Last Sunday at Mojo Market I saw someone who reminded me of a former editor I once reported to. My face reacted before my mind could catch up – a visceral response due to unresolved workplace trauma. I tensed up, anger rising instantly. What is she doing here? Should I tell her to Ts__?

The woman eventually turned in my direction and to my relief, it wasn’t her. But the emotional residue lingered. The anger simmered while I danced Kizomba. That alone told me everything: I had not yet healed from what I experienced under her and the four other editors I “worked” with.

In April 2021, I started as an online reporter at Africa Community Media aka Cape Community Newspapers. By July, I was “promoted” to the Atlantic Sun, a community newspaper covering Cape Town’s iconic suburbs.

It felt like a reward but it quickly became clear that the promotion came with no real support – just more responsibility and higher expectations.

I wrote tirelessly, filing a story a day. Crime, homelessness, rezoning battles, I covered it all. I was alone on the title and despite the load, I thrived on the autonomy.

By December, though, I was drained. One senior reporter casually warned me about burnout, a textbook example of token concern, not genuine mentorship.

Recognition from leadership was rare. Corrections, when they came, were terse. There was silence when I did not question any editor or make a “mistake”.

In September 2022, the tone shifted. I began to experience what I now recognise as institutional gaslighting. After submitting my weekly diary, one editor asked, “Where’s your lead?” I said I was still sourcing it.

Two hours later, another editor asked the same question. By the next morning, a third repeated it. We were all on the same group email. This redundancy felt strategic, like a subtle form of psychological pressure to establish dominance and induce self-doubt.

I was told that they didn’t do this (group emails) to other reporters.

That Sunday a fire broke out on Table Mountain and gave me the lead I needed. Crisis averted… for now.

But the incident that truly galled me came in 2024. I wrote about a teenage cyclist who had crashed on Beach Road and died due to the injuries. I made an error in the statistics.

The source who provided the stats spotted it. I corrected it immediately and informed the editors. One editor assisted in updating the online version. We agreed an apology would run the following week.

I thought that was the end of it.

Then, out of nowhere, the main editor launched a group email tirade, berating me. The same editor who had helped correct the mistake joined in, demanding an explanation, again and again. I offered one, I had to send my emails as proof, but no amount of accountability was enough.

They declared it a “gross mistake,” accused me of incompetence, questioned my tone, even going so far as to say I had “failed the newspaper.”

It was emotional invalidation (AI told me) at its most refined. My explanations were dismissed.

The next morning I called the lead editor. I was calm, so was she. My explanation was received. And then, silence. No further follow-up. No official reprimand. No recognition of my accountability or of the emotional toll they had extracted.

I revisited the tragedy of the cyclist, interviewing the club and family. I was the only journalist to do so. The family thanked me. The debt from the hospital treatment was cleared. The editors never acknowledged my reporting.

That newsroom culture (in hindsight of course) was a case study in toxic leadership: no mentoring, no positive reinforcement, no consistency. Criticism was a weapon. Support was nowhere. And the emotional labour of community journalism was disregarded entirely.

I worry about the junior reporters who walk into newsrooms like this. Burnout is real and psychological safety isn’t a luxury, it’s a necessity.

Without it, newsrooms become toxic environments where fear (and mistakes) take the place of creativity and simply following orders is mistaken for professionalism.

It would be remiss of me not to speak up. Journalism demands accountability, not just from politicians, but from editors, too.