This is the fifth in a series of blog posts, culminating with a toolkit for fact-checkers on mental health and well-being. Learn more about the program here.
By Emma Thomasson, Training Manager of the program Mental Health Leadership for Fact-Checkers.
Journalists and fact-checkers often describe themselves as adrenaline junkies. They love the thrill of breaking news and the sense that the work they do matters. But that means that they often struggle to differentiate between what is urgent and what is important. In many newsrooms, the urgency of responding to external events — be it an election, a coup or a natural disaster — means there never seems to be time to think about important, but non-urgent matters, like the wellbeing of the team. For managers, that can mean it is hard to prioritise making strategic plans, or checking in with their staff, or making sure their own needs for guidance and career development are being met.
That is one of the main takeaways of the participants in the Cómo liderar en salud mental para chequeadores, a 6-month program of training and coaching for leaders of fact-checking organizations run by The Self-Investigation. Participants noted that the program was particularly valuable because it forced those leaders to block time in their calendars to think, learn and share experiences with peers in a similar position.
1. Stop working as if everything is an emergency
As the program drew to a close, several participants pledged to keep up the habit of reserving slots in their calendar to break the lure of working in a “crazy busy” way described by emergency room doctor Daria Long in her TED talk.
Long recommends applying the ER principles of triage to prioritise everyday challenges.
- Red – immediately life-threatening
- Yellow – serious, but not immediately life-threatening
- Green – minor
- Black – the worst scenarios, when nothing can be done
Instead of reacting to everything as if it is a category red emergency, as we often do in the newsroom, we need to work out when things are not that serious and find ways to delegate them, or make time for them when the real reds issues have been dealt with. We also need to beware of spending too much time worrying about some things in the black category, when it may be better to admit that is a waste of effort and move on.
Another way of deciding what to prioritise is to focus first on those tasks that are both urgent and important, an idea said to have been practised by former U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Tasks that are important but not urgent can be scheduled for later, those that are urgent but less important can be delegated and those that are not urgent or important can be deleted.
Jency Jacob, managing editor of BOOM Live in India, says he has an informal rule that he does not want to have meetings during lunch hour. That gives him time to eat lunch at a fixed time and also flexibility to relax post-lunch before the next meetings are scheduled.
Lorena Martinez, Head of Editorial Operations in Europe at Logically Facts says: “I usually have a packed agenda and often find myself multitasking. To prioritize important tasks, I block off dedicated time in my calendar each week to ensure I have uninterrupted focus time.”
Others pledged to implement a rule that they have a 15-minute buffer between meetings. That might mean that one hour meetings are kept to 45 minutes.
2. Make time to connect
When faced with a deluge of news, teams struggle to make time to connect on a human level, particularly if some people are working remotely. That makes misunderstandings and conflict more likely. Many of the participants in the program highlighted the value of sharing experiences with other fact-checking organizations from across the globe during the program and pledged to make more time for building relationships in their teams.
Blanka Zöldi, Editor-in-Chief at Lakmusz in Hungary, says every second Monday her team works a short day and holds a team meeting in a cafe for about an hour and a half where people can share any topic on their minds.
“It’s a good opportunity to zoom out from the rush of the daily work,” she noted, “and to reflect on “bigger” professional questions such as the most efficient tools, formats for fact-checking, to reflect on current events and, if needed, to talk about our priorities and strategies as a team. But, most importantly, it’s an opportunity to be together regularly, to listen to each other, and to create a safe space to ask questions, to talk about any worries or fears, and also to share what interests and motivates each of us.”
Alessandra Monnerat, Assistant Editor of Brazil’s Estadão Verifica, has organised a monthly online “buddy” coffee. She pairs up people in her team for a 15-minute informal meeting: “The feedback I received was very positive; some of them noted they discovered new things about their peers they would never find out by simply working together in a virtual environment. I think activities like these are important to build confidence and teamwork.”
3. Make a plan for accountability
The fact that the program combined workshops with one-on-one coaching helped to hold leaders accountable for their plans to support their own and their team’s mental health.
However, now that the program is ending, we asked participants to come up with a plan to help them set and reach short-, medium- and long-term goals for themselves and their teams. We asked them to answer these questions to develop a personal action plan.
- WHAT actions (behaviors, practices, policies)
- HOW you will do it and be held accountable (tools, resources, metrics)
- WHO can help support you in your commitment (team, audience, community)
Katarina Subasic, editor in AFP’s fact-checking team for Europe, says she plans to set reminders in her calendar so she sticks to her plan.
Other participants have pledged to ask peers, colleagues or friends and family to check in on them to make sure they are sticking to their plans.
