When Henrick Karoliszyn began the Doctor of Social Work (DSW) program at the USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work, his intention was to explore juvenile solitary confinement. However, as he progressed in his studies, he realized there was a more pressing issue of social isolation for which he was uniquely qualified to investigate: secondary trauma among journalists. Karoliszyn is an award-winning journalist who covered crime as a national correspondent for major publications, including The Wall Street Journal and New York Daily News. The mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School is among the events he wrote about extensively. Karoliszyn has been honored for his work by the Silurians Press Club (formerly Society of Silurians), New York Association of Black Journalists and a National Headliner Award. Five years ago, suffering from the secondary trauma of being a “first responder” to human tragedy himself, he left the profession. 

The Freelance Frontier, Karoliszyn’s capstone project for his DSW, addresses the quiet but deadly mental health crisis affecting American freelance journalists. Through personal interviews and comprehensive research, he uncovered that his fellow journalists suffer from myriad work-exacerbated mental health challenges, including secondary trauma, compassion fatigue, alcoholism, suicidal ideation, depression and anxiety. As a result of financial challenges in the media industry driving layoffs, freelancers in journalism covering traumatic breaking news are on the rise. 

Media advertising revenue has dropped more than 80% since 2006, and in 2023 alone nearly 2,700 staff writers were laid off in the U.S. As a result, more than 34% of journalists are freelance, with many afraid that if they speak up about their trauma they may be passed over for the few journalism jobs that remain. Freelance journalists also lack the social support of the newsroom environment.

“These contract reporters, who lack medical benefits from newsrooms they work for, will remain working as ‘first responders’ to human tragedy without emotional support from their organizations,” Karoliszyn said. “In essence, they’ve become disposable victims of the gig economy.” 

Karoliszyn explained that these statistics are what drove him to focus on freelance journalists for his intervention, as he views this as a problem that will continue to grow. 

Trauma as an unacknowledged hazard of journalism

Karoliszyn did not realize that the trauma he experienced as a result of covering murders and crime for over a decade was a professional hazard impacting many of his former colleagues as well. When he began interviewing journalists for his capstone project, it quickly became clear that it was far more widespread, and underreported, than he originally thought. 

“I was not expecting the extent of the need,” Karoliszyn said. “I was anticipating people would say, ‘I kind of feel that, but it’s not that bad.’ But once they started talking, they shared about how their lives felt like they’re unraveling and hanging on by a string. It was shocking.” 

Karoliszyn points out that just one in 41 accredited journalism schools in the U.S. teaches trauma as part of its program, according to a 2018 study. 

Secondary traumatic stress is “a stress response in reaction to hearing about or being witness to the firsthand traumatic experience of another,” and is common among the helping professions, including therapists, teachers, social workers and those who work directly with trauma survivors. It makes sense that journalists interviewing violent crime survivors or being among first responders to a crime scene would experience this vicarious trauma, yet it is largely unacknowledged in a profession that prides itself on being able to go it alone.

“There is a stigma in the profession in general that if you talk about it being painful for you, it makes you less formidable as a force in journalism and almost disqualifies you from being a journalist,” Karoliszyn said. 

The Freelance Frontier is a trauma-informed online hub that aims to build community and serve as a critical resource for this isolated group. When fully built out, it will include a website and corresponding Substack, an ongoing Google Doc, podcast and newsletter. Content will include interviews with trauma experts, personal essays from freelance journalists, guest expert lectures and events both online and in-person. Karoliszyn will begin the implementation of the intervention by sharing his own story of experiencing secondary trauma, modeling the power of self-disclosure. 

Finding an unexpected home in social work

After leaving journalism, Karoliszyn became a licensed private investigator for a law firm in New Orleans. His new career drew on many of his strengths from journalism: interviewing people, investigating and verifying facts, relationship-building, evaluating human behavior and written assessments. However, it lacked the feeling of making a meaningful impact with his work. 

In conversation with several friends who are social workers, he talked about interviewing families of victims affected by crime, individuals who are incarcerated, people experiencing their worst days, and generally dealing with the worst exceptions of humanity on a daily basis. 

“They said, ‘That sounds kind of like what we do,” Karoliszyn said. “It sounds like you have those complicated feelings about it because you don’t know where all that pain goes.’”

A light bulb went off for Karoliszyn, and he began to explore social work programs. He found the DSW program at USC and it immediately felt like home. The DSW is a professional advanced degree in social work designed to extend the reach of the social work discipline beyond its traditional boundaries. From the beginning, Karoliszyn felt welcomed into social work without reservation by his advisor Sara Schwartz, associate teaching professor and traditionally trained social worker who approaches her work from a multidisciplinary lens bridging social work, anthropology and visual arts. As a documentary filmmaker, board member for the National AIDS Memorial and faculty lead for the school’s visual social work graduate certificate, Schwartz is a strong proponent of extending the reach of the social work discipline through nontraditional applications and immediately saw the potential of Karoliszyn’s proposed capstone intervention. 

“Henrick opened my eyes to a service gap within a profession that I had never considered from a social work perspective,” Schwartz said. “Viewing the daily experiences of journalists — especially those who are first on the scene of crimes or other harrowing events — through a trauma-informed lens makes so much sense. His thoughtful, research-informed understanding of the intersection between journalism, trauma and mental health in his Freelance Frontier project reflects a powerful, cross-disciplinary contribution that I believe will influence both social work and journalism in meaningful ways.”

Karoliszyn feels that Schwartz guided him to develop his project more thoroughly, and continuously helped him to improve at every iteration of the project prototype. 

“She was a great mentor, teacher, advisor and person,” Karoliszyn said. “She’s very inspiring in her own work around AIDS and documentary filmmaking.” 

Normalizing the experience of secondary trauma

The goal of The Freelance Frontier is to normalize and de-stigmatize the experience of secondary trauma in the field and provide a supportive community as well as access to resources. Karoliszyn plans to eventually enlist universities, newsrooms and philanthropists to create a fully-fledged, trauma-informed program for journalism students as well as a weeklong trauma-informed retreat and certificate program for working professionals. 

“Journalists in newsrooms at least have the camaraderie and the benefits if they need them,” Karoliszyn said. “Especially now, to get those freelance jobs, I think a lot more people will be suppressing their feelings and not talking about it. That is where I believe my intervention can step in.”

Karoliszyn wants journalists at all levels to know that acknowledging they may be suffering from trauma does not make them weak. It can actually make them better journalists. 

“You are not alone, nor should you be,” Karoliszyn said. “This is difficult work, it’s important work, and if you don’t protect your mental health, your work will decline.”

He believes that more education on this topic, and building a community they can lean on, will be the motivating factors needed to take action. 

“Journalists don’t pride themselves on their salaries or their houses or their cars,” Karoliszyn said. “What they really care about is their work, and if that starts to suffer, everything else around them will start to collapse. I want to prevent that from happening.”