Crimes of War

A seminar for editors sponsored by The Crimes of War Project and The Freedom Forum

Day Two, Panel Four: The Psychological Impact of Covering War Crimes

Moderator/Discussant: Frank Smyth, Washington Representative, Committee to Protect Journalists

Chris Cramer, President, CNN International

CHRIS CRAMER: Okay. I'm going to speak very briefly and your part of the bargain is just to suspend any cynicism or skepticism that may be just hanging over the room here. I just want to ask one or two questions. I'd like to know why the industry is almost in total denial over the issue of PTSD. Almost total denial. Journalists don't get it. They just don't get stress, this PTSD thing, whatever it is, which is invented by a psychiatrist. Journalists, we don't get that. We go and do what we need to do and we come back and we get on with our lives. So we don't get it, do we? Of course, we don't. This country invented grief counseling. There are more grief counselors at a rail wreck than there are members of the media profession. And yet the journalism profession in this country and overseas in the U.K. just doesn't get it. We don't do PTSD do we?

I won't roll out the victim syndrome for you at all -- well, maybe I will for two or three minutes. My own humbling experience was 20 years ago last week. Not, of course, as I remember it. It was actually last Wednesday at about 4 o'clock in the afternoon. Not, of course, that I remember it because it has no affect on me. Tomorrow I fly to London for a reunion, the first in 20 years. And I'll come back to you and let you know how that feels next year, if you like. My experience was very brief. I was stupid enough to apply for a visa inside the Iranian Embassy in London in April 1980. I was stupid enough to be there when Iraqi terrorists stormed it. I was there for a very, very short time. I was there for precisely 28 hours. Not that I remember it, because I'm a member of your profession. We don't do PTSD. I was fortunate enough to have a slightly troubling stomach condition, having been in Zimbabwe, which manifested itself in a very short space of time. It's a most incredible heart attack. And I do fantastic heart attacks. I do great heart attacks. So convincing with my heart attack that the people there were embarrassed and threw me out. And I was released after 27 hours into the hands of the Metropolitan Police in London and two days later into a dreadful bunch of terrorists called the SAS, who were probably worse than the terrorists inside the Iranian embassy. And four and a half days later, Maggie Thatcher, in one of her rare moments of triumph, deployed the SAS in broad daylight to storm the embassy and they rescued all but maybe one or two of the hostages. Two were murdered. The SAS conveniently took out five members of the terrorist group and forgot to take out the sixth. So that was my brief, humbling experience. My advice from, I think, probably the first grief counselor ever existed in the BBC was, “Chris, go out tonight, get drunk, get laid, and smoke something.” And that was grief counseling in it's early stages.

Now, did I have after effects? Of course, I did. And you can judge how troubling they might have been by looking at my face. Did I have nightmares? Yes, some. Did I have acute feelings of paranoia and guilt? Interesting. I'll share with you guilt, having met some of these survivors tomorrow. Because I haven't met most of them for 20 years. So we'll see how paramount and acute and to what profile my guilt is after 20 years. Such is my acute paranoia. So sophisticated was my acute paranoia, I went into management. And you will see, have done pretty well out of it since then. Now the issue for me, and Sherry's touched on it, was 20 years ago and these days people don't admit that they have any after effects whatsoever with rare exceptions from covering the stories, domestically or internationally, which we cover. Because I would submit that actually covering a particularly horrific serial murder trial for eight or nine months can have profound effects on people. Being subjected to that type of gore for eight or nine months -- and I would personally, as an amateur, to draw too many distinctions.

But 20 years ago and today, people don't admit to their editor that they have lost their “bottle.” Forgive me, an English expression. It means you've lost your nerve. Why would I go back to work and admit that I had lost my bottle? I went back to work the following day and I got on with my life or such as my life was. It's for others to judge how traumatic of an experience it was for me and what lasting effects or none it's left on me. I was offered counseling twice, once by the BBC and once by the home office and declined on both occasions. And here's interesting -- shame you can't come on the plane with me tonight, because at least three of the hostages immediately accepted counseling 20 years ago. And I'll come back to you as to how sane they are compared with me. It's for you to judge.

The issue of post-traumatic stress counseling in the media profession for me is no different at all from the introduction of safety training from our incredible colleagues from Centurion, who it was nice to see again today. No difference whatsoever. My ambition, my personal ambition, and one which I hope to share with CNN and other members of the media, is that some form of counseling for those people who wish to have it, because it must be voluntary, should be as normal as doing your laundry after an assignment. When you come back from an assignment, you unpack and you do your laundry. My submission to you today is that this type of counseling should be no different than having your laundry done, except it's your head laundry. Some people might choose to have it done, others won't. I wish to Christ I had had it done 20 years ago.

Thank you.

Chris Cramer, Bio.
President of CNN International (CNNI)