Constructive journalism and the perceived wellbeing of journalists

Abstract

Constructive journalism (CJ), an innovative interdisciplinary approach to news reporting grounded in psychology, has been lauded as a potential solution to the crisis of trust and avoidance in journalism. The approach has been taken up by global news organisations in Australia, the UK, and Denmark. Despite its potential and uptake, research on this emerging form of journalism is still developing, often at a slower pace than its implementation. Simultaneously, the wellbeing of journalists has come to the fore, with mounting evidence of a mental health crisis brought upon the industry, in part caused by the types of stories that journalists report on, their work conditions, and at times the conflict between their values and the requests of editors. As CJ has a core principle of responsible reporting and focuses on producing a different style of stories, we asked journalists trained at the Constructive Institute at Aarhus University in Denmark (n = 33) if CJ had had a perceived value or efficacy in improving their wellbeing. This work contributes to the broader field of journalistic knowledge as there is little research on the impact of the use of CJ on journalists themselves, and none published on CJ and journalists’ wellbeing. More broadly, the work aligns with calls to better understand what factors retain journalists and bolster their workplace wellbeing. Our findings suggest constructive journalism cannot overcome all workplace factors that impact wellbeing, but we can show a perceived benefit for those who are supported by their employer in implementing CJ.

Keywords

journalism occupational health health mental health journalism (profession)social change

Introduction

News organisations have come under criticism for their negativity bias and traditional reporting practices that can portray a skewed perception of the world. In response, new approaches to reporting, such as constructive journalism, have seen increased uptake in practice and scholarship (Lough and McIntyre, 2023). Based in psychology and the behavioural sciences, constructive journalism responds to criticisms of the negativity bias in news, and its impact on audiences’ perceptions of the world and their ability to address collective issues (Gyldensted, 2015; Haagerup, 2017). The approach has a strong ethos of responsibility to the public, and involves reporting on solutions and developments alongside problems, and expanding the lens of news to include a broader diversity of sources. Scholarship interested in the influence of constructive journalism has predominately, however, focused on the influence of these reporting techniques on audiences (such as mood; McIntyre and Lough, 2018) and measures important to newsrooms (such as trust and engagement; Van Antwerpen et al., 2025a), without exploring the influence of constructive journalism on journalists themselves. Given journalism as a profession often exposes professionals to traumatic situations, moral injury – the negative effect on wellbeing coming from witnessing moral transgressions or violating one’s own ethical code, and workplace conditions with a high likelihood of burnout (Monteiro et al., 2016), we therefore sought to investigate whether practicing constructive journalism is constructive for the perceived wellbeing of journalists themselves. Accordingly, in this paper we present the results of a survey of early adopters who trained at the Constructive Journalism Institute at Aarhus University in Denmark to report on their motivations for training in constructive journalism and their experiences of implementing constructive techniques, particularly their perception of whether constructive journalism impacts on their wellbeing. The results of this study demonstrate that journalists trained in constructive journalism perceive the techniques as a necessary reform, that the techniques improve their own practice, and in turn, benefit their wellbeing from their self-perception of making a more positive impact through their work. Despite these benefits, however, the respondents acknowledge that there remain critical barriers to implementing constructive journalism in their newsrooms, challenges which they perceive need to be overcome to fully realise the potential of constructive journalism to improve their wellbeing and positively impact on society. As such, where constructive journalism is found to potentially address major challenges of journalism practice, such as reducing moral injury, it cannot fix all the demands of the work influencing journalists’ wellbeing, including time and resource pressures.

Background

Within their work, journalists are frequently exposed to traumatic events, required to focus on negative topics – such as disasters, corruption, and conflict – and to do so without allowing their own emotions to influence their reporting (Knight, 2024; Kotisova, 2019; Monteiro et al., 2016). Alongside precarity, harassment and abuse, often dangerous working conditions, intensive and unpredictable hours, and incidents of moral injury (Feinstein et al., 2018; Monteiro et al., 2016; Osmann et al., 2024), these factors frequently place journalists at risk of poor mental health. Additionally, journalists often become disillusioned with their work, with many reporting considering quitting their profession due to perceived meaninglessness, lack of professional efficacy, or conflict with their values (Monteiro et al., 2016). The growing number of journalists considering or actively leaving the profession has led to calls for better understanding of both what leads journalists to leave, and what factors support workplace wellbeing and satisfaction, i.e., what leads journalists to stay (Perreault, 2023; Rick, 2023).

Increased attention to journalists’ mental health has led to suggestions for changes to workplace practice and greater support for reporters (Monteiro et al., 2016). While important, these changes are largely focused on structural issues in the workplace, rather than the concerns about conflicts with personal values, potential moral injury, or disillusionment with the profession and its contribution to society. More broadly, within workplace wellbeing, particularly in journalism workplaces, there has often been a greater focus on hedonic wellbeing – that is, maximizing positive affect and minimizing pain or negative affect, in the workplace often related to emotion-related job satisfaction – while eudaimonic wellbeing has been less investigated. Eudaimonic wellbeing concerns the sense of wellbeing that comes from pursuing goals and living in a way that is aligned with someone’s value and identity (Ragsdale and Newman, 2023). Such wellbeing may be particularly important for journalism, given it is a challenging profession, but one that many people enter due to its alignment with a larger goal to contribute to society or social justice issues (Lough et al., 2024).

In this article, we explore whether journalists who have been trained in constructive journalism perceive this reporting approach to improve their wellbeing. As constructive journalism focuses on ethical and responsible reporting, and aims to combat negativity bias, it holds potential to address some aspects of journalism that lead to poor mental health. Constructive journalism may help to bolster aspects of journalism that have been found to promote a sense of happiness and/or meaning in reporting work, such as a sense of contributing to the community (Stephens and Natoli, 2024), and serving audiences (Perreault, 2023). To explore this, we undertook a survey evaluating journalists’ perceptions of constructive journalism and mental health to understand whether constructive journalism improves journalist wellbeing, potentially guiding further research and implementation.

Constructive journalism

Constructive journalism, an approach to reporting based in psychology and the behavioural sciences, is being adopted in newsrooms and by journalism educators (Bro, 2024), as has its counterpart solutions journalism, a subset of the approach more popular within the United States (Lough and McIntyre, 2023). This uptake includes global leading newsrooms, such as The New York Times, The Guardian, the Australian Broadcasting Company, and BBC (Bro, 2024). Since its initial development, constructive journalism has also grown in practice through the establishment of institutions and university curricula, including the Constructive Institute in Aarhus, Denmark, which provides fellowships for journalists to learn about the motivation and practice of constructive journalism (Institute, nd).

Both constructive and solutions journalism aim to challenge a negativity bias in news production, encouraging reporting on solutions as well as problems. Constructive journalism also includes a wider set of techniques beyond solutions, including (1) future orientation; (2) inclusiveness and diversity; (3) empowerment; (4) context; and (5) co-creation (Hermans and Gyldensted, 2019). Together, these elements are suggested to provide a more accurate picture of the world, to encourage positive societal responses and action, and to improve audiences’ trust in and engagement with news organisations (Hermans and Gyldensted, 2019). While increasingly constructive journalism has become a topic of conversation for journalism academics, it organically emerged from the work of practicing journalists, notably Cathrine Gyldensted and Ulrik Haagerup, who criticised traditional news for its focus on negativity and conflict (Gyldensted, 2015; Haagerup, 2017). Both proponents found the lens of traditional news neglected important stories and sides of the world that covered solutions, agreement/collective action, and stories of hope and resilience, which they suggest leads people to become less informed and more disempowered (Bro, 2024). That constructive journalism emerged from a critique of existing journalistic practice from working journalists is important for the current work, as an indication that the approach may help to address concerns of professionals in the field about the impacts and practices of journalism. While the emphasis on constructive journalism’s effects has often been placed on either its benefits for audiences and society (e.g., increasing efficacy, hope, and prosocial action) (Gyldensted, 2015), or for newsrooms (e.g., increasing trust) (Haagerup, 2017), further research is needed to understand its impact on journalists. Accordingly, this study explores how journalists perceive constructive journalism training to impact their wellbeing.

Constructive journalism and professionals’ wellbeing

The literature to date includes strong evidence that constructive journalism could improve audience wellbeing, with a robust finding that constructive journalism increases positive and decreases negative mood relative to traditional or problem-oriented news (Lough and McIntyre, 2023). While findings have found a mixture of positive and null results for efficacy, there is some suggestion that constructive or solutions journalism can also improve audience efficacy relative to traditional or problem-oriented news (Kleemans et al., 2022; Maduneme and Cohen, 2024; Overgaard, 2023). While these findings suggest a positive impact on audiences, the effects on journalists have yet to be tested.

Some studies have explored journalists’ perspectives of constructive journalism; however, this has usually been with a focus on its application and implementation, or how journalists perceive it in relation to journalistic roles and norms. Nevertheless, within these studies journalists report perceiving constructive journalism as playing a useful role in addressing societal negativity – also addressing a frequent query from their audiences – and as being better for newsrooms, audiences, and their country more broadly (Fölscher-Kingwill and Wasserman, 2024). This might also be of value to journalists themselves, with stories that go outside the usual negativity bias of the news being mentioned as a source of joy in journalistic work for reporters themselves, and as serving the community beyond just presenting problems (Perreault, 2023). While journalists generally still value the watchdog role of journalism, those interested in constructive journalism are also frequently interested in roles that also address the negativity bias of news, and the disconnection in newsrooms from emotion and society (Krüger et al., 2022). During the COVID-19 pandemic, journalists also perceived constructive journalism to improve the impact of their reporting on society, including reducing the negative impact of news on audiences and helping to improve collective responses to and understanding of the pandemic (Van Antwerpen et al., 2022). More broadly, both TV and newspaper journalists in the US value contextualist and socially responsible role orientations, aligning with constructive journalism (Abdenour et al., 2018; McIntyre et al., 2018). Overall, journalists generally perceive constructive journalism to align with more civic-oriented roles, helping them to serve their audiences and communities. We suggest this may be helpful for journalists as well, as a protective factor against some of the negative influences of news reporting on journalists’ mental health, including the issue of moral injury (Monteiro, 2016), and potentially promoting eudaimonic wellbeing where such changes are aligned with journalists’ sense of professional identity and values (Ragsdale and Newman, 2023).

Moral injury concerns the negative impact on a person, including their conscience and moral worldview, when they violate their own moral or ethical values, or codes of conduct. Moral injury often occurs because of perpetrating, witnessing, or failing to prevent actions with which the person disagrees on moral or ethical grounds (Feinstein et al., 2018). Journalists are therefore at risk of moral injury, with many acting as ‘first-line’ responders, witnessing acts of violence and oppression (Feinstein et al., 2018; Knight, 2024; Seely, 2019). Outside of witnessing moral transgressions, journalists have also reported job dissatisfaction because of editorial policies or workplace approaches that conflict with their motivations for becoming a journalist or perceptions of what journalism should be. In particular, there are concerns that newsrooms focus on profit without caring about the community, or on the quality of journalism produced (Plotner and Ferrucci, 2024). These effects are likely compounded by reporting on traumatic events, with reporters covering mass shooters more likely to exhibit poor mental health when they have experienced ethical dilemmas in their work (Stephens and Natoli, 2024; Wilson, 2016).

While constructive journalism research is yet to consider how the approach may influence journalists’ wellbeing, existing research has found journalists using the approaches to report feeling more resonance with the approach (Van Antwerpen et al., 2025b; Van Antwerpen and Hermans, 2025). A study on solutions journalism also found participants thought the approach renewed some of their hope in journalism and its purpose, particularly among those who were experiencing burnout or had reservations about the industry (Lough et al., 2024). Constructive journalism also places a strong emphasis on societal responsibility, and the role of journalism to serve society. Journalists covering war, violence, crime, and other traumatic events have described how recalling the purpose of journalism or its civic contribution acts as a coping strategy for their mental health (Knight, 2024; Seely, 2019). For example, a study of occupational stress among Mexican journalists, who work in particularly dangerous conditions, found their coping mechanisms to deal with this stress included focusing on their professional identity, their work gratification and their commitment to serving the public (Hughes et al., 2021). Similarly, engagement in service journalism increases professional satisfaction through its connection to journalism’s purpose to inform and improve civic decision-making (Stephens and Natoli, 2024). Conversely, guilt or concern over the impacts of reporting can negatively impact journalists’ wellbeing (Knight, 2024; Seely, 2019; Wilson, 2016). As many journalists are motivated to enter the industry for social justice reasons (Cretser-Hartenstein et al., 2024), by emphasising the societal contributions of journalism, constructive journalism may help journalists to cope with the emotional toll of reporting, and to prioritise reporting that helps them to feel purposeful and in line with their moral and ethical codes. Constructive journalism may also help journalists to feel more connected with their communities, as experienced by a newsroom transitioning to solutions journalism (Lough and McIntyre, 2023). Similarly, empowering victims of traumatic situations in reporting and interviews may also help to reduce the extent to which journalists are compelled to predominantly dwell on negative aspects of news.

Accordingly, we set out to explore journalists’ perceptions of how constructive journalism impacts their wellbeing, given its potential to adjust journalists’ predominant focus on negativity, and to better align with their original values and motivation to work in news. While an intervention or controlled trial would allow us to make strong causal claims, given the relative lack of scholarly publications in the area, we started with a survey of Constructive Institute alumni, intending to see if they perceived any connection between the approach and their personal or professional wellbeing. However, an important aspect of whether constructive journalism can serve to enhance journalists’ wellbeing and commitment to the profession is also whether they (a) are able to use it, and (b) it aligns with their values and approach to journalism. Accordingly, in addition to asking about their wellbeing, we also asked questions related to their practice of constructive journalism to better understand their responses to the wellbeing questions.

Method

This paper uses responses from a survey of graduates of the Constructive Journalism Fellowship program at Aarhus. Every graduate (n = 90) of the Constructive Journalism Institute’s Fellowship Program at Aarhus University was contacted by email in September 2024 asking them to answer a series of questions about their perception of wellbeing before, during and after their participation in the program. While most of the graduates of the Institute are Danish, the program is also open to other nationalities with sponsored programs for journalists from Finland. Graduates of the program work not only in Denmark, but Finland, Norway, India, Australia and the United States. This project was granted ethics approval by RMIT University in May 2024.

A total of n = 37 opened the survey and viewed the questions, but only n = 33 (36% of the total pool) answered the questions. Among those who finished the survey, the average time was 34.0 minutes. Of the 33 respondents, 21 were happy to have their name recorded against their comments and recorded the name of the organisation that they worked for. For consistency, participants are anonymized here, although many (n = 21) agreed to be named and approximately half (n = 15) provided email addresses offering to answer follow up questions. The largest number of respondents stated that they worked at the national public service radio and television stations in Denmark, Finland and Norway (n = 11), followed by Danish regional broadcasters (n = 3), Danish educators (n = 2), Danish and Norwegian metropolitan newspapers (n = 2), regional Danish newspapers (2) and one Australian metropolitan newspaper (n = 1). Of those who did not name their employer, the largest number were freelancing or said they owned their own company (n = 5), followed by broadcasters (n = 4), newsagency journalists (n = 2), print and web (n = 2), and print, broadcast and web (n = 1). Of those who named their employer (n = 21), seven (n = 7) said they changed employers after completion of their fellowship training.

Survey questions

The fellows were all emailed the survey and were asked if they wished to be anonymous and/or name their employer. The survey included a brief description of how we defined wellbeing, which was: a combination of a person’s physical, mental, emotional and social health factors. This definition aligns with the multifaceted concept of wellbeing (Ragsdale and Newman, 2023), while leaving sufficient openness for participants to respond about the aspects of wellbeing that most resonated with them in relation to their work and constructive journalism. All survey questions were open-text response, allowing for in-depth qualitative analysis of responses. The questions included in the survey included which year participants were a Constructive Journalism Fellow at CI, where they worked when they started the fellowship, why they were drawn to apply for the fellowship and whether personal wellbeing was one of the reasons they applied. They were also asked what regular changes they perceived in their journalism practice after completing the fellowship and were asked to provide an example of their work using constructive journalism techniques. In regard to wellbeing, participants were asked if they believed constructive journalism influenced their own wellbeing and the wellbeing of their community. They were then asked if they still work in the same role or have changed their role and/or employer, and if so, why they have changed. Finally, they were asked if they use constructive journalism in all their work post-fellowship, and if not, why not.

We used thematic analysis to analyse the survey’s written responses. This form of qualitative content analysis was used because it allowed us to become familiar with the material gathered from those trained in constructive journalism and to identify themes that organically grew from their response. As this was a small study it was possible for this work to be done manually with the lead author reviewing the responses and grouping them into themes, which were then discussed by the team. During this process, all members of the team reviewed the raw data, and were involved in the generation of themes, alongside the selection of extracts in the final write-up. The research team then worked together to define and name four distinct themes (listed below).

Results and discussion

Across the survey responses, four key themes were generated in the analysis in relation to perceived benefits of constructive journalism for journalists and their ability to implement the approach. These themes were: (1) reform: a desire to reform existing news reporting practices to improve personal wellbeing; (2) purpose: learning the techniques of constructive journalism improving journalists’ perceived wellbeing through a sense of satisfaction and purpose in their work and the positive influence of their work on society; (3) confidence: confidence to implement constructive journalism techniques into their work; and (4) challenges: despite recognising the benefits of constructive journalism for themselves and their organisations, journalists experience challenges to implementing the approach.

Theme 1: Reforming journalism

The first major theme identified in this study was that graduates of the Constructive Journalism Institute’s Fellowship Program at Aarhus University believed traditional news reporting practices should be reformed. This reform theme was particularly evident in responses to the survey question which asked why journalists undertook the fellowship. Approximately half of those surveyed (n = 16, 48%) mentioned part of their motivation for the fellowship was a concern about their personal wellbeing in relation to their work. Among the respondents (n = 15, 45%) who did not discuss undertaking the fellowship to improve their own wellbeing, two said they hoped constructive journalism would improve the wellbeing of their family members, colleagues and those in wider society who they thought could benefit from “more hope and solutions (broadcaster)” and a more “constructive approach to life and society (respondent: metro newspaper).”

Participants’ responses implied that they perceived current reporting practices to impact negatively on their wellbeing, and potentially the wellbeing of others, aligning with studies which regularly find that journalism is a stressful occupation with a rapid burnout rate (Monteiro et al., 2016). In explaining their motives for training in constructive journalism, respondents described how they saw constructive journalism as a way to find more work-life balance and meaning in their work. Journalists have been found to pursue their work because of social justice values (Cretser-Hartenstein et al., 2024), aligning with this desire for meaningful impact in their work. Respondents’ quest for more meaning also aligns with Hughes et al. (2021) who found Mexican journalists deal with the stress of their jobs by focusing on how their work serves the public. Additionally, these findings correspond with studies which find journalists’ concerns about negative impacts of their reporting can be deterimental to their wellbeing (Knight, 2024; Seely, 2019; Wilson, 2016). Survey respondents frequently expressed belief in constructive journalism’s potential to change journalism, and to in turn change how they felt about their jobs, a change which many believed would improve their wellbeing. Such findings also align with past work, which found being involved in a process of organisational change has been found to increase wellbeing among journalists where they see that change as improving news coverage (Massey and Ewart, 2012); suggesting that where journalists perceive constructive journalism to improve news coverage, it may also improve their workplace wellbeing.

Participants also perceived constructive journalism to live up to the hope that it would improve the personal and professional wellbeing of journalists. In response to an open-text question, two respondents described constructive journalism as having little or no impact on their wellbeing, with 81% (n = 27) discussing a positive impact on their wellbeing. This positive impact was described using words like happiness, satisfaction, purpose, meaning and values. For example, one respondent wrote that constructive journalism “gives my job a greater purpose (respondent: regional broadcaster)”; another wrote “It helps me feel that there is hope for journalism and it makes me feel that it is meaningful to work in journalism (respondent: regional broadcaster)”; and another said “When working as a classic journalist I often found myself being an old, grumpy man. Working with [constructive journalism] simply makes you in a better mood (respondent: educator).” One respondent wrote about the happiness they gain from their work:

“I have been a journalist for many years, and constructive journalism was for me an eye-opener and a breath of fresh air, that made sense and made it fun to do journalism again (respondent: newsagency).”

Overall, responses suggested that participants perceived constructive journalism to improve their mood and wellbeing through renewing a sense of purpose, creativity, and more positive orientation to the way they approached reporting. Such responses suggest constructive journalism can improve perceptions of both hedonic and eudaimonic wellbeing – contributing to journalists’ positive affect while at work and also contributing to a greater sense of alignment with their values and professional identity (Ragsdale and Newman, 2023).

Theme 2: Purpose in constructive journalism improves wellbeing

A key theme of the many responses which reported improved personal and professional wellbeing aligned with the hopes that constructive journalism would bring more purpose and meaning to journalists’ works through increased societal impact, increasing their satisfaction in their jobs. For instance, 11 respondents reported that they felt better about their journalism when applying constructive journalism principles. This included using descriptive words such as pleasure, happiness, meaning, and professionally satisfying to discuss their constructive reporting. For example, one respondent reported:

“[constructive journalism] stories are more satisfying to write. And you feel as though you [are] (sic) actually doing the world a favor, not just delivering people some depressing news (respondent: broadcaster)”.

This finding aligns with Lough et al. (2024) study which found solutions journalism renewed university graduates’ hope for the value of journalism to society. Similarly, some participants described constructive journalism as enabling them to report in a way that better aligned with their values, again aligned with ideas of eudaimonic wellbeing (Ragsdale and Newman, 2023). This finding aligns with previous work suggesting some journalists experience a personal resonance with constructive journalism (Van Antwerpen et al., 2025b; Van Antwerpen and Hermans, 2025) and suggests some potential for constructive journalism to reduce moral injury driven by reporting outside of journalists’ value framework.

Related to satisfaction with their constructive journalism reporting, wellbeing was also linked with the quality of the news produced through constructive journalism. This link was made explicit from responses that proposed that constructive journalism brought more depth and nuance to their news, which made their reporting more valuable to society, and potentially more trustworthy. The following examples demonstrate how respondents perceive constructive journalism to improve their reporting and its influence on society:

“…constructive journalism adds an extra layer to our news coverage and gives us the possibilities of putting things in perspective. I find that professionally very satisfying (respondent: broadcaster).”

“I'm more focused on the importance of nuances. But also, my approach to stories are with less conflict orientation (respondent: freelancer)”

“There's a lot of hate and mistrust in the world; constructive journalism can be a bridge between polarized communities (respondent: freelancer).”

These insights into the value of constructive journalism also align with theoretical discussions of constructive journalism’s potential to improve the practice of objectivity, and in turn to improve the quality of news reporting (van Antwerpen and Fielding, 2023). It also aligns with Stephens and Natoli (2024) suggestion that service journalism increases journalists’ professional satisfaction through emphasising the purpose of journalism and its positive influence on society, and Perreault's (2023) finding that journalists experience more joy at work when they can report in a way that serves their audience and community. Other studies have similarly found that journalists perceive constructive journalism to be beneficial by addressing societal negativity, benefiting newsrooms, audiences, and their countries more broadly (Fölscher-Kingwill and Wasserman, 2024). The results of this study reiterate that when journalists feel they are doing better reporting, they perceive a greater sense of purpose, and in turn, improved wellbeing. While not providing causal evidence, such findings also indicate the value of exploring how eudaimonic components of wellbeing may influence journalists in the workplace, particularly given many become reporters for value-driven reasons, such as social justice or societal contributions (Cretser-Hartenstein et al., 2024).

Theme 3: Confidence in constructive journalism

The perceived benefits of constructive journalism can only be realised for journalists if they are able to implement the techniques into their practice. As such, a further important finding of this research is that alongside perceiving constructive journalism to improve their wellbeing, journalists also reported that having completed the fellowship, they were able to successfully implement the techniques in their practice. This finding is emphasised by the fact that when asked to provide an example of their own work that used constructive journalism techniques, most respondents (n = 28, 76%) said they could provide an example (n = 13 provided a web address). Additionally, a very small number of respondents identified places where constructive journalism did not work, showing how effectively the majority (n = 25) were implementing it into their news reporting. Van Antwerpen et al., (2025b) similarly found journalism students and working journalists trained in an online self-paced constructive journalism course were able to implement constructive techniques in a subsequent reporting task.

Regarding use of constructive journalism techniques, survey responses (n = 18) ranged from six reporting they used the techniques every day, six explaining that a constructive mindset influenced all their work, and six describing constructive journalism as an additional tool, rather than a replacement for their old way of doing journalism. It is also noteworthy that some respondents felt the techniques complemented their existing practice, or the practice they aspired to. For example, one wrote: “It fits the way I always wanted us journalists to work with stories and sources much better than traditional news journalism (respondent: broadcaster)”, and another: “To me Constructive Journalism is not something new. It is simply the way journalism should always have been (respondent: educator)”.

The types of stories the respondents covered using constructive journalism approaches also gives insight into how the techniques can be used to bring about the positive societal impacts that participants felt gave meaning and brought a greater sense of wellbeing to their work. These stories covered topics of importance to the community, including climate change, health stories focused on vulnerable cohorts such as the elderly and youths, as well as constructive reports of community conflict. For example, one story was about the positive influence of banning diesel cars on air quality. Another was about how Indian hospitals are helping combat violence against women. One creative example aimed to raise awareness of the importance of preventing falls amongst the elderly by linking this topic with the elderly Danish Queen falling over. Another tackled solutions to improve school student happiness.

Beyond personal confidence in the approach, some participants also expressed hope that constructive journalism would improve newsroom outcomes. Seven respondents described their participation in the constructive journalism fellowship as career altering, explaining how they had made active changes or were seeking new opportunities in their career to give them more opportunity to implement the approach, including leading newsrooms and mentoring others. Two respondents emphasised how their training led them to perceive that they had a responsibility to change the industry, including addressing “news avoiders” and “also finding new ways of reaching young people with news”.

Overall, this theme suggested that participants were confident in their ability to implement constructive journalism in practice, and had often done so, with perceived benefits to their own wellbeing. Some also perceived constructive journalism as beneficial for the industry, including their role in helping to ensure journalism’s continuation.

Theme 4: Challenges of implementing constructive journalism

The previous themes addressed participants’ views on the benefits of constructive journalism for their wellbeing, and suggest confidence in implementing constructive journalism personally, alongside its benefit for newsrooms. Despite these hopes of the potential benefits of constructive journalism, however, participants also expressed concerns about how practicably constructive journalism can be implemented into newsrooms, noting that there remain barriers limiting the potential to realise these benefits.

One major challenge respondents identified in implementing constructive journalism and reaping its benefits for wellbeing was that colleagues were not always supportive of the approach with one reporting “I have a background as an investigative journalist, so some of my fellow journalists thought I had given up on real journalism (respondent: broadcaster)”. When asked about how they were able to implement the approach, it was clear from the respondents that having supportive editors made a positive difference to their use of the techniques. For instance, where one participant said: “I was fortunate to have a boss that allowed me to explore the possibilities with constructive journalism (respondent: broadcaster)”, another said constructive journalism “is still not the journalism being awarded and cheered on by bosses (respondent: broadcaster)”. Some insights into why newsrooms, editors and colleagues were not proponents of constructive journalism were also demonstrated in survey responses which suggest constructive journalism is not seen as serious news. For example, a respondent wrote: “Journalists still think [constructive journalism] is fluff. People outside journalism instantly get it (respondent: regional newspaper)”. In the Indian context, a freelancer described how there was “skepticism” and “little understanding” about the approach, which is mistaken for “happy-go-lucky journalism (respondent: freelancer)”.

The perception of constructive journalism as ‘fluffy’ and ‘overly happy news’ is refuted by constructive journalism proponents who argue that constructive techniques including solutions, do not negate critical reporting (Bro, 2024; van Antwerpen and Fielding, 2023). One graduate of the constructive journalism fellowship described the challenge of educating others in the industry: “I think it’s hard to change the field, you often must convince a lot of people. It takes a lot of energy to do that (respondent: freelancer)”. Another seemed disillusioned by the slow pace of reform, saying they were disappointed “watching how slowly established media is moving forward (respondent: owner)”. Concerns about the slow pace of change aligns with research finding there continue to be barriers which challenge implementation of constructive journalism in newsrooms (Van Antwerpen et al., 2025b; Van Antwerpen and Hermans, 2025). For example, despite active efforts in Sweden to implement constructive journalism techniques, Djerf-Pierre and Ekström (2025) found it is not commonly applied to news reporting among commercial outlets, but is more prevalent amongst public service media. The lack of implementation amongst commercial media is suggested to stem from these outlets’ perception that constructive reporting will not increase engagement and revenues, and from the difficulty in reforming routine news practices that prioritise problems ahead of solutions (Djerf-Pierre and Ekström, 2025). Additionally, where constructive journalism is being used, this study also found solutions tended to be presented optimistically with limited critical assessment, which undermines proponents’ arguments that solutions are being presented in a balanced, objective and critical way (Djerf-Pierre and Ekström, 2025).Another challenge of constructive journalism identified amongst some respondents is concerns about whether audiences value constructive journalism. One respondent expressed this concern, writing: “People say they want trustworthy journalism, but they still click on something completely different (respondent: regional broadcaster)”. Another said, “There is still a demand for short stories without details or solutions, but then not everything should be constructive (respondent: broadcaster)”. Studies, however, suggest constructive journalism may increase audience engagement; participants have been found to prefer constructive stories (Baden et al., 2019; Hermans and Gyldensted, 2019); and to be more (Hermans and Prins, 2022; Overgaard, 2023; Schäfer et al., 2024). Furthermore, a freelancer who described using constructive techniques to link a Queen’s fall with fall prevention strategies reported that the news editor reported that circulation was better than anticipated for this story. Such insights suggest concerns about audience reception for constructive news reporting might not be warranted. However, the frequency of this concern among journalists and editors suggests it would be beneficial for the field to investigate whether ongoing evidence of engagement with constructive journalism and communication of it to newsroom editors reduces this prevailing view.

A final challenge identified in responses to the survey is the difficulty seeing the positive benefits of constructive journalism. There was a strong sense from respondents that the benefits are assumed to be there, including benefits for the audiences as individuals and society. For example, one respondent described constructive journalism as helping to “engage and empower the people in the community. And it helps solve problems (respondent: web journalist),” another said: “It brings more hope and gives the opportunities to act and represent not only a dark side of the world (respondent: broadcaster).” Another suggested the benefits were small but important: “I think constructive journalism has a minor impact, but I’m optimistic. Small actions can have big consequences (respondent: broadcaster).” However, when asked if they thought constructive journalism was making a difference, a number admitted they did not know but said they were hopeful it was. Such responses include: “I hope so, but I have no idea” and “I can’t tell at this point. But my hope is that it will increase engagement when people see potential for acting on different issues (respondent: broadcaster). These responses suggest that future research which grows understanding of the influence of constructive journalism on audiences would be beneficial to journalists to help justify the approach in their newsrooms, and know whether its perceived impact is reflective of a genuine influence.

Theoretical contributions

Overall, our findings lend support to the importance of eudaimonic wellbeing among journalists, and the potential for values-driven changes to reporting work to improve subjective workplace wellbeing. Participants described constructive journalism as improving their perceived wellbeing through helping them to find a greater sense of meaning and purpose in reporting, renewing their commitment to the work and its role in society. Importantly, and consistent with the theoretical overlap between hedonic and eudaimonic wellbeing (Ragsdale and Newman, 2023), these contributions to wellbeing were not distinct from hedonic benefits, with the shift from constantly focusing on negativity to considering solutions, developments, and empowering stories also having perceived benefits for the mood of journalists themselves. However, as eudaimonic wellbeing can be more relevant within challenging workplaces, and a sense of purpose and meaning may help to reduce moral injury driven by reporting that conflicts with journalists’ values, even where they are still exposed to traumatic events.

Importantly, there are many factors that contribute to workplace wellbeing, including structural factors such as salary, job stability, and workplace demands (Rick, 2023). We do not propose, nor do our participant responses suggest, that constructive journalism can address all of these. However, following calls to also understand how journalists can find joy in their work (Perreault, 2023), to also explore eudaimonic aspects of wellbeing (Ragsdale and Newman, 2023), and the need to help journalists report without incurring moral injury (Monteiro, 2016), our findings suggest that constructive journalism may provide one way of navigating some of these challenges. In particular, it may help journalists to feel they are able to address the negativity bias in news, and to report in a way that aligns with their work motivations, including those of societal responsibility. Consistent with previous work (e.g., Ragsdale and Newman, 2023), we therefore suggest the need for further research into the positive aspects of journalism and wellbeing, alongside its negatives, and to explore sources of meaning and values in work, alongside structural factors contributing to wellbeing.

Study limitations and implications

This study provides the first link between constructive journalism and the wellbeing of journalists themselves, with the findings suggesting constructive journalism can help journalists to find greater meaning in their work, and report in a way that better aligns with their values. While these findings provide a foundation for ongoing work in this field, there are some key limitations to the current study. Firstly, the sample consists of Aarhus graduates and newsrooms, who may have different perceptions of and experiences with journalism to those who have not or did not opt to complete a fellowship. The sample was also relatively small, in part given the small number of alumni eligible for inclusion in the study. Despite the small sample size, participants came from a wide range of jurisdictions, indicating some consistency of the findings across varied national contexts. Future studies could build on this work to interrogate journalists’ motivations for training in constructive journalism, whether there are different motivations and experiences of training amongst journalists in different counties, types of news organisations, genders, age, educational backgrounds and other variables, and what the longer term impact of training is on journalists’ future careers, including their longer-term wellbeing.

Another key limitation is the use of self-report, and retrospective self-report, in the survey. While the findings thus give useful insights into journalists’ perceptions and experiences, they do not provide meaningful causal evidence of constructive journalism’s impact on wellbeing. Future work should test the ideas of this study using methods better suited to making causal claims, such as longitudinal studies of journalists’ wellbeing, including measurement before and after completing constructive journalism training. Additionally, our findings should be considered considering providing participants with a definition of wellbeing, and asking explicitly about how constructive journalism related to their sense of wellbeing and purpose within their work. While this does not reduce the validity of our findings, these considerations may not have been as prominent in a survey asking about experiences of constructive journalism more broadly. Nevertheless, that 48% of participants noted their personal wellbeing as motivation for completing the constructive journalism fellowship suggests this connection was also prevalent to a reasonable proportion of participants prior to taking our survey.

More broadly, in this respect, just as Djerf-Pierre and Ekström (2025: p. 3) have suggested scholars of constructive journalism have become 'strong proponents’ for the approach, journalists trained in constructive journalism are also found to advocate for the approach to benefit their own wellbeing, their newsrooms, and society more broadly. As such, future research should continue to interrogate the influence of constructive journalism on journalists, as well as on newsrooms, audiences, and society, while also grounding such research in critical assessments of how effectively the techniques can be implemented.

Conclusion

Our study provided an initial investigation into constructive journalism’s influence on the wellbeing of journalism professionals. While our methods do not allow causal inference, graduates of the Constructive Institute’s constructive journalism training program demonstrate that constructive journalism is perceived to improve wellbeing. Participants attributed this improvement to multiple causes, including greater meaning and purpose, better alignment with their values, more pride in their reporting, and a change in their personal perspective. However, they also identified challenges with implementing constructive journalism. Where there were structural factors identified within newsrooms that stood in the way of using what they had learned as fellows, there was a sense of frustration and disappointment which could contradict the potential benefits of constructive journalism on their wellbeing. Despite these challenges, participants did not reduce their enthusiasm for constructive journalism but rather wanted to see and help them be overcome to enable constructive journalism to reform practices more extensively in their newsrooms and amongst the wider journalism community.

Footnotes

ORCID iDs

Alexandra Wake

Natasha van Antwerpen

Victoria Fielding

Ethical considerations

RMIT University DSC CHEAN (Approval Number 27738) on June 5, 2024.

Consent to participate

All participants provided written informed consent prior to participating.

Funding

The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Declaration of conflicting interests

The authors declared the following potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The lead author Alexandra Wake was a guest of the Constructive Journalism Institute at the time of the survey.

Author biographies

Alexandra Wake is a Professor in Journalism at RMIT University and the elected President of the Journalism Education and Research Association of Australia. She is an active leader, educator and researcher in journalism. Her research, teaching and practice sits at the nexus of journalism practice, journalism education, equality, diversity and mental health. Before turning full time to the academy, she spent more than 25 years working for broadcast and print international news agencies in Australia, the Asia Pacific and the Middle East.

Natasha van Antwerpen is a Lecturer in Psychology at the University of Adelaide. Her research is primarily focused on human decision-making, beliefs, and perceptions of truth under uncertainty, and how they interact with broader social, societal, and cultural factors. She is particularly interested in constructive journalism, and the application of psychology to develop reporting techniques, with an aim to encourage mental wellbeing; positive societal engagement; and restore trust in the journalistic process. Natasha uses multiple methods in her research and is interested in the application of interdisciplinary and systems thinking approaches to encourage constructive responses to societal challenges.

Victoria Fielding is a Senior Lecturer in Media at the University of Adelaide. Victoria is an expert in the field of strategic communication and its influence on journalism. Her research focuses on the way groups compete for positive attention in the news media, and the influence journalism has on democracy. Her methodological expertise is in quantitative and qualitative content analysis in the theoretical field of framing theory.

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