Dart Media

How does childhood adversity shape adult lives? And how can we tell better stories about it?

Video coverage of the 2022 Dart Awards presentation and winners' roundtable.

The Dart Center asked nine leading women in journalism to share their experiences and to reflect on their own best practices.

As part of the Early Childhood Journalism Initiative, the Dart Center has created a webinar series that will help journalists think through some of the most urgent global issues and how to approach them through an early childhood lens.

How do we report accurately and ethically on sexual violence and torture?

In a multimedia presentation on covering gangs and paramilitaries, earthquakes and HIV, a photographer and educator explores how collaboration is the key to making images that are both powerful and responsible.

Photography is a medium, a record and a means of reclaiming identity in award-winning photojournalist John Trotter's multimedia meditation on his recovery from brain injury.

Through quiet portraits and moving interviews, wounded Iraq veterans convey the physical and psychological consequences of war.

In a personal journey that is also a passionate elegy for an imperiled environment and traditional way of life, documentary photographer Kael Alford has built a bridge home from the wars she’s covered.

Photojournalist Ron Haviv arrived in Haiti just 24 hours after the catastrophic earthquake that took an estimated 250,000 lives, injured hundreds of thousands and left nearly 1 million people homeless. Epic devastation of this magnitude defies comprehension.  

In a TedX talk at the University of Tulsa, Dart Research Director Elana Newman offered perspective on the important role journalists can play in saving lives during a tragedy, mitigating violence and helping to restore justice.

In May 2015, the Dart Center organized a two-day workshop on covering guns and gun violence for 30 journalists at Arizona State University’s Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication. 

The Dart Center hosted a special half-day workshop on mindfulness practice, led by teachers from the monastic community founded by poet, author and activist Thich Nhat Hanh.

Regional and national journalists were joined by community leaders, Sandy Hook families, mental health experts and policy advocates to share perspectives, discuss lessons learned and point the way towards responsible news coverage going forward.

On February 12, 2015, a coalition of major news companies and journalism organizations gathered to endorse worldwide freelance protection standards.

In October 2014, the Dart Center and Columbia Journalism School hosted a three-day conference to deepen journalists' reporting on a range of issues involving Cuba and Cuban-American relations at a critical moment of transition.

A 57-minute documentary on the traumatic impact of the Columbine High School shootings on students, families, the community and journalists.

Elizabeth Alexander's best-selling memoir recalls the life and sudden death of her husband Ficre Ghebreyesus. In conversation with Bruce Shapiro, Alexander - who read at President Obama's 2009 inauguration - discussed writing about loss, love and and upheavals both private and public.

The Dart Center hosted a panel on the ethical and safety challenges of covering ebola, featuring Todd Frankel, John Moore, Michael Goldfarb, Christopher Tedeschi and Judith Matloff.

In December 2013, the Dart Center hosted a workshop for journalists to improve news coverage of immigrants and refugees, with a special focus on mental health.

A conversation with Pulitzer Prize-winning author Dale Maharidge and Ridenhour Prize-winning journalist Nick Turse about their acclaimed new books, which revise our understanding of two very different wars.

On the 50th anniversary of the publication of Eichmann in Jerusalem, the Dart Center hosted a lively forum with Pulitzer Prize-winning author and human rights journalist, Tina Rosenberg, and moral philosopher and Einstein Forum director, Susan Neiman.

David Finkel, a master chronicler of the human impact of war, joined his colleague Steve Coll for a wide-ranging conversation on Finkel's new book Thank You For Your Service.

Ana Arana and Habiba Nosheen probe the ethical, practical and craft challenges they faced reporting on the case of Oscar Ramirez, who, nearly 30 years after the fact, learned he was a survivor of a government massacre.

In September 2012, the Dart Center hosted a two-day workshop on covering suicide for local journalists and regional news organizations in the greater Philadelphia area.

To foster a supportive and productive workplace, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and the Dart Centre for Journalism and Trauma collaborated to create this video on the importance of peer support.

Produced by journalists for journalists, this video from Dart Centre Asia Pacific features a wide range of Australian news professionals recounting experiences and lessons learned covering stories involving violence and tragedy.

This two-day workshop served as a forum for improving journalists’ knowledge of critical issues such as mental, physical health and environmental health impacts of youth violence; innovations in prevention and intervention; social, economic and legal implications, and responses by schools, public health institutions, and community and faith-based organizations

Joanna Connors tells how she reported "Beyond Rape: A Survivor's Journey," her remarkable first person account of her own rape, its aftermath and an investigation of the life that led her assailant to be a violent criminal.

Kristen Lombardi, staff writer for the Center for Public Integrity, speaks to the Dart Center about what journalists should know about sexual assault on college campuses.

Christina Lamb, former foreign correspondent for the Sunday Times, and David Loyn, BBC developing world correspondent, speak to the Dart Center about what journalists should know about Afghanistan and the ethics of reporting conflict.

In a Katrina-flooded hospital, doctors injected patients with painkillers and sedatives. Were they easing their pain or speeding their deaths? In a 2009 interview, ProPublica reporter and Dart Award-winner Sheri Fink explains how she pursued the story.

In April 2012, the Dart Center hosted a conversation with four news professionals who have been shaped by the conflict — and whose words and images have defined the war and its ongoing impact for all of us.

This workshop included background briefings as well as specialized reporting skills training to enhance journalists’ capacity to report on relationship violence knowledgeably, ethically and effectively. It examined these issues across diverse communities and special populations including teenagers, immigrants and refugees; and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered individuals.

Video coverage of the 2017 Dart Awards presentation and winners' roundtable, featuring Jay Allison and Samantha Broun from Transom.org, and Erin Alberty and Rachel Piper from the Salt Lake Tribune. The event also included a special World Press Freedom commemoration featuring Columbia Journalism School graduate students Alejandra Ibarra Chaoul, Amel Ghani and Riham Alkousaa.

Video coverage of the 2016 Dart Awards presentation and winners' roundtable, featuring Christopher Sherman and Dario Lopez-Mills of AP and Eli Saslow and David Finkel of the Washington Post, explored the story-behind-the-story of their Dart Award-winning pieces; drill down on what's involved in undertaking hard-hitting, humane investigations of trauma, and discuss innovative approaches to reporting on violence and tragedy.

Melissa del Bosque, Andrea McDaniels, Mae Ryan, Glenn Smith and David Wood shared tips on covering violence, building trust and self-care.

In commemoration of the Dart Awards 20th Anniversary, the Dart Center hosted a special symposium on trauma journalism featuring past winners and judges, and the 2014 winners and honorable mentions. 

In May 2013, the Dart Center celebrated the winners and honorable mentions and presented a roundtable discussion featuring  Ana Arana, Scott Blanchard, Thomas Brennan, James Dao, Barbara Davidson,  Molly Hennessy-Fiske, Habiba Nosheen, Jason Plotkin, Brian Reed, and Sebastian Rotella.

Journalists from The St. Petersburg Times, ProPublica and the New York Times talk through the process of shaping their long and complicated Dart Award-winning narratives.

Winners and judges of the Dart Awards for Excellence in Coverage of Trauma break down the process behind three exemplary stories. Joanna Connors tells how she reported "Beyond Rape: A Survivor's Journey”, and PRI's Jeb Sharp and the 2009 Dart Award judges talk about how she reported her series, "Rape as a Weapon of War."

Dart Award winners Rachel Dissell, Gus Chan and Laura Sullivan tell the stories behind their winning pieces, "Johanna: Facing Forward," and "Sexual Abuse of Native American Women."

A teaching DVD for working journalists and students to learn ethical, sensitive and accurate reporting of victims and survivors of trauma.

A package of video interviews and audio recordings from the two-day Dart Center workshop, "When Veterans Come Home," that was held in Philadelphia in 2011.

PRI's Jeb Sharp and the 2009 Dart Award judges talk about how she reported her series, "Rape as a Weapon of War," and why it won the Dart Award for Excellence in Coverage of Trauma.

Helen Benedict talks about interviewing female veterans who experienced sexual assault in Iraq; and how they represent a small, but important part of the story of women serving in the military.

The Dart Awards for Excellence in Coverage of Trauma honor the most sensitive, thoughtful and ethical reporting on survivors of traumatic events. See how the judging process takes place.  

Steve Coll leads a panel featuring David Rohde, Rukmini Callimachi, Phil Balboni, Nicole Tung and Joel Simon on the current risks, rewards, and inner workings of conflict reporting in the aftermath of the tragic murders of reporters James Foley and Steven Sotloff.

The Dart Center offers an intensive four-day crisis reporting course to prepare journalists to think critically about how to work safely and effectively in volatile situations such as war, conflict and disaster zones, with an emphasis on risk assessment and harm prevention.

In this video, student journalists and advisers from Virginia Tech and Northern Illinois University explain how they reported on mass-casualty attacks on their respective campuses.

Die Freie Universität Berlin und das Dart Center Deutschland/Europe haben erstmals einen Lehrfilm zum Umgang von Medien mit der Darstellung sogenannter hochexpressiver, zielgerichteter Gewalt erstellt. 

Gemeinsam mit dem International Media Center Hamburg (IMCH) lud das Dart Center zu einer Podiumsdiskussion nach Hamburg ein, an der neben Bruce Shapiro auch Gisela Mayer, Thomas Görger, Petra Tabeling,  als Moderator Steffen Burkhardt, teilnahmen.

In February 2010, the Dart Center hosted "The Secret Life of War Reporters" with Emma Daly, Santiago Lyon and Donald Margulies.

Journalism students in Arizona and New York trade places to explore immigrant issues with sensitivity and depth. The project was funded in part by stipends from The Dart Center Academic Fellowship Program.

On August 7, 1994, a deranged man brutally stabbed seven people in a New Haven cafe. Award-winning writers Emily Bernard and Bruce Shapiro, both critically injured that night, pondered the attack in essays written nearly two decades apart.

Part of the Dart Center-duPont Awards Lecture series at Columbia Journalism School featured Richard Engel, Chief Foreign Correspondent, NBC News. Moderator Ann Cooper spoke with Engel about covering violence and trauma in conflict zones throughout the Middle East.

Katherine Boo - winner of the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award and a MacArthur “genius” grant - joined us for a discussion of her powerful and complex work of immersion reporting.

In 2013 the Dart Centre organised a two day seminar for local journalists in Rendsburg, Germany.

Dart Centre Europe director Gavin Rees spoke with the International News Safety Institute about the toll that viewing images of death and destruction can take on those back in the newsroom.

Yamiche Alcindor, Donna DeCesare, Danny Spriggs and Bruce Shapiro discussed practical tactics for assessing risk and and staying safe while reporting. They shared lessons from covering protests, youth gangs, earthquakes and toxic environmental sites among others.

In February 2017, the Dart Center organized a two-day workshop on covering gun violence for 35 journalists at WBEZ in Chicago. 

A conversation with T. Christian Miller, senior reporter for ProPublica, and Ken Armstrong, writer for The Marshall Project, who peeled back the layers of their 2016 Pulitzer Prize winning investigative project.

The Covering Recovery Project, a joint initiative of the Dart Center and the National Center for Disaster Preparedness, hosted its inaugural lunchtime colloquium at the Columbia Journalism School focused on innovations in coverage and lessons learned from recent disasters.

Pulitzer Prize winning journalists were joined by students, professors and mental health experts to discuss lessons learned and point the way towards responsible news coverage going forward.

In March 2017, the Dart Center organized a four-day reporting institute on covering early childhood development for 45 journalists from 26 countries at Columbia Journalism School in New York City.

At the 2017 Global Media Forum in Germany, a panel discussion featuring conflict photographers Capucine Granier-Deferre and Patrick Tombola, and Dart Centre Europe's Gavin Rees.

A conversation on reporting craft, ethics and narrative with Anne Fadiman, author of The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors and The Collision of Two Cultures. 

At the Perugia Journalism Festival, this panel explored how women journalists contend with unwanted presumptions, sexual harassment and the threat of gender-based violence. 

At the Perugia Journalism Festival, this conversation focused on keeping yourself and your sources safe when interviewing criminals, paramilitaries and others with a history of violence.

Journalists Finbarr O'Reilly and Thomas Brennan discuss their joint memoir, Shooting Ghosts: A U.S. Marine, a Conflict Photographer, and Their Journey Back from War.

The Dart Center hosted photographers Nina Berman and Susan Meiselas for a conversation about their innovative new books, "An Autobiography of Miss Wish" and "A Room of Their Own."

Video coverage of the 2018 Dart Awards celebration and winners' roundtable, featuring Neil Barsky, John Woodrow Cox, Azmat Khan, and Lizzie Presser; plus a special World Press Freedom commemoration featuring Columbia Journalism School graduate students Ali Anisi Tehrani and Davi Merchan.

Video coverage of the 2019 Dart Awards celebration and winners' roundtable, featuring Eilís​ Quinn, Brandon Stahl, Richard Webster and Kate Wells.

Video coverage of the 2020 Dart Awards presentation and winners' roundtable, hosted by CNN's Anderson Cooper.

Video coverage of the 2021 Dart Awards presentation and winners' roundtable, hosted by NBC News' Kate Snow.