Hearing Filipino journalists side of the story: A mixed method approach

• Main Author: Cerezo, Anna Gabrielle F.
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 2014
• Subjects: Psychology
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etd_bachelors/18096
• Institution: De La Salle University

The researchers studied the experience of Filipino journalists covering wars, conflicts, natural disasters, police reports and accidents. The study aimed to answer questions regarding journalists level of job burnout, well-being and hardiness, and experiences in journalism, reactions to coverages, effects of the coverages and journalists' ways of coping. The study used content analysis to analyze the semi-structured interviews of 10 journalists from Philippine based news networks and multiple regression was used to analyze the results of 100 respondents of the Shiron Melamed Burnout Questionnaire, Psychological Well-Being Scale and Dispositional Resilience Scale. Hardiness was found to moderate the relationship of burnout and well-being (p < 0.005), so despite high levels of burnout, a person with high hardiness has better well-being than a person with low hardiness. Journalists felt anxiety and sympathy while others felt excitement when doing a coverage. They are affected by the coverage and experience nightmares and difficulty sleeping. Journalists cope by talking about their experiences or separating their experiences on the job from their personal life. The researchers suggest that the study be extended to a larger sample size and other factors that affect a journalist's well-being. Also, the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines and news networks should provide an avenue for counseling, briefing and debriefing of journalists.