For years, firefighters, police, ambulance attendants and other emergency and military personnel have been offered ways to cope with the carnage and mayhem they witness. However, journalists who often witness the same atrocities, haven't received any help. Now that's changing with Newscoverage Unlimited (www.newscoverage .org/), an educational, non-profit organization founded in 2000 by Montreal journalist Robert Frank. It trains journalists to help each other with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression or drug dependency. (The US National Center for PTSD offers a research-based Web site on all aspects of the disorder, www.ncptsd.org/about/history/index.html.)
Newscoverage has run two 3-day sessions that have trained 17 news personnel how to help potentially traumatized coworkers. Frank became convinced the organization was needed following the September 1998 Swissair crash off Nova Scotia that killed 229 people. As coverage continued, journalists gathered informally to discuss what they'd seen. Frank says the experience taught him that reporters “can be affected by a story.”
Since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, there has been more recognition of this stress. “Dan Rather [of CBS News] was crying that day,” Frank said during a recent Canadian Association of Journalists meeting. “It changed everything for journalists.” Bob McKeown, an NBC correspondent, said the Sept. 11 attacks “turned up the emotional thermostat for a lot of us.” (The physical danger is also increasing, with 37 journalists dying on the job in 2001, including Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, who was murdered as he pursued a story.)
Frank warns that journalists face obstacles in combating on-the-job trauma. Journalism is an intensely competitive profession, he says, and reporters are “significantly reluctant to acknowledge any vulnerability. Saying you were traumatized covering a car accident could land you a choice assignment in the Food section.” — Barbara Sibbald, CMAJ
Figure. Suspects in the abduction and murder of Wall Street Journal> reporter Daniel Pearl are arrested in Pakistan. Photo by: Canapress