Journalist Dean Yates talks to Moral Injury and Journalism

Dean Yates is a writer, journalist, and mental health advocate. He was head of mental health and wellbeing strategy for Reuters, the international news organisation, until January 2020.

During his three years in the role, Dean focused on raising awareness and reducing stigma at the world’s largest news provider. He trained managers on how to look after the mental health of their teams.

Before that, Dean was a journalist, bureau chief and senior editor at Reuters for 23 years, covering the Bali bombings in 2002 and the Boxing Day tsunami in Indonesia’s Aceh province in 2004.

He was Reuters’ bureau chief in Iraq from 2007-2008. Three staff were killed on his watch, including two by a U.S. Apache helicopter in Baghdad on July 12, 2007.

Dean was diagnosed with PTSD in early 2016. He has been admitted three times to the Ward 17 psychiatric unit at the Heidelberg Repatriation Hospital in Melbourne for treatment of his PTSD and moral injury.

Dean is writing a memoir called The Road Out Of Ward 17. He expects to finish the book in the coming months. He lives with his family in the village of Evandale, Tasmania. Read his story here:

Return to Ward 17: Making peace with lost comrades (reuters.com)