In August 2014, I took my oldest to the first day of school and drove to the airport, headed for Ferguson. I’d covered St. Louis for five years, but while reporting on the journalists getting arrested and the media coverage after Michael Brown's death, I had no clue what I was doing or how to stay safe while doing it. 

This isn’t a war story, it’s a “I was really naive” story. I reached out to a handful of journalists on the ground ahead of time, found them, and they quickly helped me get a sense of what was happening. I wasn’t tear-gassed or arrested. I was able to talk to people about how they thought the media was covering the story and to journalists there about their work. And I pushed to tell the stories of local journalists, starting a mini-beat that turned into my whole job.  

Unlike me, Sergio Olmos knows what he’s doing. The Oregon Public Broadcasting reporter has covered protests, riots and extremist movements in Portland for months, and protest movements around the world for years before that. 

I spoke with him, Kari Cobham from the Rosalynn Carter Fellowships for Mental Health Journalism and Media, and my Poynter colleagues Joie Chen and Samantha Ragland for a collection of tips on physical and mental health in the weeks ahead.

“This is the kind of training that we used to offer to people going overseas to conflict zones,” Chen said, “the kind of security we used to offer people going into a warzone. Now it’s become increasingly common for local newsrooms.”

I hope their tips help you cover whatever is ahead. Here are a few: 

• When on the ground, don’t dress like the crowd. Olmos wears khakis and dress shirts, not his normal attire, so that he doesn’t look like protesters. 
• Turn the touch ID and face ID off on your phone so no one can force you to open it and delete or review your footage. 
• And for my fellow white colleagues, know that the trauma you’re feeling from a week of unprecedented coverage is even worse for journalists of color. Cobham put it like this: “If white journalists and newsroom leaders are scared and traumatized, journalists of color are experiencing it on a deeper level — under constant threat, watching white supremacists freely riot, dealing with daily microaggressions and racism, and trying to do their jobs well, often while trying to affect change in very white newsroom cultures,” Cobham said. “That’s layered trauma. Acknowledge that, prioritize mental health, elevate voices and experiences and take another look at how you’re framing coverage. Make mental health a priority, give journalists the resources they need to safely cover violence, promote journalists of color and pay them equitably. The nation might be on fire, but it’s past time to put out the fires causing trauma in your own house.”

That’s it for me. 

Stay safe,

Kristen