Melody Schreiber is a columnist at The New Republic, a frequent contributor to the Guardian US, and the D.C. correspondent for ArcticToday. Her work has also been published by The Washington Post, New York, The Atlantic, Pacific Standard, Outside, NPR, STAT News, Vice, USA Today and elsewhere. She is the editor of What We Didn’t Expect: Personal Stories About Premature Birth.
From Newsrooms to Boardrooms: The Mental Health Revolution Arrives
Sep 30 2022
WHEN:
Sep 30, 2022 at 10:00am
WHERE:
First Amendment Lounge
CONTACT INFO:
Kate Helster
MORE INFO:
Special Event
Just over a week from World Mental Health Day (October 10), the National Press Club and Project Healthy Minds, a Millennial and Gen-Z-driven non-profit, are convening one of the first ever discussions about mental health and wellbeing in journalism. Reporters face a barrage of challenging subjects day in and day out, including some that hit at the very core of their own identity. Despite these enormous challenges, it can feel as if the public expects reporters to tell the story regardless of the impact it will have on their own mental health. Journalists in the newsroom are joining a wider movement of employees in workplaces across the country who are demanding their leaders pay greater attention to their mental health and offer better solutions for support.
Join us for one or both of these informative sessions.
10 AM | Newsroom Fatigue: Navigating The 24/7 News Cycle
As the world continues to grapple with a seemingly endless series of crises – from the pandemic to racial injustices to mass shootings to geopolitical and societal unrest – journalists have found themselves on the frontlines of an increasingly unstable and dangerous world while covering the news, often to the detriment of their own mental wellbeing. Rarely does the story of the toll news takes on journalists see the light of day. This panel will feature a candid discussion with reporters who have witnessed traumatic events with their own eyes while trying to maintain an objective focus day after day in the relentless 24/7 news cycle.
Orion Rummler covers LGBTQ+ and breaking news for The 19th, a nonprofit newsroom at the intersection of gender, politics and policy. He previously covered breaking news at Axios and contributed research to "Axios on HBO."
Patricia Zengerle is an award-winning journalist for Reuters, currently covering foreign policy and national security issues in the U.S. Congress. She has reported for the wire service from some three dozen countries over more than three decades, including covering U.S. presidential elections, the White House, American corporate news, and regional news in Florida, the Caribbean and Latin America. She also served as an editor in London and Washington. Zengerle was twice part of Reuters’ reporting teams that won the National Press Club’s Edwin M. Hood Prize for Diplomatic reporting (2017 & 2022). She was stationed inside the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, and reported the minute-by-minute developments throughout the day and night.
J. Raymond DePaulo, Jr., M.D. is a University Distinguished Service Professor and Co-Director of the Mood Disorder Center in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Dr. DePaulo also serves as the Chairperson of the Board of Directors of the National Network of Depression Centers (NNDC.org). He has been an active clinician, teacher, researcher throughout his 39 years on the Johns Hopkins faculty. He founded the Hopkins Affective Disorders Clinic in 1977 and grew it into a multifaceted program that led patient care, teaching and research on depression and bipolar disorder at Johns Hopkins. Dr. DePaulo was the Henry Phipps Professor and Director of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and Psychiatrist in Chief at the Johns Hopkins Hospital from 2002 until 2016.
Jessica Washington is a senior reporter at The Root and covers the intersection of race and gender justice issues.
11 AM | Mental Health as The Next Big Issue for Bureau Chiefs, CEOs, CHROs, Boards, and Investors
Burnout. The Great Resignation. The new world of work. A pervasive mental health crisis.
Four years after many companies began declaring a “purpose revolution” to prioritize all stakeholders, not just shareholders, there is a movement afoot across Corporate America as more leaders begin to embrace expectations from employees related to mental health. This shift isn't merely about companies adding one incremental new benefit like a meditation subscription – it requires a fundamental and holistic reimagining of how companies approach employee mental health. From newsrooms to boardrooms, this panel will cover what’s driving these changes, how companies are responding and what’s next.
Andy Dunn co-founded menswear brand Bonobos and served as CEO until its 2017 acquisition by Walmart. As an investor, he has backed more than eighty startups, including Warby Parker, Coinbase, Away, Glossier, Real, Parade, SeatGeek, and Alula. In May, Dunn released a memoir titled Burn Rate: Launching a Startup and Losing My Mind, which explores the intersection of entrepreneurship and mental illness.
Anna Johnson is the AP’s Washington Bureau Chief where she oversees the AP’s coverage of the federal government – including the Biden administration and Congress—as well as politics, democracy and elections in the United States.
Phillip Schermer is the Founder and CEO of Project Healthy Minds, a millennial/Gen Z-driven non-profit startup focused on tackling one of the defining issues of our generation: the growing mental health crisis. Project Healthy Minds is building the world’s first digital mental health marketplace to democratize access to life-changing services, partnering with public figures to destigmatize mental health, and creating the first national standards for businesses to better support employee mental health.
Sabastian V. Niles is a Partner at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz where he works closely with boards of directors and management teams, focusing on corporate governance and corporate strategy; rapid response shareholder and stakeholder activism, engagement, and proxy fights; takeover defense; enterprise risk oversight, including as to ESG, human capital management, cybersecurity and crisis situations; U.S. and cross-border mergers, acquisitions, divestitures and strategic partnerships; and other corporate and securities law matters and special situations.
Sabastian co-founded the Harvard Association of Law and Business and continues to serve on its Advisory Board. He is a director of the John L. Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance at the University of Delaware, a fellow of the American College of Governance Counsel, and a director of Literacy Partners, a non-profit organization focused on multigenerational literacy, strengthening families through a two-generation approach to education.