Chelsea Cirruzzo
Since the beginning of the pandemic, almost every health reporter I’ve talked with has experienced both the professional thrill of writing about an unfolding science story and the personal feelings of fear, anxiety and grief about the virus. The energy that it takes to stay on top of this relentlessly evolving story and manage our own emotions has led to reporter burnout. For this “How I Did It,” one journalist, newer to the health care beat, shares how she’s been coping.
Chelsea Cirruzzo, a health and local news reporter for Axios, began utilizing social media in college to elevate her voice as a journalist. She used Twitter to help find sources and gained a following of almost 15,000. But as the pandemic has worn on, Cirruzzo has decided that for her own well-being, she needed to limit her activity on Twitter. Finding that boundary, among other decisions, is helping her manage burnout.
You made reference on social media to burnout in covering the pandemic. I think a lot of journalists share this feeling. How did you manage these emotions while covering this story?
I think it just kind of came in waves, where it was like, ‘Oh, no, this is really scary.’ And then, ‘Vaccines are coming! This is exciting.’ And then, you’re seeing that these same iterations of inequities [and people] who are not getting what they need just based on where they live, how old they are, and what race they are. The story [repeated] itself over and over again. But [at the same time], I think it’s so important and I wanted to do these stories. It was a lot to write about and a lot to handle. On top of that, we all had our own things going on. I live with a teacher, and I have health concerns and was worried about my family. So, it was tough.
In March of this year, I wrote about the challenges health reporters have faced during the pandemic for Nieman Reports and found out many of my colleagues had similar feelings of exhaustion and burnout. But also, some were dealing with challenges I haven’t faced: Some of them lost loved ones to COVID-19. Asian American reporters, not just health reporters, faced racist attacks because of anti-Asian rhetoric being pushed by the former president. It’s hard for health reporters to remove themselves from the story right now because the pandemic has hurt everyone, so how do you continuously cover something that has become so personal?
