E12 Radio Television Digital News Association (RTDNA) Mental Health Initiatives: Insights from Tara Puckey & Christen DeBard

Dr. Kortni (00:00)
Welcome to the Compassionate Newsroom, your gateway to transforming the heart and soul of journalism.

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Dr. Kortni (01:02)
I'm Dr. Kortni and welcome to episode 12 of the Compassionate Newsroom podcast. Today we're chatting with Tara Puckey, the Executive Director of the Radio, Television, and Digital News Association, also known as RTDNA. She has a rich background in leading journalists and nonprofit professionals to success, having trained more than 1,400 of them in effective leadership.

Also joining us is Christian DeBard, RTDNA's Director of Events and Education. Together they'll share the latest resources RTDNA has developed to support mental health for news leaders and their teams.

So let's jump in.

Dr. Kortni (01:45)
So super excited. Two of my favorite human beings from RTDNA, an organization that I cherish and I've been a part of when I was a news director and value all the things that you guys do. Tara, Christen thank you so much for being here today.

Tara Puckey & Christen DeBard (02:02)
Thanks so much for having us.

Dr. Kortni (02:05)
before we dive into all the great work that you do at RTDNA, I wanna find out from you who were the incredible leaders in your career

Tara Puckey  (02:15)
It's a great question. I've mentioned this publicly before, if he were to listen, he would know. Joe Skeel was one of the very first bosses that I ever had, and I cherished his mentorship for so many reasons. One, I think everything we did was approached with a sense of high tolerance for risk and a seeking of innovation and thoughtful ideas.

So there was never a stupid idea. Everything was always worth exploring. And there was never essentially consequences for ideas that didn't work out exactly as you thought they were going to. So he really allowed his team to be full of smart people. He got out of their way. He let them innovate and ask good questions and drive projects forward to places that I don't think sometimes he even saw coming.

And he did it all by allowing people to show up authentically in the workplace. And so I think that instilled in me some of those values that I've tried to carry forward. And I just appreciated my time with him so much. And I think whenever you have great leaders like that, they tend to continue to be part of your life moving forward. So he is still a valued connection of mine. I actually just talked to him about 45 minutes ago.

I think when you find good leaders, they tend to influence your life during that time when you work together, but also long after.

Dr. Kortni (03:42)
Absolutely. It says so much to the fact that you guys are still connected and literally you just spoke to him. So that says a great deal. Christen, I'm curious, what about you?

Christen DeBard (03:52)
she's probably going to be embarrassed. But being that I was probably only four or five years into my career when I met Tara and she brought me on board here at RTDNA, she is probably the best leader and boss I personally have gotten to work with. What she says about Joe and the things that she's brought forward.

think that that is very true. She has been so supportive in everything we do here. She's thoughtful. So the fact that she said that Joe was that, she's really done a really good job about bringing that into all that we do. She really does a good job of just looking at all of her employees as people. there are gonna be days where she knows

that if we come to her and say, I'm kind of coming at lower speed, I'm not really in a good head space, there's no shame, there's no pressure for us to not admit that. I think that on the good days, that makes you even feel better about the work you do is knowing that when the bad days happen, there's not gonna be repercussions.

very, very true what she said about how she's been able to bring a lot of the good things forward because she truly has. Thanks, friend.

Dr. Kortni (05:05)
I'm clairvoyant. I felt that you were going to talk about Tara and I was so happy because she is incredible. She really is incredible. I remember the first time I met her at the American Press Institute and she sat in on my session and I was like, yes, I was so happy and happy that we connected. And I love what you shared about her in regards to

Christen DeBard (05:13)
Yeah.

Dr. Kortni (05:33)
You really humanizing her team, right? Because that is so super important in regards to making sure that your team feels seen safe and supported. Tara, did you realize this was gonna be a banquet about you today?

Tara Puckey  (05:48)
I did not, did not. Talking about myself is one of my least favorite things to do. But I think what this is so important, right? Which is that no one takes off their human hat and walks into work and puts on just a work hat, right? Like you never ever show up that way. And so if you're not understanding, accepting and appreciating the things that your team.

Comes to the table with on a daily basis, whether it's kids or family or any other challenge that may be happening in their life or success that may be happening in their life, you're selling yourself short because you're not taking advantage of their bandwidth and capacity to do really incredible things if you're expecting them to put all of that aside.

Dr. Kortni (06:37)
I really treasure what you just shared there because it's so important. You have an extensive background in leadership, training planning, and all of those different elements that you pull into RTDNA. How do you feel that those skills really help you in terms of your approach within the organization?

Christen DeBard (07:05)
I've been able to look at the way that Tara leads our staff specifically. The general idea being that your people are humans and they're going to have those days, but they're going to have good days too. So you just need to be, like she said, understanding. You need to have that open ear to listen and maybe they aren't able to talk to you about it. So, having the ability to read between the lines of what things are happening. think honestly, all this kind of really boiled up the conversations about mental health in the news industry, I think 2020 and COVID, the civil unrest from all of the things that were happening that year, I think that made us really have the opportunity to get to have these conversations.

We had a couple of task forces that were focused specifically on mental health. We were talking to people in leadership in the organization, some regular members, and just trying to figure out and gather all of this information about what their true struggles were and how mental health was feeding into those struggles. And what it kind of boiled down to was we were figuring out that a lot of people in leadership roles and news directors, were journalists before they became news directors. So that makes them really good at the journalism side of the news director But COVID and all of that stuff really brought up into the forefront all of the struggles that everybody was having with their mental health. So all of these news directors were having issues with, the human side, the leader side. For someone that's having a really rough time covering very dark things all day long, all week long. So everyone in these task forces, they were coming to us and saying, I don't have any support or any idea how to truly talk to my staff about this stuff. So that really kind of made us say, hey, we focus on leadership. This should be a really big part of how to be a leader and knowing how Tara treats us on staff, that has been a big push for me of finding people like you and some of the other trainers that have come to our conferences that can look at a person as a person is not just an employee.

That who can do a great job but can also have some rough days and how to really support them in every sense

Dr. Kortni (09:35)

That's so important in terms of having that level of support. I treasure that with RTDNA. It's coming right from the top, right? Tara is the executive director of the organization. And it speaks to so much in regards to your mission, As an organization in terms of serving the industry and how it's starting And how you continue to spread that.

You also talked about the task forces that formed during the pandemic. I'm curious about some of the common concerns you found with members in regards to leaders as it relates to mental health

Tara Puckey (10:15)
I think there's a couple challenges. I think one of the biggest parts is how leaders are able to support their staff, right? And this is from everything that they bring to work, but then also the things that they encounter at work. And so how are they able to provide support as Christen mentioned, addresses some of the really difficult things that they're covering?

And listen, news directors and managers of any kind, and we truly believe you can be a leader from wherever you are, but that's not what you are equipped to do, right? This is a secondary skill in providing some of that support. And so for us, it was recognizing what are the tools that somebody needs to be that first responder to figure out what levers and mechanisms need to be pulled when somebody needs additional support. So I think that's one piece of it.

The second piece of it is that if you are spending a vast majority of your time or a big chunk of your time providing mental health support to your team, who is providing mental health support to you? Where are you getting that? How are you making sure that you are seeking the self-care, the decompression, really the thoughtfulness that has to go into your own mental wellbeing? Because you can't pour from an empty cup.

If you're giving it all away, you're not really taking good care of yourself. And so for us, it was making sure that we approached it from both of those avenues. I think this also aligns with the fact that in the broadcast industry, we have sometimes taken ourselves a bit too seriously perhaps, right? And I think it really comes down to the fact that the culture has to be approachable. It has to be empathetic. It has to be collaborative and it has to be caring. And sometimes, you know, old school newsroom cultures get in the way of that progress. And so for RTDNA, it was making sure that we balanced really good journalism, quality work, all of the fundamental skills of doing the reporting and making sure your communities are informed with the knowledge and information that they need, but also making sure that your employees come to a place where they feel supported, that they're working somewhere, that they feel the work matters, and that people pull up alongside them because they want not only better journalism, but to see them succeed as team members. And then also that leaders are recognizing that it's okay to take some time for yourself, that it's okay to do things like you can do at our conference, which is just sitting down with puppies or playing a game with other people or recognizing that every free minute doesn't have to be back at the computer, checking the email, tackling the tough problems that sometimes it really just is providing yourself with space and grace to show up as a human and recognize that you need some down.

Dr. Kortni (12:57)
I really treasure that because I often share how leadership, right? It starts with you in terms of how you're caring for yourself and then also making sure that you're thinking about not only yourself, but also your team. One of the things I also valued with RTDNA is your recent leadership retreat that I felt so honored to serve as a trainer for. And as you were talking about the puppies and different animals, because I missed some of the activities that happened by the time I flew in. But I love the levels of different resources that RTDNA was able to provide. Let's talk about that. Tell us about some of those resources that you share and have available to members in terms of helping news leaders.

Tara Puckey or Christen DeBard (13:56)
Yeah, so Christen, I think can speak to the really fun pieces of our conference because that's important. We call that the self-care hour. Outside of our conference, though, I think we've tried really hard to weave mental health into each piece of what we do. So smaller regional events include a mental health component. We talk about taking care of yourself and others when we meet with young leaders at a program that we gear toward first time or soon to be leaders.

Online resources, virtual education, those pieces and parts are really important. But I do think when we have everybody together at conference, we have the ability to do some things that you're not finding at every other conference, but that really lend to taking a step back and showing up as a whole person. and Christen does a great job of making sure those things happen. at every conference that was...

When we were building this conference from scratch a few years ago, that was something that we really wanted to instill. The general idea was we wanted people to be able to collaborate and build a community at conference. With that, it's a smaller conference, so you're able to build connections with everybody instead of being really a face in the crowd.

With that, it's allowed us to really bring in some fun elements. Like we've had some form of animal at every conference so far. The first two years we had puppies from local animal shelters. This past year, I'm so sad you got to, you had to miss it. It was a big hit. We had a local farm bring in a whole bunch of different animals. So that was really fun having all of those, farm animals in the middle of very historic Pfister Hotel in Milwaukee.

Dr. Kortni (15:25)
I know.

Christen DeBard (15:36)
Apparently, that was the first time any non-domesticated animal had been in their hotel since the 1950s. So that was real fun for us, logistic-wise, to figure out how to make that happen. But yeah, we also offer other things during those self-care times.

We have the lounge available for people if they, really do need a chance to sit down and just relax or check their emails if they need to. We really try to get them to do something fun, though. So this past year we had, you know, an art tour because there were a bunch of really, really cool and historic pieces throughout the Pfister Hotel. we had a curated art tour was a big deal. Do some opportunities to get some exercise. we try to do some walks around wherever we're at that are usually tour based as well. We brought in massage chairs, you know, if you need some help just fully physically relaxing. it's just having all of that added in to a conference that in the education, we try to have every session be someway through a mental health lens. In some way, whatever the topic is, we want that to be a focus of some way. So it's been really fun trying to build all programming as well as all of the activities around that. Because we think at the end of the day, that being a foundation of everything is accurate.

If you have a good mental health, if you are taking care of it, you're in a better position to do anything.

Dr. Kortni (17:12)
You're absolutely right. It really helps you, right, in terms of being grounded and building on that foundation and helping to serve yourself in terms of being able to serve your team. one of the things that Tara said that I really valued was caring.

and empathy. what does it take to create that? And what advice would you offer in terms of starting it?

Tara Puckey (17:33)
I mean, I think at the end of the day, and I feel like we say this a lot and everybody's like, yeah, obviously, but building relationships with the people you work with is really step one. And I don't know why everybody says that they get that and then they don't do it, but that's the case. mean, like when we look at what makes teams and organizations successful, it is building relationships where you establish a collaborative, supportive spirit among everyone because they want to see the team succeed. Sure, it's important to care about the mission. Sure, it's important to care about the work. At the end of the day, if you don't have people who care about working alongside each other, you're probably not going to get very far. And so I ask when I train people both in and out of journalism a lot of like, how many of you could go to a restaurant and order something that you know your team would eat?

How many of you could go and buy a souvenir at a place for each of your team members? And not just a key chain, but like something that is meaningful to them. So do you know what food they like? Do you know if they have a dog and they would appreciate a cute treat for their dog? Do they have kids? What do they do in their off time? I know people tend to get a little panicked because, HR has rules and regulations and all these things we can't ask.

I'm not saying you should grill someone about their personal life from day one, but I am saying if you spend a little bit of time talking to people, they will share with you what is important to them. Whether it's they like hiking after work or, you know, they're a huge movie buff. There are lots of things you can learn about people that are not on the HRs list of do not ask questions. that's how you start to build those relationships. everybody asks like, what is the,

Dr. Kortni (18:54)
Yeah.

Tara Puckey (19:15)
The trick is to start to learn about the people that you work with. And then once you've learned stuff, you have to embed that flexibility and empathy. not every line is black or white. There is a ton of gray space in there where you are able to give people grace and space to just exist. And a little goes a long way. So that would be what I would say.

The only thing I would add to that would be when you're trying to build that relationship with your staff, sometimes in a lot of, especially in like more corporate settings, it can seem like it's not genuine if you're trying to make a connection. I think a lot of times the idea of, well, we're a family here is thrown around without like a true effort to be a family.

Dr. Kortni (19:38)
Yeah.

Christen DeBard (20:00)
I think in a lot of times that is used as like a way to be like, well, we really care about our employees. I think that you just need to be genuine about it. If you want to get to know your employees, be genuine when you come to  and truly get to know them. And without saying we're a family, you become kind of a work family and it feels more natural. I've had a lot of good, leaders in my day. I did talk about Tara.

But even at bigger companies that I've worked at, if you're being genuine about the connections you're making, you're in a much better place.

Dr. Kortni (20:34)
Absolutely. I really valued what the both of you shared because it speaks so much about being seen, right? And really getting to know the people around you. And it brought me back when I was a news director and I was being trained out of NAB, the National Association of Broadcasters. And one of the things that came out of a session was, you don't talk to people or treat people the way...you want to be treated, you treat them the way they want to be treated, right? Which has a really different understanding than what we often have been told about the quote golden rule. And I love that because it speaks to so much of you really, really diving in and getting to know your individuals and the people around you. So recently I connected with a news director that I trained at the RTDNA leadership retreat and he shared how he was implementing some of the things that I shared during the session in his newsroom. I was really happy to hear that. And so I'm curious, because I know you guys are full of the stories in regards to all the great news directors that are coming out of the sessions and then hearing about  it's been successfully implemented. Are there any stories that come to mind of not only the professional development of RTDNA, but then also the level of support with RTDNA.

Tara Puckey (22:00)
That's a good question. what we hear from most of the people that move through any piece of our training is, I hadn't thought of all of these things this way, right? And so when you think about what does that mean for leaders in their newsrooms, we had folks in our crime coverage summits last year we had a speaker come in and talk about the actual amount of hours it takes for your body to decompress from certain types of events. one of the things they said is like, I had not thought of the number of hours I needed to have an employee take some downtime or not go back out into the field after covering a traumatic event. Because if it's at the end of your shift, they go home, you ask them the next morning, are they OK? But is that truly enough time for their body to have recovered? Just the physicality of what that trauma does to your body. The takeaway for so many of them is the tools are cumulative. So they're getting stuff from the retreat that you did for us. They're getting stuff from the crime coverage summit that they may have attended from our conference. And at the end of the day, it's not one thing, but I think of it as pouring into their cup, the more time that they spend with us, the more thoughtful they become about mental health care for themselves and their teams. we start to kind of see those changes move throughout their newsroom.

Dr. Kortni (23:21)
That's great. Christen, anything else you want to add?

Christen DeBard (23:24)
Some sessions we've had, one of the conversations, and it really stuck with me was truly finding out that the idea of behind the word grief doesn't only relate to, the loss that you feel in some way of, a loved one or something like that. had never really been put in the context of, like she said, trauma that you go through. That's not always physical to you.

I've never thought about it in the way until we had a trainer talk about that at our crime coverage summit. The idea of, you are truly working through your grief in whatever way it's come at you. You can be going through grief over a really, really hard news story that you had to put together, a family you had to interview and work with, and just talking through what they would go through. It can really affect you. And like she said, like,

It truly does wear on someone. that was just a learning moment for a lot of the people that I heard at that conference specifically was the idea that they had never been able to put the correct word to that before. And that truly is going through a period of grief. But allowing yourself to go through that is the biggest thing. So allowing yourself, like she said, the time to decompress for that is very important. A boss or a leader in your newsroom that is understanding of that and that's immeasurable how important it is.

Dr. Kortni (24:46)
Absolutely. It really is immeasurable. looking ahead, what RTDNA's plans are in any future initiatives to mental health and the well-being among members. Is anything coming up?

Tara Puckey (25:00)
I don't know that we have anything specific coming up. What I will say is I think for us, like I mentioned, I think it's the continued integration of that into everything that we do. In addition to that, it's collaborating with people who also see this as a critical component of newsroom success. we have worked with the American Press Institute. I foresee us working with others because I think it is now more of a topic, more of a focus that journalism support organizations are talking about more, station groups are talking about more, that think newsrooms themselves are talking about more. And so I think for us, it really just continues to be a key component of every single thing that we do and making sure that we're making it accessible and available to everybody.

Dr. Kortni (25:46)
Excellent. Christen, you  to add anything?

Christen DeBard (25:48)
Like she said, it will be a foundation for everything that we will be doing in the upcoming year, especially our conference that we'll have in June again. I'm sure that will be a conversation. It always is something that the committee wants, so for sure.

Dr. Kortni (26:05)
Excellent. Well, this is my last question, and it's a question that I've asked all the guests. What does compassionate leadership mean to you? What does it look like to you?

Christen DeBard (26:17)
I like to think that it is like, think I'm going to accidentally reuse some of my words, but I truly think you need to be a genuine empathetic person in every instance that you have with someone on your team. Whatever position you are in your newsroom, whether you might not be a news director, you can still be a leader.

So I think if you're going at everything with a way to be understanding of someone in whatever instance that they might or whatever issue they might be going through, I think if you are being that person, it comes naturally after a while if you're being genuine about it. I think that that's the basis.

Dr. Kortni (27:03)
So true.

Tara Puckey (27:04)
I would say like in its most explicit definition for me in the simplest terms would be appreciating, understanding and adjusting to people's humanity, right? You have to see it to understand it and you have to understand it to be able to adjust to their needs. And I think that's what being compassionate to folks on your team and yourself means.

Dr. Kortni (27:27)
Wow, thank you so, so much you two for being here with us today, talking about not only the great work that you're doing with RTDNA, but then also being able to really empower news leaders, to really think about how to take care of themselves. Tara, Christian, thank you so much for being here today.

Tara Puckey (27:46)
Thank you so much, Kortni. 

Dr. Kortni (27:48)
Thank you for tuning into the Compassionate Newsroom podcast. Together, we can transform workplace well-being in news. If you found value in today's episode, please share it with a colleague to help foster a supportive environment in the industry. And don't forget to subscribe and also visit our website for more resources at thecompassionatenewsroom.com