Why I’ve killed my own newswire creation

By Ian Silvera, Account Director

It’s all a bit relentless, this pandemic reporting. The first wave saw us overwhelmed with virus-related content and now we face endless features on the fragility of the global economy. You know it’s bad when journalists themselves are feeling the pressure, with anxiety and depression taking hold among the hacks, according to the preliminary results from a Reuters Institute study. 

More than one in ten (11%) of the 73 journalists surveyed worryingly said they had symptoms that matched-up with post-traumatic stress disorder, others (70% of respondents) said they suffered from some levels of psychological distress. To make matters worse, these employees are consistently being exposed to unsavory events – up close and from afar – as a significant part of the news media industry in the shape of print is seeing its structural decline catalysed. 

The average news readers should also take caution in our abnormal times. A 2017 study from the American Psychological Association found that consumption caused a majority (56%) of people stress. The survey, of almost 3,500 Americans, also discovered that 95% of adults followed the news regularly, a phenomenon shared in the UK with more than eight in ten people (85%) still accessing news about Covid-19 at least once a day. 

So what should we do? Well, one option would be to consume less news, at least on an unhealthy basis. Most of the really hard news actually hits before breakfast and around 7am, when announcements are published on the London Stock Exchange and the morning broadcast shows set the agenda. If you really want to know what is going to be in the papers the next day, check-out the front pages around 10.30pm or log onto their respective websites. 

There are, of course, exceptions. But the 7:10.30 diet seems to be the healthier way to go and that’s why I’ve paused my own DIY newswire, which was unveiled at the start of the year. Put another way, I don’t want the breaking news to break me.