertheless, we recommend the inclusion of resilience training in journalism curriculae to be taught by an interdisciplinary team of scholars in order to build resilience among journalism students and equip them to cope with the increasing risk of journalism practice in the twenty first century
