Resources for How Trauma Affects Photographers, Blog Posts

When the Radio Television Digital News Association, which bills itself as "the world's largest professional organization exclusively serving the electronic news profession," opened its annual conference in Las Vegas on April 12, it was with a panel of journalists from broadcast, radio and the Associated Press, focused not on the digital newsroom, but on the earthquake that devastated Haiti on January 12. According to the RTDNA website, the discussion that ensued was dominated by ethical questions.

"The mission of raising consciousness about trauma is more than how to make journalism better,” says 2011 Dart Center Academic Fellow Doug Underwood. “I believe that studying trauma – as hard as it’s been and it’s not always easy to read trauma narratives – has made me a better person."

On today's edition of BBC's Media Show, host Ed Stourton, ABC reporter Richelle Hunt, Global Editor for Multimedia at Reuters Chris Cramer and International Editor of Channel 4 News Lindsey Hilsum discuss how journalists can best be supported when covering traumatic events.

A tractor-trailer slammed into a large crowd at a Christmas market in central Berlin on Monday night, killing 12 people and injuring dozens. The Dart Center has resources and tips in German and English for journalists who are tasked with covering this tragedy.

A string of seismic events has made for a week of deadly disasters in the Asia-Pacific region. On Sept. 26, Typhoon Ketsana hit the Phillipines, leaving hundreds dead and flooding 80 percent of Manila. On Sept. 29, an earthquake and ensuing tsunamis rocked the Samoas, killing at least 150. The Indonesian island of Sumatra was hit by an earthquake the next day, and then by a second less-severe earthquake the day after.

The Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma is extending the deadline for this year’s Ochberg Fellowships to Friday September 29, in recognition of the unprecedented impact of Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria, as well as this week’s catastrophic Mexican earthquake, on large numbers of journalists in North America and the Caribbean.

Thirty-six people have been killed since wildfires began in Northern California last Sunday night, making this natural disaster one of the deadliest in state history.

Covering conflict is a physical, psychological and ethical struggle. So is coming home. Both are at the heart of "Time Stands Still," a new play from Pulitzer Prize-winner Donald Margulies about a photojournalist played by Laura Linney and her reporter partner, confronting a conventional life after being injured in Iraq.

Mata’afa Kene Lesa woke up in heaven Sept. 19 and found himself in hell. When a tsunami struck Upolu, one of Western Samoa’s two main islands, Lesa – the editor of Samoa Observer – was one of the first local journalists to respond, racing to the affected area to be met by scenes of death and devastation.

Two more journalists have died in Syria: reporter Marie Colvin of London's Sunday Times and French photographer Rémi Ochlik. Colvin's last report from Homs was a BBC interview the day before she was killed. "I counted 14 shells… I watched a little baby die today. Absolutely horrific. No one here can understand how the international community can let this happen."