Yesteday's issue of The Australian carries the headline: "Crash Course in Dealing with Trauma." It's the story of journalist Mike Walter, an accidental firsthand witness to the 9/11 attack on the Pentagon.
"We're all meaning-hungry creatures. We're permanent citizens of the republic of trauma." Those words were spoken by Pete Hamill, among 110 news professionals, artists, researchers and scholars who gathered in February 2009 at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University to explore how traumatic events challenge journalists' storytelling.
In a recent TedX talk at the University of Tulsa, Dart Research Director Elana Newman offers perspective on the important role journalists can play in saving lives during a tragedy, mitigating violence and helping to restore justice.
Following the 2011 Utoya shooting in Norway, journalist and researcher Trond Idås teamed with researcher Klas Backholm, and found that journalists who felt that their reporting may have caused harm were at higher risk for PTSD.
A report on Reuters.com sheds light on how stressful – and dangerous – the act of newsgathering has become. And what news organizations need to do about it.
We just got word of an upcoming Northern Short Course in Photojournalism from the National Press Photographers Association, including a program geared specifically at photojournalism educators: "From Newsroom to Classroom."
Of particular note is the workshop "Talking About Trauma to our Students," run by Dart Center Ochberg Fellows Jim MacMillan and Mike Walter. They'll be covering topics including...
A sprawling investigation of domestic violence and criminal justice; a first-person narrative trying to understand the writer's rapist; a carefully orchestrated radio series on brutal sexual assault as a weapon of war. The stories honored yesterday as winners of the 2009 Dart Awards for Excellence in Coverage of Trauma appear at first glance to share little in the way of practical approach.
Sebastian Junger and Tim Hetherington insist they didn't want to make an activist movie. They wanted to make a documentary that showed what military deployment was like, politics aside. They wanted to show why men keep going back to war even after the trauma and the bloodshed, why they keep seeking that sense of brotherhood. In the film "Restrepo," they've succeeded.
Six journalism grad students working with ABC’s 20/20 spent the summer investigating the stories of soldiers who abuse drugs. In their TV report, soldiers speak to the students of going into war drug-free, but turning to cocaine, amphetamines, and prescription drugs to deal with their traumatic experiences.
Last week at Women's eNews headquarters, guest speaker Claudia Garcia-Rojas shared best practices in reporting on rape and sexual violence, including how to use language and framing respectfully during an interview, how to make sources comfortable and how to use statistics effectively in reporting.