The Guardian is offering counselling to staff as it vowed to support
its workforce after Donald Trump’s “upsetting” US election victory this
week.
In an email to staff, The Guardian’s editor Katharine Viner said the
election had “exposed alarming fault lines on many fronts” and urged
journalists based in the UK to contact colleagues in the US “to offer
your support”.
Ms Viner said that the result would be “[1]upsetting for many others”,
according to the memo seen by Guido Fawkes, adding: “If you want to
talk about it, your manager and members of the leadership team are all
available, as the People team. There is also free access to free
support services, which I’ve outlined at the end of this email.”
It comes after Ms Viner sought to reassure readers over the election
outcome, writing in an editorial on Wednesday that the paper would
“stand up to four more years of Donald Trump” and that the election was
an “extraordinary, [2]devastating moment in the history of the United
States”.
Ms Viner added: “With Trump months away from taking office again – with
dramatic implications for wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, the
health of American democracy, reproductive rights, inequality and,
perhaps most of all, our collective environmental future – it’s time
for us to redouble our efforts to hold the president-elect and those
who surround him to account.”
Above an invitation to donate to The Guardian, her editorial ended with
the message that the paper “will stand up to these threats, but it will
take brave, well-funded independent journalism. It will take reporting
that can’t be leaned upon by a billionaire owner terrified of
retribution from a bully in the White House”.
A Guardian spokesman said on Thursday: “What you refer to as ‘therapy
after Trump result’ is actually our employee assistance programme – a
function that any responsible international media organisation has
available for staff at all times.”
In the US, some colleges have given students time off, an extension on
deadlines, art therapy classes and access to a therapy duck in response
to Trump’s win.
The University of Oregon told students this week that to “promote
well-being and lessen anxiety during election week, University Health
Services is bringing Quacktavious the Therapy Duck to campus”.
Students at Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy
were reportedly told this week that they could play with Lego,
colouring books, and have milk and cookies in “self-care suites”
following the result.
The University of Michigan is also hosting an “art therapy” and
“post-election processing” event.
Some stores in the US even closed on Wednesday, with Iowa retailer The
Collective writing on its Instagram page that it was closing to allow
for a “day of collective grief”.
Among the overseas reaction was Germany’s popular weekly Die Zeit,
which led its website on Wednesday with the one-word expletive “F---”.
References
1.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/us/politics/2024/11/06/kamala-harris-speech-live-concedes-2024-election-trump/
2.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/us/news/2024/11/07/watch-us-talk-show-host-tears-terrible-night/