The story had all the signs of a PR plant. It simply said that a K-pop star was taking a hiatus from TV to concentrate on her singing career. Yet, once the story was posted, the female journalist was targeted with a relentless barrage of abuse, threats and misogynistic trolling.
This tip sheet, specifically developed for the journalism communities in the Asia Pacific, is a result of the collaboration between the Dart Centre for Journalism and Trauma, Asia Pacific (DCAP) and journalism communities in the region.
We are pleased to announce the recipients of the 2023 Dart Asia Pacific (ASPAC) Fellowship, a program that deepens journalists' reporting of violence, conflict, and tragedy. This year’s Fellows include outstanding senior and mid-career journalists in all media from across the Asia Pacific region with a particular interest in covering climate change and climate-related disasters.
"This year’s ASPAC Fellows represent a passionate generation of journalists who came of age committed to deep engagement with trauma and to reporting on how climate change has impacted their communities", said DCAP CEO Erin Smith. "We are excited to welcome this year's Fellows to Brisbane this May, joining our previous ASPAC Fellows who continue to set the global standard for innovative, ethical reporting on trauma, violence, and disaster.”
Online applications are now open for the 2023 Dart Asia Pacific Fellowship, a unique five-day seminar programme for veteran journalists, editors and freelancers. The 2023 fellowship will focus on the impact of climate change on trauma reporting. While applications are strongly encouraged from the Pacific islands, applications will be considered from anyone in the Asia Pacific region who meet the criteria.
Applications are now closed.
When journalists capture images and share the stories of traumatised survivors of the Türkiye-Syria earthquake they face a moral dilemma: Should they put down their notebook or camera and offer to help? It seems like an obvious choice; what kind of person doesn’t want to help someone who is suffering? But journalists have a job to do, and it’s a different job to doctors and rescue workers.
Top, L to R: Marcela Gaviria, June Cross, Azmat Khan; Middle, L to R: Sarah Stillman, Christiane Amanpour, May Jeong; Bottom, L to R: Jina Moore, Judith Matloff, Alexis Okeowo.
For journalists on every beat, managing personal boundaries and safety can pose difficult choices and challenges. Women journalists in particular contend with unwanted presumptions, sexual harassment and the threat of violence. The Dart Center asked nine leading women in journalism to talk about the impact of these challenges on their work, and to reflect on their own best practices. This video is the result.
Journalists take on the role of a witness when interviewing trauma victims.
Journalists covering the recent earthquake in Turkey and war-ravaged Syria are witnessing widespread devastation and destruction, where tangled piles of metal and concrete are spread across a region beset by Syria’s 12-year civil war and refugee crisis.
Working in frigid temperatures and confronting escalating dangers, journalists are documenting history from the frontline of the disaster.
There are many other areas around the world, particularly in humanitarian crisis and conflict zones, where it is dangerous, even life-threatening, to practice journalism. The war in Ukraine provides another recent illustration of the vulnerability of journalists covering crisis situations. While it is impossible to mitigate all of the risks journalists on the frontline will be exposed to, there are certain things they can do to prepare for assignments in unstable and unpredictable environments.
This tip sheet from Dart Centre Asia Pacific provides ten tips for journalists and media workers that have been developed in conversation with experts who have responded to conflicts, disasters, and humanitarian disasters around the globe.
Image source: https://twitter.com/bne_lordmayor/status/1602438487323860992
Reporting a community tragedy can impact media workers, their managers, and their loved ones acutely. Those impacts can be potentially immediate, delayed or long-term. As each of these media workers – and their managers – digest the ramifications, personal and professional, of this tragedy, the Dart Centre Asia Pacific is offering some tips and resources that may help them report ethically and safely.
Reporting on wave after wave of public protests over six months, under such historically repressive conditions, felt like being on a never-ending treadmill. My colleagues told me that they were gasping for breath at the end of every day.
Eight years after the 2014 Sewol Ferry disaster that claimed the lives of 304 passengers, Korean journalists were asked about work-related trauma in a survey developed by the Journalists Association of Korea (JAK), the Korean Women Journalists Association, the Dart Centre for Journalism and Trauma Asia Pacific (DCAP), and the Google News Initiative. Eight out of ten had experienced work-related trauma, while nearly 30% said they had experienced trauma at work regularly.
Source: International Journalists’ Network
Death, violence, war, terrorism, natural disaster, the COVID-19 pandemic - at some point within the past year many journalists within Asia Pacific will have reported on a story involving interviewees who had experienced a traumatic event. This tip sheet brings together the collective experience of the Dart Centre Asia Pacific’s principal trainers to provide some general advice for interviewing in the aftermath of trauma, and recommendations for before, during, and after the interview.
In September 2020, Amnesty International halted its operations in India, with the UK-based organisation publishing a report warning of a coordinated effort to silence journalists and activists in the region. Since then, the situation has deteriorated from bad to worse for journalists in Kashmir, culminating with the recent arrest of Fahad Shah.
Dart Centre Asia Pacific is delighted to announce several programs supported by Google News Initiative Asia (GNI) for 2021-2022, including an Australian First Nations Journalists’ program, a program to establish an Asia Pacific Peer Support Network, a trauma and resilience training program for freelance journalists, and an emergency response fund for trauma-related psychosocial support.
Dart Centre Asia Pacific (DCAP) is pleased to announce that disaster and emergency response specialist, Dr. Erin Smith, has been appointed CEO. Smith will replace Managing Director Dr. Cait McMahon, OAM, who founded the organization in 2003. Smith has extensive experience as a researcher and professor, and has published widely on trauma and well-being within the context of disaster first response.
“I feel privileged to have the opportunity to build on the legacy already established by Dart, and to explore new and exciting ways for us to grow and evolve in the future,” said Smith, who will begin her role in early December.
Trauma expert Dr. Cait McMahon, OAM, will retire from her role as Dart Centre Asia Pacific Managing Director later this year, following a 30-year career helping media workers better understand the impact of trauma on themselves and on those they report on. “In every way Cait is a world leader in this field – through her research, her work in newsrooms and her clinical expertise," said Dart Centre Asia-Pacific Chair and veteran journalist Karen Percy. "Media workers around the world have benefited from her passion and her skill.”
A journalist works on his laptop amid items left behind by protesters in Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU), Hong Kong on November 26, 2019.
A collaboration between ACOS Alliance and Dart Centre Asia Pacific, this guide is designed to help editors and managers understand and support their teams. It is divided into five sections covering both general information and specific suggestions and tips for working with freelance journalists. Click here to download the full guide.
Journalists report from the destruction that was caused by a wildfire that swept through Lake Keswick Estates near Redding, California on July 27, 2018.
"Do your research. Ask who your story is for. Report on recovery and aftermath." On October 19, journalists Lizzie Johnson, Peter Drought, Lauren Markham and Karen Percy discussed the practice of reporting on wildfires in Australia and in the United States. They also shared thoughts on how to sensitively approach themes of aftermath, recovery and community resilience, considering the ethics of reporting safely and responsibly. The full event video, a companion tip sheet and additional Dart Center resources on covering disaster are now available here.
The body and the mind are deeply linked. To enhance our mental wellbeing when working on traumatic or high stress assignments, we must attend to our bodies, and move. Take a break from work and join former foreign correspondent and Dart Centre Asia Pacific Deputy Director, Kimina Lyall, for a series of yoga stretches. No prior experience required.
The Dart Centre Asia Pacific In Ten vodcast is a series of ten-minute chats with journalists, camera operators and other news professionals from across the globe about self-care and reporting in the time of coronavirus. How are these journalists caring for themselves and their craft in the midst of this pandemic? What unique reporting challenges have emerged? And what’s stayed the same? What lessons have they learned that they will carry forward beyond the pandemic?
American citizens wave from a bus as they leave the quarantined Diamond Princess cruise ship at Daikoku Pier to be repatriated to the United States on February 17, 2020 in Yokohama, Japan.
More than threee million people have been infected with coronavirus disease (COVID-19), fueling a worldwide pandemic. As of this writing, at least 200,000 people have died. As the numbers continue to rise, we have assembled resources for journalists on covering disaster and epidemic, interviewing victims and survivors, and working with colleagues exposed to traumatic events in English and Chinese.
Participants from the Dart Centre’s 2018 Indigenous Trauma reporting workshop pose for a group photo in the Blue Mountains, just outside of Sydney, Australia.
After facilitating one of the largest gatherings of Indigenous journalists last year, Dart Centre Asia Pacific will make permanent a position on its Board of Director’s for a First Nations person, and create an ongoing scholarship for an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island journalist to attend the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism's prestigious Summer Investigative Reporting Course in New York City.
