The Cost of Content

The Cost of Content is a presentation I created and delivered to leadership on the hidden price of humanitarian storytelling: the emotional weight carried by the people who go into disaster zones to bring those stories back.

The argument is one I believe deeply: the most honest, effective content requires real human immersion, and that immersion has a cost. The same empathy that makes a story land is what puts the storyteller at the highest risk of burnout. Protecting them isn't a soft concern. It's how you protect the work itself, and the mission behind it.

This one is personal. I built it from twenty years of my own time in the field, and from what that work has cost me off the clock. It's the case I most want content and brand leaders to understand: if we don't build sustainable ways to carry the weight of this work, the bill comes due for the storyteller, for their family, and for the mission.