Editor’s Note: The National Press Club Journalism Institute is committed to providing journalists resources and connections that support their personal and professional lives. Continuing in 2026, we are collaborating with several groups to widen those networks of support.
There have been many times throughout my career where I have had that nagging pit in my stomach. I was being asked to do something for the sake of the story that made me personally uncomfortable.
Sometimes it was door knocking after a person already told me to leave. Other times it was reaching out to victims in a mass shooting mere hours after they watched their coworkers get killed.
It was a feeling of disgust. I knew the feeling well, because so many times it drove me to drink. But I never could figure out how to describe the sensation. Truth be told, I didn’t allow myself to feel it, because I wanted to push past it.
But last month while I was participating as a panelist for the Canadian non-profit, Shared Bylines, author and former journalist, Tamara Cherry, helped me name this nagging pull.
Moral injury.
Moral injury is defined as the profound psychological, social, and spiritual distress that occurs when an individual perpetrates, witnesses, or fails to prevent acts that violate their own deeply held moral beliefs and values. I could now name the experience that for years I worked to suppress.
And with a name to the sensation, the power that it had over me felt managable. For once it felt like I had some semblance of control by understanding what was happening.
But navigating — much less managing — moral injury in the workplace is something that could take years to achieve. With the help of great groups that discuss mental health in the journalism industry, we can open ourselves up to the possibility of having meaningful conversations, even if they just help one person in the room.
At the Journalists Recovery Network, an organization for journalists in recovery from alcohol and substances, we hope you will join us as we continue the conversation around protecting ourselves in an industry full of potential harms, including moral injury.
For anyone seeking support with substance abuse, please reach out to the Journalists Recovery Network anytime. Click here for additional resources.
Tags: Self-care