Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma

Self-Study Unit 2: Covering Terrorism

By Elana Newman and Chris Bull

Early live reports of terrorist attacks are sometimes confusing and misleading. Yet there are also extraordinary examples of media excellence, with journalists risking their lives to inform the nation about an unfolding crisis.

Self-Study Unit 2: Covering Terrorism

I. What is Terrorism?

Sept. 11, 2001, was a particularly diabolical instance of terrorism. But there are many forms of terror. Some are so much a part of our ordinary lives that we hardly recognize them as such.

Self-Study Unit 2: Covering Terrorism

Sources and Resources

By Elana Newman and Chris Bull

Sources and resources for Self-Study Unit 2: Covering Terrorism

Self-Study Unit 2: Covering Terrorism

II. Journalism and Terror

By Elana Newman and Chris Bull

The journalists-as-target scenario presents dilemmas for editorial decision-makers. Because terrorism is generally intended in part to garner publicity for a “cause,” no matter how dubious, the media are faced with a Hobson’s choice between publicizing attacks against its own and ignoring the violence unleashed in the name of the cause.

Self-Study Unit 2: Covering Terrorism

V. Telling Stories

By Elana Newman and Chris Bull

The stories journalists tell, visually and verbally, help the public make sense of confusing, threatening times. In fact there is evidence that putting language to traumatic experiences helps individuals cope. Although it is not a stated mission of the press to heal, articulating the event for others may have a therapeutic effect on the larger community.

Self-Study Unit 2: Covering Terrorism

VII. Preparation

By Elana Newman and Chris Bull

For the first time, many media companies have begun systematically to plan for emergency coverage of traumatic events.

Self-Study Unit 2: Covering Terrorism

VI. Care of the Self

By Elana Newman and Chris Bull

Journalists like Arce who were immersed in the events of 9/11 relied upon a variety of coping strategies, of which individual therapy is just one.

Self-Study Unit 2: Covering Terrorism

III. Effects

By Elana Newman and Chris Bull

Most journalists today are a far cry from the mythologized war correspondent coping with internalized images of violence, suffering and despair through stiff drinks and bawdy jokes. Like every human being, newswomen and men suffer emotional consequences from their work.

Self-Study Unit 2: Covering Terrorism

IV. Interviewing

By Elana Newman and Chris Bull

Journalists take no Hippocratic Oath. There is little question that tackling a difficult story is a hazardous process for both journalist and source. In times of international strife, stories chronicling suffering and loss, and exposing injustices, are the stock and trade of the profession. The issue is how to minimize the risk.

How Clinicians Can Help Journalists Cover Disaster

By Stan Alcorn

"If I asked you to fill in the following statement, 'Journalists are __,' what's the first thing that pops into your head?" Elana Newman, research director of the Dart Center, posed this question Monday as part of a webinar she co-hosted with Dart Center Executive Director Bruce Shapiro. In a disaster, when interviewing and reporting on victims is inevitable, the gap between a clinician's answer and a journalist's answer to this question can be the difference between stories that are both sensitive and effective and stories that are neither. More »