TRAUMA TRAINING AND THE REPARATIVE WORK OF JOURNALISM (original) (raw)
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Journalism Studies, 2010
Journalists are caretakers of the public interest. But when a community experiences a devastating trauma, lines of responsibility are less clear-cut. Are journalists responsible to the news consumer or the community experiencing the trauma? Which notion of public interest assumes precedence? How does journalistic responsibility translate into action when residents experience pain, but editors clamor for on-the-spot coverage? Creating spaces for reflective practice can assist journalists in considering principled ways of covering trauma. This paper examines the reactions and reflections of seven journalists who responded to research exploring the impact of media coverage on a rural community where a high-profile murder had occurred. These journalists, using reflective practice, pondered the challenges of covering trauma, the evolution of journalistic responsibility and the implications for journalism educators teaching students who will inevitably cover traumas when they are working in the field.
Trauma Journalism Education: Teaching Merits, Curricular Challenges, and Instructional Approaches
DART Center for Journalism and Trauma , 2013
This study uses mixed methods to examine the state of trauma journalism education at journalism programmes. The survey of 623 faculty members from the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC)-accredited institutions reveals a gap in training that leaves prospective journalists ill-prepared to cover domestic and international violence and disasters. An analysis of journalism curricula shows most universities, if they teach trauma journalism at all, do so only in an introductory manner while covering other subjects such as interviewing and ethics. Finally, qualitative interviews with journalism faculty and professional journalists who have covered trauma provide further context supporting the need for specific resources. The study offers recommendations for supporting trauma journalism education and introducing it to journalism curricula.
Journal of Mass Media Ethics, 2012
When covering traumatic events, novice journalists frequently face situations they are rarely prepared to resolve. This paper highlights ethical dilemmas faced by journalists, who participated in a focus group exploring the news media's trauma coverage. Major themes included: professional obligations versus ethical responsibilities; journalists' perceived status and roles; permissible harms, and inexperience. Instructional classroom simulations based on experiential learning theory can bridge the gap between the theory of ethical trauma reporting and realities journalists face when covering events that are often chaotic and unpredictable by their very nature. A simulation outline that can be used by journalism instructors is provided.
This article reflects the perspectives of journalism educators responsible for preparing journalists for careers in the Middle East and North Africa region, which has received little attention in trauma education research. A survey with quantitative and qualitative questions is used to reflect opinions of 101 journalism educators from Algeria, Sudan, and Palestine on journalism trauma-focused education and to elicit their attitudes toward incorporating trauma education into their institutions' journalism curricula. The findings revealed that journalism educators are particularly cognizant of the role of trauma in journalism practice and the relevance of incorporating trauma education elements into journalism curricula. Journalism educators have identified a number of barriers to incorporating trauma into their institutions' journalism curricula, as well as various perspectives on how to incorporate trauma-focused education into journalism curricula, which could call for changing how journalism is taught in their respective institutions. The study establishes a methodological foundation for other scholars to use when investigating triangulation (or the lack thereof) among educators, students, and practitioners in their own communities.
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An Examination of Journalist Perceptions toward Covering Tragedy and Trauma
Operant Subjectivity, 2013
Researchers in this study utilized Q111ethodology to exallline the perceptions of 16 current and for111er print and broadcastjournalists in central Indiana and upstate New York about their role in reporting 011 tragedy and traullla. A Q-sort instrll111ent containing 40 staternents was developed around five categories: Adventure, Bearing Witness, Career Concerns, Societal Inlpact, and Professionalisrn. Eight staternents were developed for each of the five categories, constituting the Q sanlpIe. Personal interviews and a short survey were elllployed to help interpret the perceptions of the 16 participating journalists concerning statelnents provided by war correspondents, police beat reporters, and other Iftraurna journalists," who had covered crises, disasters, and stories involving fatalities. PQMethod was llsed to analyze the state111ent ratings 1nade by reporters and two factors evolved: Etnpathists and Traditionalists. Researchers concluded that reporters covering tragedy an...
Global media journal, 2021
Journalists are at the forefront of many dangerous and hazardous situations like wars, crimes, and natural disasters. Recent research in the field of psychology suggests that workers exposed to events like these have potential to develop trauma, which can in turn develop into mental disorders like posttraumatic stress disorder or PTSD. This is why think tank Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma has been backing calls for additional organizational support from media companies for the protection of their journalists from trauma, as a proposed inclusion to the ethical and legal duty of media companies to keep their workers safe. A perceived duty of resilience and stigma attached to mental health however appears to drag efforts of opening up newsrooms to discussions on mental health. This paper thus seeks to contribute to the discussion by providing an ethical analysis on the dilemma. Such an evaluation may pave the way for an understanding on the liability of the concerned parties to the consequence of potential psychological trauma in sending journalists out to cover traumatic events. In the ethical evaluation, it is found that both journalists and media companies have the moral obligation of protecting journalists' mental well-being and among the steps to do so is eradicating the stigma surrounding mental health and resilience in newsrooms. This decision has been based on deontological evaluation of media companies' duty to protect their workers, and the journalists' duty to serve the public interest, as well as a consequentialist evaluation of other possible courses of actions to the dilemma.