Weekend reads: Letters to a young journalist, part two

How to stay sane in a world gone mad

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I recently had the pleasure of appearing on my friend Meghan Daum’s podcast. I often do my thinking out loud, in conversation with others, and Meghan is one of my favourite people to do this with. If you listen to the Unspeakable Podcast, you know that Meghan is an author and essayist, that she is smart, and funny, and curious — and that she’s an independent thinker who is committed to exploring unorthodox views. She is also someone that encourages others to clarify their arguments and interrogate their own logic in really productive ways. After taping with her, I came away so invigorated that I immediately wrote a column about Kamala Harris. Now that the episode is out, here I am, again inspired, writing another column.

Meghan opened the podcast by asking what I was thinking about most these days, and I was surprised to hear myself say that I’d been contemplating a single question: How do I stay sane in a world gone mad? As soon as I said it out loud, I realized that I had been thinking about it near-constantly. In part because I have had to in order to survive this turbulent time in the media. But also because I’m asked about this often by fellow journalists, particularly young ones. Meghan probed me in helpful ways: How do I structure my day? How do I avoid taking extreme positions? What exactly do I do to resist audience capture? It made me reflect on the specific strategies that I have adopted, and what I have learned trying to implement them.

So, I thought that I would outline it all here, as a follow-up to last year’s advice column for aspiring muckrakers, Letters to a Young Journalist.

Let me start by being real with you: Media is a stressful occupation. I have lived out my entire adult life on deadline, perpetually at the mercy of the news cycle. The gigs are precarious and not especially lucrative, the hours are long, and the competition is stiff. This has been true of 99 percent of media for as long as I’ve been a journalist, some 22 or so years. But the current climate has added new pressures, particularly for those trying to avoid the extremes of the culture wars, political partisanship, and audience capture. In an age of outrage, staying calm is far from easy. And standing in the centre, resisting being pulled to either pole, is, I think, one of the hardest things one can do. Certainly, all of the incentives online run in the opposite direction.

There is also the matter of one’s constitution to consider. Some of us metabolize stress and intensity better than others. As it happens, I am maddingly sensitive — both physically and emotionally — and so I have to work extra hard to stay grounded. Thankfully, I have had the benefit of talking this through with a lot of incredible journalists, whose suggestions have been invaluable. All told, I feel decently well-positioned to offer younger journalists some guidance on how to cover the news without totally losing one’s mind.

So, here are my top tips for keeping your cool in a crazy media environment:

1. Focus on your relationships, not your career. During the Great Depression, researchers at Harvard began collecting data on 268 students (including JFK), for what became one of the globe’s longest studies. The findings? The quality and quantity of close relationships in your life “are better predictors of long and happy lives than social class, IQ, or even genes.” This may be intuitive for many of us. I was late to understanding it, and it has been the most important lesson I’ve ever learned. Here’s how it relates to journalism: If your work life is going to be a roller coaster, you need your home life to be a refuge. That means investing time and energy in relationships with loved ones. I promise you, it is worth every second you spend on it. Author and Free Press founder Nellie Bowles and I discussed this when she came on the podcast earlier this year. For a few years before she and her wife Bari Weiss started the Free Press, they were travelling a lot and life was chaotic, she told me. “In order to build The Free Press, that home life has been the most important thing,” Nellie said. “I’m sort of bastardizing the quote right now, but to be wild in your work, you have to be bourgeois in your home … We have very boring lives, but then we can be crazy nine-to-five.” Do whatever you need to do to ensure that when you log off at night, there’s something more than takeout and Netflix waiting for you.

2. Understand that this too shall pass. The only constant in life is change. Things are volatile right now, but they won’t always be this way. Similarly, if people online hate you right now, they won’t hate you forever. Many of the young journalists that I speak to live in constant fear of being cancelled. It’s a valid worry, but no one wants to live like that. So, let me say this: As someone who has experienced a viral moment — and then an online pile-on and numerous media hit pieces — I can tell you that it’s not as bad as you imagine. It’s terrible, don’t get me wrong. But it’s also not the end of the world. If you stand your ground, don’t get bated into reacting, and keep doing the work you believe in, it passes relatively quickly. Then one day, when it’s all over, you’ll realize that you are stronger and less afraid. And you’ll be a better journalist for it. It’s also really freeing to realize that — as Katherine Brodsky, author of No Apologies: How to Find and Free Your Voice in the Age of Outrage, Lessons for the Silenced Majority, told me — many of the people who take swipes at you online won’t even remember having done so. Holding grudges against them eats away at your soul, and it has the potential to radicalize you in destructive ways. It’s also a total waste of energy. So, if you can, let it go. The people who slag you on the Internet are still good people in many ways, and they are still capable of doing good work out in the world. They have rich and complicated inner lives, just like you do. And they have challenges, just like you do. They can, and will, surprise you in wonderful ways if you let them. One day, you might even cross paths with them in real life and get to see this up close.

3. Cultivate other interests. The worst thing you can do is get so laser-focused on the news cycle that you lose all sense of proportion. Yes, the news is awful. Of course it is. But life is beautiful. The sun is shining out there in the wider world, where people are thinking and talking about other things. Your job is to remind yourself of this on a daily basis. This past week, I did that by baking a chocolate cake, and later cornbread and buttermilk biscuits, sitting down for a pineapple baked ham with my partner and our extended family, snuggling with the dog, and, before bed every night, reading Ina Garten’s delicious memoir, Be Ready When the Luck Happens. In doing so, I reminded myself for the thousandth time that I’d be just as happy cooking for friends and family and writing food memoirs as I am doing the podcast. So if journalism doesn’t work out, I’ll be just fine in the kitchen. (And will email you all brownie recipes.)

4. Try to keep things in perspective. I know I just said that being a journalist is hard, and it is. But let’s be honest here, we’re not scrubbing toilets — as Musa al-Gharbi recently reminded me on the podcast. Our job is still way easier than what so many people have to do to get by. So, let’s be grateful. We get to read interesting things and talk to interesting people, frequently from the comfort of our own homes. Life is really not that hard. We have it pretty good.

5. Make friends outside the media. The media is a bubble, and it can be limiting. In general, we tend to be more urban, liberal, and secular than most people — and so our views can be wildly out of step with mainstream public opinion. There is no better way to stay cognizant of this than to have a wide social circle, and to seek out relationships with people different from ourselves. The journalist Ross Barkan spoke about this recently on the podcast: “Most of my friends circle is not in media. I have friends in media, but I think it can be very toxic if your entire social life is within the confines of media. It can be very dangerous, because then you are writing and reporting in such a way where you don’t want to offend your friends … I keep a separation. I’ve done that for a while now. I will continue to do it.”

6. Live somewhere that’s not New York or DC (or Toronto!). The media is geographically concentrated in unhealthy ways. You can give yourself a fresh perspective, fresh story ideas, and fresh contacts by living somewhere else. Steve Krakauer, a former CNN executive and the current executive producer of The Megyn Kelly Show, told me recently how much he has gained from moving away from New York. “Most of the people that I encounter here in Dallas, in Texas, who are not overly political — maybe lean left, maybe lean right — they were not thinking about the world during [the Trump] years in the same way that the media did,” he said. “People are complicated, and have messy points of views. That is not reflected in what we see in our corporate press.” One of these days, I’ll take Steve’s advice and move out of Toronto.

7. Get to know a few Conservatives. Seriously. Media is overwhelmingly left-leaning and — surprise! — the general public is not. So many of the mistakes we make are borne of ignorance, of having zero awareness of what the Conservative view (or views) might be. Go find out. I promise you there’s nothing to be afraid of.

8. Get a dog. Journalists operate best when we’re tapped into our local communities. And there is no better way to get connected than by getting a dog. You will meet many people from all walks of life. Then, instead of only talking to other journalists, you can ask your dog owner friends what they think of the news of the day. (Spoiler alert: their views will surprise you.) Also, when you have a dog, you do not have the luxury of staying chained to your desk, in a work coma, for hours at a time. You will be forced to get outside, touch grass, and speak to other human beings. Plus, if you happen to be new to journalism, there is no better way to learn how to talk to people. It’s a crash course in performing “streeter” interviews, all day every day!

9. Exercise regularly. Nothing clears the head more. A column that takes me an agonizing two days to write will spill out of me in three hours after a workout.

10. Believe in something bigger than yourself (and politics). I have become convinced that having some form of spiritual life is not just helpful but essential. More and more these days, I try to tap into the mystery and wonder of the universe, and to cultivate a connection to something greater — and more enduring — than bitter political polarization. Sometimes I do this by attending service at a church near my house, a gorgeous cathedral with a world-class music program. Other times I do it through silent meditation, spending time in nature, or taking yoga classes. I have started asking people about this side of their lives on the podcast, and I am always rewarded when I do. (Please feel free to share your own ways of connecting in the comments section.)

11. Believe in the goodness of your fellow human beings. There is nothing more draining to the spirit than scorn. It is so corrosive. I try to start from the baseline belief that most people I interact with are well-intentioned, and look for the good in them. When I manage this, my life — and my work — is full of hope.

12. Don’t waste your time squabbling online. Never, ever get into fights with people on social media. Your work speaks for itself; you don’t have to get into the trenches and defend it. Better to spend that time focusing on all the amazing people out there. Find them, and then interview them. Feed hope not hate.

13. Laugh whenever you can. The newsrooms that I came up in were big on gallows humour. We joked about all the darkness we covered, and nothing was off limits. That’s how we made it through. Then, in 2020, we all lost our sense of humour and life got way more stressful. But I don’t want to live in a world without laughter. So I have replaced the jokes of gruff, grizzled reporters with stand-up comedy legends, from Chappelle to Gervais. There’s nothing I love more than going to the Comedy Cellar in New York and laughing until my stomach hurts. Life is hilarious. We must never forget this.

14. Surround yourself with people who take risks. Conformity sucks. It is utterly stultifying. Find people who dare to be different, and let them energize you. Listening to Meghan’s podcast in 2020 and 2021 gave me the courage to go independent. I have never regretted it.