Australasian Update, Autumn 2007

Welcome to the Dart Centre’s Australasian Update. At the time of writing, the inquiry into the death of one of the Balibo Five is under way at the Glebe Coroner’s Court in Sydney. This morning, listening to the radio I heard one of the family members of the ‘Five’ speaking about the ongoing grief of their loved one killed in East Timor over 30 years ago.

The Balibo Five were doing what journalists do — attempting to inform the world of a significantly violent, internationally relevant event. As a consequence they were murdered.

As we read in this edition of Australasian Update, colleagues recently had to confront the death of Morgan Mellish and the major injuries sustained by Cynthia Banham, along with the deaths of 19 others and injuries to many more passengers on the Garuda crash in Indonesia, some of them well known to journalists around the country.

We extend our condolences to all who continue to grieve their loss through death and injury. Managing grief is not an easy task. It often continues for extended periods and the concept of ‘closure’ around grief is a misnomer.

Certainly grief will take on a different shape with the passage of time, but to continue to feel loss is a natural phenomenon. What we know about grief is that it is complicated by factors such as violence, manner of death, deception, neglect and unanswered questions around the death.

Grief following violent death is generally associated with negligence or human intent, which leads to the inevitable investigations, such as a Coroner's Court to determine the locus of responsibility.

This rarely follows natural death and means that the grief process is further exacerbated by the deceased being identified as a “victim”.

For those grieving, there may even be a sense of revenge or retribution which does not follow natural death.

Violent death is the most common form of death for the under-40s — Source: the US-based Violent Death Bereavement Society, online at www.vdbs.org ) — which means that those grieving will tend to be younger parents, siblings, family members and friends.

This also means that the working population will tend to be exposed to accidental deaths, suicides and other violent deaths more than they will natural deaths.

This newsletter discusses many options of self care in the face of trauma, whether grief caused by violent death, or other forms of trauma response.

The principles are the same — maintaining support of family, friends and social networks; speaking about feelings and not bottling them up; steering clear of substance abuse and seeking professional help if things become overwhelming.

Working towards some form of acceptance is also necessary. The words are easy, but the experience is painfully difficult.

Health practitioner Dr Ted Rynearson writes in Retelling Violent Death: “Uncertainty and ambiguity are inherent in meaningless violence. Accept that violent death is a riddle that will never be answered — final answers or resolutions are impossible. The goal then is to accept the ultimate uncertainty and instead reconnect with the rapture of being alive.”

Meet Dart Australasia's 2006 Ochberg Fellow

For freelance journalist and author Melissa Sweet, one advertisement in The Walkley magazine could not have come at a more appropriate time.

Since the early 1990s, Melissa had written about health and medical issues for key Australian news outlets, including the Sydney Morning Herald, The Bulletin and AAP. In 2003, she moved into freelance writing, with her articles appearing in a range of professional and general publications.

Her first book, Smart Health Choices (Allen and Unwin, 1999) – a collaboration with evidence-based medical professional and educator Les Irwig and his wife Judy, a health services consumer – had done well.

But she had just spent a harrowing year completing her second book, Inside Madness (Pan Macmillan, 2006), a frank account of the murder of South Australian mental health services director and psychiatrist Dr Margaret Tobin.

More broadly, the book also paints a history of mental health reform in Australia, and examines the difficulties of achieving change in complex, conservative health systems.

The book had just been published when Melissa saw the advertisement for the 2006 Dart Ochberg Fellowship.

“The ad for the fellowship resonated with what I’d just been through,” Melissa explained.

“Researching and writing this book was an extremely traumatic process, both for myself and for some of Margaret Tobin’s friends and family members.

“By telling Margaret’s story, I was also telling the stories of those close to her. When you write a book like this, you have to accept the uncomfortable reality that you may be adding to the grief and trauma of those who have already suffered huge losses.”

It was the third time the Dart Centre for Journalism and Trauma – Australasia had offered the fellowship and it was clear to the judging panel that Melissa had what it takes to fill the shoes of her predecessors, ABC TV’s Phil Williams and The Age’s Gary Tippet.

Dart Centre Australasia director Cait McMahon summed up the judges’ assessment of Melissa’s work by praising her ability to combine significant skills when researching and writing about traumatic incidents.

“This book, along with Melissa’s other presented work – ‘Rising from the Ashes’, which is about survivors of the New Year’s Day bush fires in Junee, south-western New South Wales – indicated her talent in combining some significantly important skills when writing about traumatic incidents,’’ Ms McMahon said.

“The ability to sensitively bring together issues of human suffering, respect for the humanity of victims, survivors and perpetrators of tragedy combined with fine journalistic investigation and craft is not always well achieved.

“Melissa’s ability to do this while continuing to enthral her audience throughout, placed her at the forefront of a very competitive group of applicants for the 2006 fellowship.”

As part of her fellowship, Melissa joined other fellows from around the world at a special seminar in Los Angeles in November 2006 where the gathered journalists examined the media’s role in covering violence and trauma.

“One of the main things I got from winning the fellowship was the re-igniting of my appreciation for good journalism,” Melissa explained.

“I got to see there are very good people out there doing good work and it was inspirational.

“As a freelance journalist, the benefit of being connected into a network of fellows is also invaluable. Dart’s collegial contacts have definitely been a great help.

“I got to hear the stories of other fellows who attended the seminar. The diversity of their work was impressive. Some had done really difficult work over a long period of time in difficult circumstances, sometimes at great personal cost.

“So it really was a privilege to be with this group. Just the chance to chat with people who are very experienced journalists was so stimulating.”

Having worked from within a newsroom and as a freelance journalist, what does the newest Dart Ochberg fellow see as the most important element of change needed to make a difference in the news media.

“While I am delighted there are many people out there striving to be good journalists I don’t perhaps feel so optimistic about the industry itself and its future, especially its commitment to good practice.

“We really need to move away from the recent trend to filling our news with celebrity stories, to go back to telling real stories and stop trying to second-guess what readers and viewers want.

“The social role of journalism is lost when the focus is on celebrity. Market research-driven journalism has a huge opportunity cost. It may well be a reflection of broader social trends but it does nothing for democracy.

“So I think it’s time to go back to good journalism, the basics, and to covering real people with real stories.

“It all comes down to the investment news organisations are prepared to make in good journalism.

“To me, one of the wonderful things to see during the gathering of Dart Ochberg fellows was the effort being put into journalism by small-town newspapers in the United States.

“Globally, though, I think journalism is becoming too seduced by the corporate model.”

When Loss Touches Newsrooms

Sorrow and concern fell over Australasian newsrooms on March 7 when an early morning Garuda commuter flight crashed in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, killing 21 people, including five Australians, and seriously wounding many others.

Shock washed over newsrooms when it was realised that, along with names of high-profile diplomatic personnel and Australian Federal Police officers, the list of the dead included affable Australian Financial Review reporter Morgan Mellish.

His Fairfax colleague Cynthia Banham, who works for the Sydney Morning Herald, was listed as critically injured.

After she was stabilised, a medivac team transferred a badly burned Cynthia to a Perth hospital where she has since been under the watchful eye of a team of international burns experts headed by Dr Fiona Wood.

Determined to return to work when fully recovered, Cynthia has had one leg amputated as well as part of the other leg but has recently had her first days sitting up out of bed and says she is buoyed by continuing messages of support being sent to her from colleagues and the public.

Those who worked alongside Morgan and Cynthia in Asia were deeply shaken by what happened. Several have shared what it meant to be close to those who died or were injured.

In the latest edition of The Age’s subscriber newsletter, InsideTheAge, its Indonesia correspondent, Mark Forbes — the only Australian journalist on the ground in Yogyakarta when the plane went down — tells a poignant story of how he experienced the shock and disbelief of the first 24 hours while filing two written pieces for The Age, arranging support for Cynthia and for Morgan’s family as well as fielding “countless radio and TV interviews on autopilot”.

His unique insights, as a journalist and a participant in a disaster, are valuable contributions to our understanding of individual and community responses to trauma.

Reaching Out to Families of Killed News Workers

WHEN someone in the news business dies because of their work, the shock waves begin in the newsroom but reverberate well beyond it, slamming into families who have not only lost a loved one, but often also their main breadwinner.

Two organisations, the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) and the Vintu Foundation for Excellency in Education and Journalism, have jointly launched a program to provide much-needed support to some of those families.

News of the project was released on May 3 to coincide with World Press Freedom Day and IFJ General Secretary Aiden White said the special-assistance fund would provide a year’s support “to some of the neediest families’’.

“The grants issued under this special program will help ease some of the terrible financial strain that families are under,” Mr White said.

“We can never compensate for the hurt and injustice, but it is intolerable that the families left behind after targeted assassinations should suffer economically as well. This co-operation we hope will expand into a network of support which will reach out to assist the thousands who suffer when journalists are killed.”

He said the fund would provide monthly payments for a year to 10 journalists’ families who lost a relative to violence related to that person’s work as a journalist.

The selected recipients come from all parts of the world: Colombia, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Iraq, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Venezuela and Zimbabwe.

Delegated-administrator of the Vintu Foundation, Cristian Unteanu, said the collaboration with IFJ would allow the families in most need to be identified.

“We see this fund as a way to help families get back on their feet after devastating loss,” Mr Unteanu said.

Introducing Professor Kerry Green

A founding member of the Dart Centre for Journalism and Trauma – Australasia board, Professor Kerry Green, has worked in, or taught, journalism since 1967.

In mid-2005, he joined the University of South Australia as Professor and Head of its School of Communication, Information and New Media, having previously been Associate Professor and Head of the University of Canberra’s School of Professional Communication.

Professor Green began his career at the regional daily newspaper The Cairns Post, later working at Brisbane’s then afternoon daily The Telegraph and the Ipswich-based regional daily Queensland Times.

His wide-ranging newsroom experience spans time as a reporter, a newsroom manager, deputy editor (The Cairns Post and The Telegraph) and editor (Queensland Times).

He moved into academia full-time in 1989 when he began lecturing at the University of Queensland. His tertiary qualifications include an economics degree, a Bachelor of Arts in Literary Studies, and a Masters and PhD in Journalism.

Professor Green has a strong journalism research background and is project leader of a major Australia Research Council-funded research project on Trauma and the Newsroom.

He also is a researcher on the Reporting Diversity and Integration Project, funded by the Department of Immigration and Citizenship, and a member of the UNESCO Communication Network in Australia.

He is a past president of the national Journalism Education Association and is a member of the editorial board of the Australian Journalism Review.

Professor Green’s other research interests include investigative journalism, computer-assisted and multimedia journalism, and news media organisation and management.

Around the Traps

Important visitor

The US Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma’s research co-ordinator Dr Meg Spratt, top left, will visit Melbourne in mid-June where she will meet with a number of journalism educators.

Dr Spratt is former newspaper reporter and editor who also has more than 12 years’ experience teaching journalism and media studies to university students.

Her particular research interests include journalism history, race and gender, and political communication, with an emphasis on photojournalism.

Recently, Dr Spratt’s PhD dissertation examined the uses and interpretations of photojournalistic icons from the height of the American Civil Rights Movement.

Dr Spratt will then be attending the World Journalism Educators Congress being held in Singapore later in June with three Dart Australasia board members, director Cait McMahon, Professor Kerry Green and Jim Tully.

Trauma reporting award

The Australasian Society for Traumatic Stress Studies (ASTSS) is offering a media award to recognise excellence in journalistic reporting of traumatic events for journalists who work in the State of Victoria.

The ASTSS provides a forum for extending the understanding of, prevention and treatment of major stress and trauma within the Australasian region. It is affiliated with the International Society for Traumatic Stress (ISTSS)

A prize of $1000 will be presented at the ASTSS 2007 Annual Conference in Ballarat in late September. Applications close July 31, 2007.

For further information, see ASTSS’s News Board where an application form can be downloaded.

Congratulations

GARY Tippet, centre, an Age journalist, Australasia's inaugural Ochberg Fellow – and a member of Dart Australasia's executive – was recently part of an online reporting team that won a Quill Award.

The Quill award for best online report was for 'Beaconsfield - from tragedy to triumph', the team's multimedia coverage of the Beaconsfield mine tragedy.

Judges wrote of the piece: "This was a concise and exemplary use of the medium on one of the biggest stories of the year - a multidimensional and beautifully crafted page which combined vision, commentary and graphics in a very satisfying package."

Worth a read

WHEN the 2004 tsunami crashed onto the coastlines of countries fronting the Indian Ocean on Boxing Day, one Australian journalist, an experienced foreign correspondent, was having a well-earned getaway with friends on a Thai beach, oblivious to the drama that would unfold around them.

What happened over the coming hours and days as she kicked into automatic reporter mode — and what that meant for her and those around her — is the riveting story contained in Kimina Lyall’s Out of the Blue ($29.95, ABC Books).

How she reacted when friends lost their lives and her partner was washed out to sea, how help eventually reach survivors, working amid death and destruction, how individuals and communities responded, the grief that slowly seeped into her being, and what it was like to be torn between the professional and the personal, Kimina tells it all with candour and the acknowledged clarity of hindsight.

The lessons she acknowledges she learned in the weeks and months after the tsunami — and those there for others to take on board — are borne of first-hand exposure to a natural disaster and its traumatic circumstances.

But they are expressed in the familiar, accessible language of a journalist telling it like it was from her point of view.

The surreal period that followed the initial waves makes fascinating reading for all working in the news media and should underscore how trauma can touch individuals differently.

For your diary

ABC TV’s Compass program is scheduled to air nationally ‘Bearing Witness’, an examination of the interface between journalism and trauma on Sunday, June 17 (check local TV guides for start times).

The program has been recently put together by the corporation’s Religion and Ethics Production Unit and is presented by senior ABC reporter and presenter — and 2005 Dart Ochberg Fellow — Philip Williams.

Program summary supplied by ABC TV:

"The burden of bearing witness is born by newsmen and women around the globe who put themselves on the front line of conflict and tragedy in the course of their work.

But what sustains them? How do they deal with trauma?

Almost three years after the Beslan massacre veteran ABC TV reporter Philip Williams is still dealing with the traumatic aftermath of covering this shocking siege.

Now he wants to meet other journalists “who’ve been through the same thing”.

He takes us on a moving personal journey into the ‘darkness in the soul’ of men and women whose job it is to report on our behalf events that most of us could not bear to experience.

He visits legendary Vietnam War photographer Tim Page who went everywhere, saw too much and coped by drowning himself in drugs and alcohol.

“I don’t think these were criminal acts. It was a method of survival,” he tells Philip. Some 40 years on Tim Page still carries it.

Philip is shaken: “I would hope for young journalists starting out we develop new means so they can ‘download’ and relieve the pressure of horrible images or the horrible stories or what ever it is that blocks up their emotions so it doesn’t become a dominant force 40 or 50 years later.”

Philip also meets Sally Sara who as the ABC’s Africa correspondent filmed horrific civil conflicts involving child soldiers; and, Kimina Lyall, a respected foreign correspondent who at her Island weekender in Thailand when the Boxing Day tsunami crashed into her world.

These distressing experiences have changed their lives.

Philip pleads for more understanding for all of his colleagues: “Why would a journalist going to cover a war or traumatic event be any less affected by that event than the soldiers or the emergency workers? Or perhaps even, to a degree, the victims themselves. We’re in there. We’re seeing it all. We’re recording it. We’re reliving it. We’re editing it. Of course we’re going to feel it!”