Topics

Create Space for People
to Live Their Life at Work and Beyond

So, we create time to take care of ourselves and each other. Below are six ways to prioritize self and community-care in your day-to-day operations.


HOW to Help Prevent Journalist Burnout

User Manuals

Everyone in our newsroom has different needs, different communication and work styles, and different things that are important to them. Most of the other workplaces we’ve been a part of don’t take the time to get to know their people, which makes people feel unsupported and undervalued. 

Our User Manuals allow our team to share things about themselves that we otherwise wouldn’t know. They include a wide-range of questions, including:

We use a questionnaire in Airtable that everyone has access to, so if you want to get to know a new teammate or figure out how to have a hard conversation with someone, you can take a look at their User Manual.

Here’s a simple template to get you started.


How to Help Prevent Journalist Burnout

Flexible Hours 
(and a 32 Hour Work Week)

When we were first figuring out how to structure our workplace, we quickly learned that—surprise, surprise!—everyone had a different preference. Some people wanted to work Fridays, some didn’t. Some wanted structured work hours, some wanted to work whenever it was best for them. So we met in the middle. 


How to Help Prevent Journalist Burnout

Flexible Time Off

Unlimited time off has earned a bad reputation because it’s often used to dissuade people from taking time off or shame them for going on vacation. But timesheets are a logistical nightmare and also feel a whole lot like micromanagement. Flexible Time Off lives in the middle of these two not-quite-right policies. 


How to Help Prevent Journalist Burnout

Meeting-Free Time

We all know the feeling of exasperation that comes from having so many meetings you can’t actually get any work done, and the inevitable exhaustion that comes from working overtime to compensate. To break away from this pattern, we put restraints on when we meet, leaving more time out of meetings than in them.


How to Help Prevent Journalist Burnout

#support-channel

Showing up for each other in good times and bad brings us together as a team and breaks down the idea that we need to put aside whatever is happening in our lives during work hours. 

Having a #support-channel in Slack creates a space for people to opt in to sharing without pressure or obligation. We use our channel to:

Note: Support is not the same thing as help—there’s a #help channel for that. We make a point to distinguish between support that makes people cared for and aid that helps people get work done.


How to Help Prevent Journalist Burnout

#ooo channel

If you want your staff members to take care of themselves, you have to give them the time to do just that. We take our #ooo channel on Slack very seriously—it is a supportive and judgment-free zone. 


How to Help Prevent Journalist Burnout

FINAL THOUGHTS


Centering Teams in Practice

How to Help Prevent
Journalist Burnout

ACTIONABLE RESOURCE #1


Centering Teams in Practice

Building Newsrooms That SPUR Impact
and Support Journalists


The Appeal is a nonprofit news organization dedicated to exposing the harms of the criminal legal system, equipping readers with the information they need to make change, and elevating solutions that emerge from communities most impacted by policing, jails, and prisons.

In a country where nearly half of all American adults have had an immediate family member incarcerated, we are committed to sharing untold stories of incarcerated people, holding power to account, and examining alternatives to the criminal legal system.

As one of the first worker-led, nonprofit news organizations in the country, The Appeal is partnering with RJI to provide deeper insights on how to center care and collaboration in all types of organizations. This toolkit goes behind the scenes, offering practical tools and guidance for transforming newsrooms in both big and small ways.

Learn More About Us ⟶