ONA Weekly #338: Resources For Supporting Your Team’s Wellbeing

By on December 9, 2020

Andrew Fitzgerald and Ashley Alvarado appointed to ONA’s Board

Our Board has a total of 16 seats, and two of those are to meet needs identified by the Board. We’re pleased to announce that Andrew Fitzgerald, Chief Digital Content Officer for Hearst Television, and Ashley Alvarado, Director of Community Engagement at Southern California Public Radio, will fill the roles for the 2021-2022 term, beginning Jan. 1. Andrew adds valuable perspective from local broadcasting to the Board, while Ashley brings impressive expertise in audience engagement; cultivating newsroom leadership, culture and diversity; and experimenting with storytelling to serve local communities. Learn more.

Resources for supporting your team’s wellbeing

One of the conversations that really struck us from 2020 was the call to action to support each other in more holistic ways—not just to increase efficiency, but to really look after each other, communicate our needs and make space for tough conversations. As we consider what that support will look like next year, we’ve rounded up a few resources to revisit those ideas:

  • How Journalists Can Rethink Our Relationship With Work During a Pandemic, Open News: “Moments like these remind us that our colleagues are human beings who need love and support. None of us knows what’s coming next, but we do know a lot about helping each other.”
  • How to Manage When Things Are Not Okay (And Haven’t Been For Centuries), The Management Center: “Often, compartmentalization is a survival mechanism. And for many Black staff, managers, and leaders, it is a suffocating performance of professionalism. As a leader or manager (especially if you’re not Black), merely naming what’s happening can help lift the burden of pretending that everything is okay.”
  • Taking Care of Ourselves, The Newsroom Guide to COVID-19: “As journalists committed to helping our communities get the information they need to understand and cope with difficult circumstances, we often find ourselves running toward crises. But if we want to sustain our ability to do that work, we need to take better care of ourselves so we can better serve our communities.”
  • ‘Are you OK?’ Great Bosses Ask Then Act, Journalism Institute: “On any given day, someone on every team is challenged in a new way. They know it, sometimes painfully. Do you? Now’s the time to unleash the power of empathy.”
  • What We Need Most Right Now Is Accountability, Versha Sharma: “We know there are systemic problems, we know we need to do better, we know we’re at a turning point for real change: now let’s focus on the follow-through.” 
Later this month, we’ll use this space to celebrate accomplishments from the ONA Community. Reply to this email and send us 2-3 sentences about something you’re proud of from 2020—whether it’s something you created, a career change or some positive feedback you received from your readers. Be sure to include your title and organization however you’d like to be identified. We’ll feature as many as we can!

End-of-the-year mixer with Journalism 360

Join Journalism 360 Friday, Dec. 11 at 12 p.m. ET for an end-of-year meetup to celebrate what immersive creators have built in 2020 and what we’re looking forward to in 2021. We’ll be sharing work that we loved, and you’ll get a chance to meet some of the innovators working on the projects that just won the latest round of Journalism 360 Challenge grants. Registration is free, and open to anyone interested in immersive storytelling—feel free to invite friends and colleagues. 

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See What’s New at KSJ@MIT

The Knight Science Journalism Program at MIT is thrilled to launch our new website, where journalists can find an expanded slate of free resources including the KSJ Science Editing Handbook and the KSJ Fact-Checking Project. Come see what’s new!

Upcoming events

ONA Local groups regularly host events for digital journalists all over the world. Find a group near you or learn how to start a new one. Note: All ONA Local events are currently happening online, and open to all regardless of where you’re located.

Career opportunities

ONA’s Career Center is an excellent resource for jobs, fellowships and internships in digital journalism. Recent postings include:

On our radar