"Australia and New Zealand have reputations as countries prone to catastrophic and frequent natural and man-made disasters. Therefore, it is no surprise that antipodean academics want trauma-informed education for their journalism students. This study presents the Australian-New Zealand results of a
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2021 survey exploring educators’ attitudes toward embedding trauma literacy into journalism curriculum. It mirrors a survey from the UK-based Journalism Education and Trauma Research Group. The Australian-New Zealand results confirm that educators want more training to effectively embed trauma-informed reporting into their curricula. The discussion notes the availability of local, research-based teaching materials, and identifies barriers to implementation." (Abstract)
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"Journalists confront terror and war to report and document what is happening. Covering traumatic events is dangerous for the reporters on the scene and may leave them with distress responses. The aim of this study is to investigate the coping strategies journalists use to deal with danger and traum
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atic stress and to build resilience. Through in-depth interviews with journalists covering crisis and violent events, the article looks at the physical, practical and trauma aspects of crisis journalism, and contributes to the complex understanding of risk and resilience for journalists. The study is based on interviews with nine reporters from five countries. Between them, they have covered several conflicts, terror attacks and wars. The study shows that they use a variety of strategies. Memories from unpredictable assignments stick with them. However, eight would cover traumatic events again, and the majority have experienced post-traumatic growth. My results show that informal peer support is crucial, but media organizations have a long way to go to ensure adequate support." (Abstract)
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"Background: A current need in journalistic frontline work is to understand the potential psychological and physical traumatic consequences that may result from on-duty appointments. Journalists are active in frontline zones to report on conflicts, crises, and natural disasters. In the Middle East a
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nd North Africa (MENA) region, reporters are not equipped or trained mentally or emotionally to handle stressful events. Most journalists suffer from certain degrees of post-traumatic mental and physical disorders associated with their frontline duties.
Objective: The objective of this exploratory study is to provide comprehensive insights into challenges faced by journalists reporting in conflict zones in the MENA region.
Methods: This research study is based on a qualitative research approach where data was collected by directly interviewing eight journalists who have covered frontline conflicts and disasters in the MENA region. The collected qualitative data was analysed by conducting a thematic analysis to appreciate emerging categories. The ontology of critical realism was adopted to recognise the real feelings and experiences of the responding journalists.
Results: This original study presents six themes emerging from the data and researcher triangulation. The health and social issues in MENA are found to be most critical for high-risk reporting. Conclusion: Amidst the psychological and physical problems, all journalists did not give up their jobs or ask for privileges. Media houses could consider a more robust training plan based on health and safety to prepare these journalists." (Abstract)
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"Literature notes that most journalists will witness trauma and human suffering during the course of their careers, yet journalism education is lagging behind in preparing students to cope with the effects of exposure to traumatic events. This paper examines the attitudes of journalism educators/tra
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iners toward trauma literacy through a questionnaire survey of 119 journalism educators globally. The findings show that a high percentage of educators have a good understanding of the risks that arise from exposure to critical and potentially traumatizing events but there are some barriers to teaching trauma including lack of knowledge/confidence, resources, time, and teaching materials." (Abstract)
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"Research shows that emotional management is often part of journalists’ decision-making in the news creation process and when dealing with attacks, insults, or harassment, which we describe by the umbrella term hostility. Some emotional management strategies can lead journalists to self-censorship
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or to mental health problems when they do not recognise and deal with emotions. Therefore, the aim of this study is to investigate how journalists react to hostility against them by using emotional coping strategies and emotional management. We carried out 18 semi-structured interviews with news journalists in Estonia from June 2021 to December 2021. The results showed that although hostility is a part of journalists’ everyday work-life, many lack a strategy to deal with it. We can say that there are three types of perceptions and reactions: (1) the thick-skinned journalist who does not see problems with hostility and, therefore, does not take any action against receiving the hostility. (2) The pragmatically conformist journalist who sometimes sees problems with hostility and believes the solution is to grow a thicker skin. (3) The journalist who is not a punching bag and sees a problem in being constantly bombarded by hostility, most of whom seek protection from it or help to fight against it." (Abstract)
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"The public’s increased access to journalists via social networks is arguably the defining shift in audience-media relations over the past two decades. While some laud this potential for dialogue, the reality is that many journalists face targeted hostility, with women often subjected to particula
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rly challenging content. Underpinning this project is the question of how contemporary social media dynamics, and particularly negative or hostile interactions, affect journalists in Ireland. Drawing on interviews with 36 national-level female journalists, this project documents their experiences in their own words, analyses how they handle negativity, and explores how they think those with power should respond. The project also includes focus groups with 40 student journalists who are grappling with the expectations around social media use moving forward in their careers." (Abstract)
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"This paper explores the Taliban government's media capture strategies since retaking the country on August 15, 2021, and how journalists and media outlets have responded to these strategies. In particular, it focuses on the Taliban government's approach to the media, given the recent political tran
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sformation in Afghanistan and the religious and political ideologies of the Taliban regime [...] The study revealed that the Taliban media capture strategies have multifaceted dimensions. From the analysis of media director and journalist interviews and relevant formal documents from the Taliban regime, seven media capture strategies emerge: (1) Regulatory interference, (2) Criminal prosecution of journalists, (3) Suppression of journalists, (4) Financial pressures on media outlets, (5) Media ownership, (6) Monopoly on information and (7) Expulsion of foreign journalists. Furthermore, this study finds that the Afghan media community, including the media outlets, journalists, and media unions, employed four tolerance strategies in response to the media capture strategies of the Taliban government, such as (1) Selfimposed censorship, (2) Low resistance, (3) Stopping controversial content, and (4) Advocacy campaigns." (Abstract)
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"This chapter explores some of the positive strategies employed by South Asian media institutions to enhance workplace happiness and help journalists to cope with stress and traumatic experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic. Happiness is crucial for media institutions because journalism is one of t
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he most stressful professions. Previous studies have found that the COVID-19 crisis has had a considerable impact on journalism. Hence, it is important to maintain workplace happiness in media institutions, particularly during a crisis like the pandemic." (Abstract)
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"[...] En Ecuador no existe una cultura de seguridad institucional para ejercer el trabajo periodístico. El Estado no se responsabiliza, una muestra de ello es la falta de creación del Comité de Protección de Periodistas, que fue una de las recomendaciones que hizo el Equipo de Seguimiento Espec
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ial de la Comisión Interamericana de Derechos Humanos que visitó el país en 2019 para realizar un informe sobre el secuestro y asesinato de los periodistas de diario El Comercio y entregar recomendaciones a los gobiernos de Ecuador y Colombia.
La impunidad en cuanto a las agresiones a periodistas en Ecuador es evidente. Después de 5 años, el asesinato del equipo de El Comercio en la frontera norte sigue impune. El caso sigue en investigación previa, sin detenidos y con el cambio de fiscales en cuatro ocasiones. Respecto a los asesinatos de los tres periodistas en 2022, hay una sentencia condenatoria para los autores materiales del crimen del periodista Gerardo Delgado; sin embargo, aún se desconocen a los autores intelectuales y el motivo de su asesinato.
Toda cobertura requiere una evaluación de riesgos para identificar vulnerabilidades y fortalezas antes de reportear un tema. No se debe olvidar realizar un mapeo de actores para evaluar a qué amenazas puede exponerse la prensa. Es importante que los periodistas y los medios identifiquen y mitiguen los riesgos asociados al oficio antes de realizar las coberturas en terreno. Los periodistas no son intocables y Ecuador ya es escenario de amenazas graves y asesinatos. Habrá momentos en los que los periodistas deban desistir de hacer ciertas coberturas porque no se den las condiciones de seguridad necesarias. No hay que olvidar que ninguna cobertura es más importante que la vida.
Es necesario crear protocolos de seguridad en las redacciones y pensar estrategias para seguir haciendo periodismo en zonas complejas, apoyándose en el periodismo colaborativo y las alianzas periodísticas.
La salud mental y el autocuidado son fundamentales para sobrellevar la presión y el estrés que suponen las coberturas de riesgo. Evaluar el estado emocional antes, durante y después del trabajo es fundamental para mantener el equilibrio." (Conclusiones y recomendaciones)
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"This chapter explores broader use and negotiation of online connection and disconnection within news organizations and professional bodies. It argues that improving the happiness of journalists means centering methods of care in the profession, within individual practice and organizational editoria
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l strategy and newsroom resourcing, and within professional communities of practice." (Abstract)
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"This textbook offers the first practical guide to managing emotions in everyday journalism work based on interviews with more than 30 British journalists. It raises awareness of emotional situations and stressors journalists may face, so practitioners are better able to recognise these and prepare
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for them, and outlines practical emotion management strategies which they can apply to enhance their emotional intelligence and resilience and consequently, feel and perform better in the workplace. It includes vignettes written by journalists from the United Kingdom, United States, Australia and Croatia, as well as practical scenario exercises that prompt readers to reflect on how they would feel and react in specific situations based on journalists’ everyday work." (Publisher description)
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"The authors saw the need to explore the emotional labour experiences of media practitioners owing to the sparse literature on the phenomenon from an African perspective. The study explored how media practitioners explain emotional labour, the factors that predispose them to emotional labour experie
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nces, and the emotions they display in carrying out their daily roles. Adopting a qualitative approach, thirteen (13) media practitioners (including journalists) were sampled using both purposive and snowball sampling techniques. Nine (9) of the participants were male, with most of them being Christians (N=11). It was found that participants’ responses clustered around four (4) themes: generic level meaning, where they described emotional labour as constituting “living a lie” or “intentional pretense”; dimensions of emotional labour, which were identified to be enhancement and suppression. Also, two main predisposing factors to media practitioners’ emotional labour experiences were found: Occupational display culture and feedback/pressure from the public. Media practitioners exhibit both negative and positive emotions as they dispense their duties at work. It is recommended that regulatory bodies and journalist associations advance occupational safety and health standards to boost the psychological health of media personnel through collaborations with psychologists and other mental health professionals. We urge all institutions that train journalists and media practitioners to incorporate psychology and mental health modules in their curricula." (Abstract)
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"Over a decade ago, the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings erupted in six Arab countries. They were accompanied, initially, by high hopes for democratic transformation and reform (Lynch, 2012). These hopes and aspirations also included widening the margin of freedom of expression in general and press freedo
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m in particular (El Tantawy & Wiest, 2011). However, these Arab Spring countries ultimately suffered from serious challenges which negatively impacted their transition to democratization and political reform, leading to an escalating wave of authoritarianism, which worsened significantly amid the Covid-19 pandemic (Khamis, 2020a, 2020b). This chapter investigates the myriad factors impacting journalistic practices in the Arab world in the post–Arab Spring and post-Covid-19 era, with a special focus on the multiple effects and far-reaching implications on both legacy media and citizen journalism. It pays special attention to the phenomenon of journalistic resistance from the diaspora (Khamis & Fowler, 2020) and the gender-based challenges impacting Arab women journalists, in particular, as a result of these intertwined and complex set of factors (Khamis & El-Ibiary, 2022), Finally, it highlights some of the resistance mechanisms which are deployed by Arab journalists to push back against the multilayered and multifaceted constraints which are imposed on them by their autocratic regimes, politically, economically, legally, and professionally." (Abstract)
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"This chapter suggests methods for encouraging well-being among journalism students and refers to ground-breaking court cases that have put media organisations on notice, requiring them to provide psychologically safe workplaces for journalists." (Abstract)
"GIJN’s comprehensive, 16-chapter Reporter’s Guide to Investigating War Crimes includes expert advice from more than two dozen specialists and journalists, covering everything from the legal aspects of war, attacks on civilians, conflict-related sexual violence, environmental crimes, banned weap
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ons, genocide, forced disappearances, archiving evidence, open source research, military command structures, tracing war criminals, documenting with photo and video, physical and digital security best practices, and self-care for covering traumatic events." (https://gijn.org)
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"This study examined the effects of online harassment on journalists’ psychological trauma and their intention to leave work. It also investigated whether journalists’ psychological trauma mediates the effects of online harassment on their intention to leave the profession and whether gender mak
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es a difference in that relationship. An online survey of 404 South Korean journalists provided three categories of online harassment that journalists experience: (1) aggressive and abusive expression, (2) disclosure of private information, and (3) cyberstalking and hacking. The findings of this study show that aggressive and abusive expression was the most frequent type of online harassment whereas cyberstalking and hacking was the least frequent. As expected, online harassment was found to be positively associated with journalists’ psychological trauma (PTSD symptoms) and intention to leave work. The results further indicate that journalists’ psychological trauma originating from online harassment frequently resulted in an intention to leave work. Interestingly, journalists’ psychological trauma was a significant mediator in the relationship between psychological trauma levels and intention to leave work for female journalists, but not for male journalists." (Abstract)
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"This chapter draws on a discourse analysis of newsroom social media policies, and in-depth interviews with journalists focused on their reactions to the social media policies within the newsrooms in which they have worked, and their recommendations for how those policies should be improved." (Abstr
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act)
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"Drawing on interviews with 10 U.S. student journalists, we introduce an ethics-of-care approach for trauma-informed journalism pedagogy. We express grave concern for mental health in journalism programs, offering an empirical snapshot of students’ traumas and coping strategies. We confirm that st
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udent journalists, like working reporters, are traumatized by professional norms, high demands, poor boundaries, safety concerns, and ethical-professional responsibilities. Participants coped through emotional distancing, saving face, and relying on peers. We offer interventions based on student support needs and changing news values, including faculty affirmation, financial support, counselor support, diversity training, newsroom debriefings, emotional leadership, and reporting protocols." (Abstract)
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"Working in a conflict-ridden region, journalists in the Middle East have always struggled to report fairly and accurately while keeping in mind the power structures in their countries. For these journalists, practicing journalism in mostly authoritative governments has meant facing additional hurdl
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es fellow journalists in democratic societies rarely experience. Among these are low levels of professionalism, poor education, and lack of proper training, which, combined with political parallelism in an omnipresent governmental style of ruling, have left journalists with little wiggle room to perform their journalistic duties well. In the past decade, these struggles have been further exacerbated by the various episodes of conflict, political turmoil, and war, putting journalists under immediate danger. Besides the physical dangers of reporting in war zones, most journalists in the Arab region are not equipped with proper training or mental health issues, thus increasing their chances at developing PTSD. This chapter seeks to outline the various aspects of journalistic practices in conflict zones, focusing on conflict reporting and foreign correspondence in the Middle East, as well as highlight the numerous obstacles that threaten journalists’ safety not only in war zones but also in daily reporting on politics and public affairs. To accomplish this, the author approaches the topic from a media systems perspective that takes into account the various influences that impact journalistic practices of conflict reporting in the region." (Abstract)
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"This chapter seeks to enhance journalists’ psychological capital with targeted interventions." (Abstract)