Too much front line for reporters?
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Journalists are often on the front line of violence. But today some
are insisting help is needed for those required to bear witness to
the atrocities of war.
By Randy Dotinga | Correspondent of The Christian Science
Monitor
In an endless cycle of write-and-repeat, journalist Tom Lansner
typed up stories about missing persons, shocking atrocities, and
mass graves while serving as a war correspondent in Uganda in the
early 1990s. After observing scenes of carnage, he feared - or
perhaps hoped - that his eyes were failing him.
"Sometimes, I questioned myself," recalls Mr. Lansner, now a
professor of international relations at Columbia University. "Did I
really see these things? Could I really have seen something so
terrible, so bad? Sometimes I would wonder, 'Wow, could this be
real?' "
Lansner's experience is hardly unique among the generations of
reporters who have offered firsthand accounts of armed conflict
since at least the time of the Civil War. Many have questioned
their grip on reality and struggled with despair. "I've been
immersed in it too long. My spirit is wobbly and my mind is
confused," wrote famed World War II correspondent Ernie Pyle. "The
hurt has become too great."
During the halfcentury between the war- reporting stints of Lansner
and Mr. Pyle, there were few, if any, places for correspondents to
turn for support. Over the past decade, however, journalists across
the world have begun to acknowledge their own susceptibility to
emotional trauma - on the battlefield, amid the destruction of
9/11, or in the living room of a mother grieving for a dead son.
Special training for war correspondents, once nonexistent, has
become more common, and some journalism schools are teaching
students how to cover tragedy sensitively and cope with their own
emotions.
"It's something that has been discussed throughout the industry,"
says former war correspondent Andy Alexander, Washington DC bureau
chief for the Cox newspapers chain. "There's a growing realization
that it's something we have to deal with, and not simply the
reporters who cover wars but reporters in all sorts of traumatic
experiences."
Awareness of the impact of violence on journalists has been growing
in fits and starts for several decades. In the Vietnam era,
correspondents added a new level of personal observations to their
coverage, particularly in books published after the war; female
reporters explored their own experiences, and some wrote of the
horrors they faced when captured.
The recent practice of embedding journalists with US troops in Iraq
has also heightened awareness, as these reporters have stayed close
to combat and been regular witnesses to disturbing scenes.
Before Iraq, the most recent impetus for change was the Oklahoma
City bombing in 1995. The explosion shook the building of The Daily
Oklahoman newspaper, killed relatives of staff members, and tested
the way reporters looked at themselves.
"We think we can withstand anything as journalists," says managing
editor Joe Hight. "We're supposed to be observers, reporting on the
scene, and we're not supposed to be affected by it as the victims
are."
Mr. Hight and others regularly describe their experiences to other
journalists with the assistance of the Dart Center for Journalism
& Trauma, based at the University of Washington. The center
provides online resources, compiles studies on trauma, and sends
speakers to newsrooms and journalism conferences.
Few researchers have studied how journalists handle the emotional
effects of covering violence, says Roger Simpson, executive
director of the center. One study of 140 war correspondents found
that many showed symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder, which
frequently affects war veterans and survivors of violence. "There
were high levels of broken relationships, alienation from others,
drug and alcohol abuse," Mr. Simpson says.
But some journalists, perhaps influenced by a combination of
machismo and denial, fail to heed warning signs or simply don't
watch for them. "We never acknowledge the impact that operating in
these combat zones has on us," said Newsweek chief of
correspondents Marcus Mabry, who covered the Bosnian conflict in
the 1990s. "Usually when you realize it is when you don't expect
it: I was back in my home in Johannesburg, sitting in my living
room with a 360-degree view, relaxing in a beautiful South African
evening, and I'm looking down the hill, thinking this would be a
great place to have a sniper's nest. It was a war flashback."
Some media organizations offer counseling to journalists after they
cover violence or warfare; at The Christian Science Monitor,
employees can seek assistance through their health insurance
coverage. Across the news industry, however, it's almost always up
to individual journalists to decide whether to seek help. Many
reporters don't bother.
Men, especially, seem uncomfortable asking for help, says
Oklahoma's Hight. The perceived stigma is "something that we all
have to overcome," he says. "We're not weak because we seek
counseling."
Some journalists are calling for mandatory counseling - something
The Daily Oklahoman considered but ultimately rejected after the
bombing there.
Required sessions with therapists will help "remove the stigma,"
argues (New York) Daily News photographer David Handschuh, who
covered the Columbine High School massacre and nearly died when one
of the World Trade Center towers fell.
Newsweek's Mabry isn't sure about the wisdom of requiring
counseling, but he makes a point of encouraging returning
correspondents to meet counselors. "I've recommended to all my
people in Iraq and Afghanistan to go see a professional when you
come out, and we'll pay for it," Mr. Mabry says. "But most people
as far as I know haven't taken advantage of this. They say it's no
big deal, I don't have time. Once they've been through this stuff,
they want to leave it behind."
That, he says, is a mistake. "I don't think they're dealing with
it. And I think we have a problem."