Late last year, I attended the World Conference of Science Journalists in Pretoria, South Africa, It was phenomenal in so many ways — the country, the hosts, the vibrancy of science journalism in Africa, the discussions during panels and in busy hallways. But months later, I keep thinking about one particularly powerful session.
It was a discussion about mental health, trauma, and anxiety titled “Journalist, Take Care of Thyself.” It was organized by Bibi-Aisha Wadvalla, a former television reporter and now managing editor at Health-E News in South Africa, who has thought about these issues for years. I served as a panelist and was joined by Verashni Pillay, a media leader who founded the groundbreaking news literacy project explain.co.za in South Africa, and by Amr Rageh, who intriguingly works as both a pharmacist and freelance science journalist in Egypt.
Pillay set the tone, sharing the story of her own diagnosis with severe depression after a traumatic work incident that led to vicious online attacks on her reputation. It’s something she’s bravely discussed for the past five years — in a barrier-breaking 2020 Ted Talk on the Cost of Shame that’s been viewed more than 11,000 times, and in op-eds about mental illness.
Rageh shared stories about harrowing situations he’s faced in his reporting across the Arab world, including learning one source he had interviewed for a science story had soon after been killed by a missile strike.
Leonie Joubert, who attended the session and has covered climate change for more than two decades, spoke of the personal crises her work brought on. Writing about environmental harm — from plastics fouling nature and our bodies to the impacts of rising carbon dioxide levels and warming — left Joubert feeling she was watching a disaster unfold while few others paid attention. In 2022, she was hospitalized with severe depression. She is better now and working harder than ever — not from home but from a mobile home she’s been using to access remote parts of South Africa.
The session was well attended, which was notable since several compelling conference panels were running at the same time and competing for attention. Speakers and attendees sat in chairs that we’d pulled into a circle; people kept streaming in, the circle expanding as we added more chairs. There was no shortage of stories about painful issues leading to feelings of moral injury, fatigue, burnout. One reporter told the group her home had been burned in retaliation for her work; another said she was mocked by her boss in front of her newsroom for telling him she’d become upset while covering an incident that resulted in the death of a child.
A growing number of voices argue that not enough attention is being given to the mental health issues faced by many science journalists, and our session at the World Conference of Science Journalists seemed proof enough of that.
Trauma in journalism has received some attention. The Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma, of course, has done amazing work for decades to bring attention to — and find ways to address — trauma faced by journalists who cover conflict and deal with survivors of violence. (The center closed suddenly last summer due to lack of funding, at a time when it may be needed more than ever.)
But I would argue that we also need to do more to address the particular traumas faced by science journalists. We may not cover wars, but we regularly witness the impact of climate and environmental damage firsthand, and we may also suffer secondary trauma after hearing and recounting the stories of people who are suffering. Finnish theologist Panu Pihkala described this harm in a 2019 article titled “The Cost of Bearing Witness to the Environmental Crisis,” and argued that environmental scientists deserve more systematic study and resources focused on these harms.
It’s clear science journalists do too. “About once a month, the end of the world creeps into my sleep,” climate journalist Yessenia Funes wrote in a 2023 post for the Society of Environmental Journalists. “Holding space for these stories doesn’t get easier. In the years I’ve been on the beat, it’s actually grown more painful,” she wrote.
It’s not just those who cover climate change who need support. Covering the pandemic took a mental health toll on science and health journalists that many of us have yet to really reckon with. Other science reporters are grappling with ethically challenging issues: trying to make sense of what it means for our species to edit our own genomes or confronting the potential risks rogue generative AI agents pose to society.
In the U.S., many science writers are facing an increasingly challenging reporting environment, with the federal government attacking both scientific research and journalism, with misinformation rife, and with federal databases we’ve long relied on for decades being taken down or politically manipulated. Online attacks on reporters, particularly women, are common as well.
In addition, many in our field are losing jobs they’ve held for years or decades as science journalism — and journalism as a whole — continues to contract. The recent layoffs of science journalists at Scientific American, the Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal are leaving many in our field wondering if they can afford to continue to do the work they love.
What to do? There is talk of self-care and what we can do on our own to reduce trauma: exercise, take breaks, use free meditation apps. But these “remedies” can seem laughable — mere Band-aids for deep trauma. They also leave the work of healing to those who are suffering and may not have the energy to help themselves.
At our session, Rageh encouraged attendees to learn more about cognitive behavioral therapy and to reach out to professionals for treatment if they need it. Pillay argued that it is the role of newsrooms to provide resources — and I agree. But that hasn’t been the case for much of my career, and as we saw in South Africa, there can be consequences within newsrooms to those who speak openly about their emotions. The ethos of journalism is one of toughness, of putting the story first, of carrying on and letting your notebook be your shield. But years into the work, many of us are realizing our reporter’s notebooks have not been nearly thick enough.
The ethos of journalism is one of toughness, of putting the story first, of carrying on and letting your notebook be your shie
A 2025 study conducted by researchers at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism and Toronto’s Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre surveyed 268 journalists covering climate from dozens of countries and found that nearly half had suffered from anxiety and depression. Twenty-two percent suffered symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, and 16 percent said they had needed to take a break from their reporting. The study had its limitations: It included only journalists from the Oxford Climate Journalist Network, for instance, and it didn’t probe causal relationships between reporting exposures and stress. But it’s a sign of progress that such studies, and discussions of the topic, are starting to occur. (It’s also notable that one of the paper’s coauthors had spent years studying trauma in war correspondents before querying climate reporters.)
At a discussion about the study, held by the Reuters Institute last year, it was all too clear that journalists need more support — and self-compassion. “We have empathy towards the people we report on because we care a lot about the issues, right? But sometimes we fail to extend that empathy to ourselves,” Filipino climate journalist Jhesset O. Enano said at the event. In 2020, Elana Newman, a clinical psychologist who served as research director at the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma, told attendees of a virtual session held by the National Association of Science Writers that “journalists have traditionally been the last group to talk about self-care.”
The Reuters Institute study also found that more than half of journalists surveyed did not have access to resources they needed for help. They may not need much: Many journalists say just a few therapy sessions, or ways to interact with peers who may be feeling similar trauma, can go a long way. And the cost of such interventions would be minimal for larger newsrooms. Some interventions cost nothing: As a newsroom leader, Pillay said she makes a point of asking her employees how they are doing before she asks what they are working on. It’s a strategy more leaders should try.
As welcome as more newsroom resources would be, they aren’t of help to freelancers, who make up a large share of our community and may be in even greater need of help because they often work in isolation. I’m pleased to see science journalism organizations creating safe spaces to talk about issues of mental health. One organization I belong to, the National Association of Science Writers, has prioritized this topic, as well as meetups and career-building sessions for freelancers. The organization recently convened a webinar, “Navigating professional grief and moral distress in the polycrisis,” that included a psychotherapist and took lessons from the emerging field of climate psychology.
For several annual meetings in a row, the Association of Health Care Journalists has held trauma sessions for journalists with journalist and wellness practitioner Margo Snipe. The sessions create a safe space for attendees to journal about issues they are facing, learn relaxation techniques, and discuss pain or trauma they may be carrying from stories and interactions they’ve had. I was surprised at one of these sessions to find I was still ruminating about things that had happened in my career years, and even decades, ago.
What I’ve taken from these nascent discussions is that it’s important for us to be easier on ourselves, and on our past selves. We need to remember that the work we do is complicated, and sometimes very hard. And we need to recognize that it’s important for us to take care of ourselves so we can continue the critical work of chronicling our changing world in all its chaos and disarray — and its beauty.
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