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Nice, FRANCE:  A journalist films the wreck of a black Ferrari driven by a member of the Russian parliament, Suleyman Kerimov after the car hit a tree and burst into flames (VALERY HACHE/AFP/Getty Images)
Nice, FRANCE: A journalist films the wreck of a black Ferrari driven by a member of the Russian parliament, Suleyman Kerimov after the car hit a tree and burst into flames (VALERY HACHE/AFP/Getty Images)

MediaMarch 11, 2019

The trauma of news journalism is finally being acknowledged

Nice, FRANCE:  A journalist films the wreck of a black Ferrari driven by a member of the Russian parliament, Suleyman Kerimov after the car hit a tree and burst into flames (VALERY HACHE/AFP/Getty Images)
Nice, FRANCE: A journalist films the wreck of a black Ferrari driven by a member of the Russian parliament, Suleyman Kerimov after the car hit a tree and burst into flames (VALERY HACHE/AFP/Getty Images)

A landmark court ruling in Australia reexamines journalism’s weight on its practitioners, writes former AUT professor Lyn Barnes.

At last, it’s finally being acknowledged – secondary trauma encountered on the job as a journalist can do psychological damage. The $180,000 awarded to the Australian woman in a Melbourne court case last month may not be a lot of money, considering the years of misery she’s endured, but it’s a warning to media companies to up their game. Whether things will change in New Zealand though is another matter.

It’s long been recognized that it’s not just war correspondents who can suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder – hearing the gruesome details in a chilling court case or listening to grieving people recount the loss of their loved one can be just as debilitating, especially when it’s time and time again. The symptoms of secondary trauma, sometimes called vicarious trauma because it involves witnessing the effects on victims, can be identical. (Any symptoms such as anxiety, depression, disturbed sleep and flashbacks for example that last more than a month are considered to be PTSD).

My research focuses on those day-to-day tasks young journalists carry out and includes death-knocks and court reporting. In journalists’ jargon, ‘death knock’ is the term used to describe chasing up the family of a victim for an interview. One young woman told me how she would throw up before she went to do a death-knock; another had dreams of swimming amongst the wreckage and clothes from the victims of the MH370 aircraft crash because she had written so many stories about it.

The Australian case is not the first to seek recognition of psychological injury related to employment in the media but it’s a landmark decision. The young woman had covered 32 murders in Melbourne for The Age newspaper and had asked to be taken off crime reporting. In an earlier case in 2013, a photographer, also at The Age, suffered from debilitating post-traumatic stress and major depression after interviewing survivors of the Bali bombings but he was unsuccessful.

So what will happen in New Zealand? Because of ACC, our wonderful no-blame scheme, it’s difficult to hold a company accountable. My research suggests that is the reason for the complacency, and tokenism, when it comes to trauma training for journalists in New Zealand. Fairfax Media in Australia, which owns The Age, has been far more proactive, regularly running workshops with the Dart Centre for Journalism and Trauma.

I was inspired to look closer at trauma reporting after meeting up with a young graduate working on a Sunday paper. We were talking about her classmates, three months out from graduation, who covered the Christchurch earthquake. She raised a question that stuck with me: “I feel for those journalists, but what about the run-of-the-mill trauma we deal with every day?”

As with many other young journalists, eager to please and desperate to keep her job, she persevered until she couldn’t handle it anymore. She resigned and moved into public relations, like many journalists do after a couple of years in the industry. “It’s funny how people call PR ‘the dark side’ when journalists are doing much, much darker stuff on a day-to-day basis. Switching to PR was like taking a walk in the sunshine for the first time in years,” she wrote to me later.

The cynic in me began to think it was cheaper for media companies to have fresh (cheaper) faces than bother supporting staff with expensive trauma training sessions. My thinking was endorsed when the Dart Centre’s Pacific branch organised a support workshop in Wellington some years ago. Although all the major New Zealand news outlets were advised, not all sent staff. But I will never forget the responses from some of those who came.

Those journalists, photographers and videographers who did attend were so relieved to understand they were not alone; many had experienced the effects of secondary trauma. Several realized that their anxiety levels, broken sleep and short tempers were related to their work. Dealing with images is a whole study in itself. A recent Verge story about Facebook content moderators, who constantly screen incredibly harmful material, discusses the implications of secondary trauma.

Harden up

It’s not about toughening up or ‘developing a thick skin’. In fact, my research indicates that those people who became desensitised, or dissociated, developed unhealthy habits to survive. Journalists have long been associated with heavy drinking and gallows humour, but some behavior I noted was manic.

Gary Tippet, a multi-award winning Australasian journalists who spoke on RNZ’s MediaWatch programme last weekend about the outcome of the Melbourne court case, describes the effects of secondary trauma as similar to water torture: drip by drip, it takes it toll. He did not see his burnout coming, and no one could accuse Tippet of being overly sensitive, considering all the disasters and murders he had covered.

And forget about saying no to covering death knocks. One media manager I interviewed said that was not an option, plus there’s the peer pressure, or more subtle punishment, such as being sidelined or being given even shittier jobs.

The demand for stories related to death and dying are not likely to decrease either, with the demand for news content 24/7. Such stories are cheap and easy to source. That’s because, for some reason, we’re fascinated with anything to do with mortality. Plus, when you can get five stories out of one death, be it a murder or car accident, then makes economic sense in tough times for the media industry. There’s the initial announcement of the death, the ‘death-knock’ interviews with family, the funeral (few journalists enjoy that task), the court case and, of course, the anniversary.

Counselling and support

Sure, most of the companies provide three free counselling sessions a year under the Employment Assistance Programme, but as some of my interviewees said, three sessions were never enough and most couldn’t afford private follow-up counselling. What’s more, no one ever wants to admit they’re not coping and no way would they seek counselling through their company in case someone found out. Also, research suggests trauma counselling is specialised so not any old counsellor understands PTSD.

As Tippet said on Mediawatch, it’s up to media companies to provide training before and during trauma work. My research shows that editorial managers play a vital support role. Firstly, their attitude. If they’re old-school’, and there are still some of them around, they don’t really buy into trauma training. There’s still the odd bully around: one of the young women I interviewed was sent back to do a death-knock at least 10 times.

The old adage, ‘if you don’t come back with a story, don’t come back’ still subtly permeates some newsrooms. Newsroom culture is hard to change. “Learning on the job is the only way” is what one media manager said to me: throw them in at the deep end. Ethically, this is not only unacceptable for the journalist, but also the victim and their families.

For a number of years at AUT University, as part of the journalism programme, we have had professional actors perform trauma role plays with students, to avoid them practising on the public. The scenarios are based on real-life experiences, for example, a child drowning. Not only do journalists risk re-traumatising people who are already traumatised, if they don’t treat grieving people appropriately, but they are unlikely to get a good story because they are so distracted by their emotions and feelings.

Time out was one key factor that stood out as a coping strategy in my study, the opportunity for journalists to take time away from the job. This is not easy to do, as many who covered the Christchurch earthquake admitted. They considered themselves weak, even though some media managers were genuine in their offers of support. It may be the duty of care for media companies to monitor their staff for stress, but my research suggests that self-care – being aware of your own warning signals – and peer support are more dependable. And that will most certainly be the case in New Zealand.

Keep going!
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MediaMarch 10, 2019

The best of The Spinoff this week

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Bringing you the best weekly reading from your friendly local website.

Alex Casey: Long blacks for lads, hot chocs for ladies: what’s the deal with that?

“Gendering food and drink is all the rage these days, from National’s sausage sizzle innuendo to Whittaker’s new gender reveal chocolate bars. Blue for boys, pink for girls. Sausages for boys, clueless political chat for girls. It’s made some angry and some hangry, but the madness doesn’t stop at sexy solids. As a viral tweet recently reminded us, inane gender stereotypes can be just as readily applied to hot beverages, ascribing certain masculine and feminine qualities to your lovely morning cuppa.

For example, if I am with any form of man at any form of café, which happens at least once a year, my long black will first be offered to him without fail. Meanwhile, I am left with some milky, milky monstrosity that is frankly sexist because all it wants for my future is for my butt to explode in public. Determined to find out if I was alone in my frustrations, I reached out to hot drink consumers on the world wide web to gauge their experience with gendered java. Here are my findings.”

Alive Neville: Why is there still so much plastic in our supermarkets?

“But single-use plastic, as we all should know by now, is a problem. A big problem. In 2017, the first-ever global tally of how much plastic has been produced, discarded, burnt or put in landfills since the mass production of the stuff began 60 years ago came up with this figure: 8.3 billion tonnes. If that’s sobering, consider this: only 9% of it has been recycled. That’s right, most of it is still out there in some form – sources vary, but it can take plastic anywhere between 400-1000 years to degrade.

Increasingly, it’s in the sea. Each year, 8 million tonnes of plastic ends up in the oceans and if we carry on at this rate, there will be more plastics than fish in there by 2050.

It’s fair to say it’s bad, then. And it’s been bad for a while.”

Danyl Mclauchlan: The best argument against lowering the MMP threshold? Winston Raymond Peters

“But my main problem with lowering the threshold is that it will also probably save New Zealand First, and it will make the New Zealand First model of politics so much more viable.

This is a model in which you fundraise from exploitative, extractive industries (fishing, forestry), campaign on populist issues (Peters’ flagship policies in 2017 were lower immigration, a referendum to ditch the Māori seats and to remove GST on fruit and vegetables), ditch all of your policies and issues as soon as the election is over, and use your position in the political centre to maximise your personal power.

It means Peters gets to operate as a de facto co-prime minister, he gets to veto any attempts to regulate his corporate donors, he gets to unilaterally change our long-standing foreign policy towards China without bothering to tell the actual prime minister, let alone the Cabinet, his deputy gets given three billion dollars to just give away to whoever he wants, and none of this has any mandate from the public whatsoever. Nobody wanted or voted for any of this, not even New Zealand First’s voters, but here we all are.”

The big moment of owning your first home. Photo: Getty Images.

The Spinoff: Tips for buying your first home, from Spinoff staff who’ve been there

“Buying a home is intimidating. Buying your first home can be terrifying. Once the adrenaline rush from bidding at the auction subsides revealing the burden of 30 years of debt, that exciting moment of owning your first home can leave you feeling like Atlas, a drafty four bedroom villa with renovation potential metaphorically sitting on your shoulders.

To help relieve some of that weight, The Spinoff has put together some tips from our personal experiences of buying your first home. This short guide provides some expert insight on who to talk to, what to look for, and what to do, to help you navigate this big moment.”

Emily Writes: RIP Luke Perry, the TV bad boy we all wanted to save

“Being a teenager is nightmarish but Dylan McKay somehow made it easier. He was “psyched” about everything but somehow his excitability just made him cooler at a time when being psyched about anything seemed a bit over the top.

He sold the absolute falsehood that you would be cool in high school. That you’d somehow do very little schooling and mostly just make out and ride around in cars with boys.

One day you’d get a man like Dylan and after the prom you’d make sweet love. You’d save him from his fledgling alcohol addiction.

Instead you likely lost your virginity to Sam while your uncle played ping pong in the room next door. I don’t know your circumstances, I’m just saying.”

Sam Brooks: Now that’s what we called 2009: Looking back at the monster hits of a decade ago

“No album, no compilation, no playlist could represent that better than the double-album monster that is Now! That’s What I Call Music 31. Thirty-six songs, not a single dud amongst them.

I have to be honest, though. In 2009, I was not the cultured man that I am now. I was in my first year at uni and considered a six pack of KGBs a worthwhile investment. I didn’t know good music.

But now, I do. I’m the culture editor. I edit the culture. I know good music, and I know that I was an absolute trashbag ten years ago. So, in the interest of transparency, here’s what I thought of these songs back then, and what I think of them now.”

Anna Connell: Dear Police et al: Your cutesy social media account is bad and foolish

“The Police argue it helps them “show what police were up to”. But does it really? So much of what the police do is awful, hard, dangerous, often gruesome, and heart-breaking work that requires painstaking attention to detail, integrity, force and authority. It’s not Instagram-friendly so instead we just see the fun, bright-side-of-life vignettes that paint a small, sanitised picture of the real work police do.

That small, sanitised, algorithm-friendly view, often whitewashes away controversy and soothes us into thinking that maybe we don’t need to maintain such  a robust and healthy grip on our rights to question powerful institutions.  There are many who still fear police and hold well-argued views about why they are wary of them. You could argue the relatable and fun police social media activity is a way to counter this fear but in the face of legitimate concerns about police power, it comes off as a bit glib.”

Alex Braae: How freaked out should we be about the measles news?

“I’m not going to go into the various arguments against vaccination, because according to an overwhelming scientific consensus and a massive base of research they’re wrong. But people who refuse to get vaccinated put the lives of those who can’t get vaccinated at risk.

This is not buying into an anti-vax argument either – for some the vaccines themselves actually are dangerous. There are those with severe allergies to components in the vaccine, which means it could kill or severely harm them. For others, getting a vaccination at a certain time can be a bad idea – for example, if they’re pregnant, or have an illness or disease which has lowered their immune system. We can’t blame these people for their predicament, but we can protect them.

How? Herd immunity.”

Sam Brooks: In praise of Anika Moa Unleashed’s 20 year reunion of TrueBliss

“I’m on the record as being a huge fan of Anika Moa and Anika Moa Unleashed. The show has, time and again, proven her as one of our nation’s finest interviewers. In some ways, she’s the flipside of should-be-a-Dame Kim Hill. There’s a disarming frankness to her that has her interviewees saying more than they’d perhaps planned on saying. She makes the jokes that everybody knows are lingering, and deflates any tension in the room by naming them. It clears the air and makes things more comfortable for her, the interviewee and the audience.

However, I don’t even think Kim Hill could’ve pulled this off.”

But wait there's more!