Journalism schools try to prepare students for the world that awaits them. We offer tools in reporting, writing, editing, design, photography, new media, law and ethics. Too often, though, one set of tools goes missing: How to deal with trauma.
That was the subject of a workshop at Chicago’s Loyola University last weekend by the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma. Attendees ranged from professional journalists to psychologists to high-school and college journalism teachers and advisers. The common theme: Young journalists need this kind of training – and without it, they’re often unprepared for what they encounter.
Young reporters’ first full-time jobs often are police and fire beats. They may be exposed to traffic accidents, natural and man-made disasters, crime scenes and, unfortunately, events like school shootings. Maybe all of those things in a relatively short time period. Even young journalists on sports or government beats almost invariably find themselves called upon to help cover big, traumatic events.
And it may be getting worse.
“We have been pounded left and right with a level of intensity never before seen in journalism,” speaker David Handschuh told workshop attendees. Handschuh brings a special kind of credibility to this conversation. A photographer for the New York Daily News, he was severely injured on 9/11 as one of the World Trade Center towers collapsed. The shock and debris wave hurled him a block through the air and nearly killed him.
“We have to look after the people we interview, and we have to look after each other,” Handschuh said.
A University of Maryland study shows that, in 75 percent of college journalism programs, trauma is not formally taught in any way. Those schools that do teach it usually place it in an ethics class rather than as part of any skills classes.
Here’s what Dart believes all journalists need to know: Even the most cynical and hardened among us can’t escape some basic human characteristics. We are programmed to trust the world. We go about our daily routines assuming we are basically safe. And, we are programmed for survival – that’s the fight-or-flight (or freeze) response. In the face of traumatic events, those two characteristics can clash.
At the Northern Star, we have firsthand experience with the Dart Center and the tremendous work it does. A few weeks after the Feb. 14 NIU campus shootings, Dart dispatched its director, Bruce Shapiro, and board member Deb Nelson to DeKalb. They met first with area journalists who covered the tragedy, and then with the Northern Star staff.
Those sessions helped students and professionals understand and, in some cases, recognize signs of post-traumatic stress disorder. Shapiro said they include:
- Intrusion: Images that just won’t go away. Or, even just a continued sense of unease. Disturbing dreams.
- Hyper-arousal: Extreme sensitivity to potential danger. Jumpiness. Irritability. A short attention span.
- Numbing / avoidance: Avoidance of anything that will arouse those other two problems. The person’s emotional life is constricted. Long-term, you don’t feel things in a normal way.
These symptoms are completely normal immediately following exposure to trauma. It’s also normal for symptoms to show up four to six months after an event, Shapiro said. What should set off alarm bells is if a person experiences all three symptoms for six weeks or more. Left untreated, it can persist for years.
Also of concern is something called vicarious traumatization. Basically, journalists who listen to other people’s traumatic stories – even without an at-the-scene experience – have to be careful, too, Shapiro said. And, we need to realize we can have the same effect on readers and viewers.
It’s not all about PTSD. Journalists through the years have experienced anxiety, depression, substance abuse and relationship breakdowns. Certainly not all of that can be attributed to covering trauma. But as Dart creates a field of knowledge where none existed previously, it’s providing some “aha” moments for journalists, too.
It strikes me that this topic would make a great NINA workshop.
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