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

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

Sherry Ricchiardi, Professor, Indiana University, School of Journalism and writer, American Journalism Review

MS. RICHIARDI: I'm going to condense my statements and move to Dr. Feinstein a little bit more quickly because he's done some cutting-edge research. But the most important thing I felt I could share with you, it was an article I wrote for AJR back in January of 1999, that got me started on being interested in this issue, reporting on it, collecting research and data. It was through that article that I met Chris Cramer, who I interviewed for the article, and Dr. Ochberg. And we've come together since then and this is the second time we've all been on a panel together in about six months. But we are networking.

But the most important thing I thought I could share with you was during the time I was working on that article and then future articles, I found that there were certain common threads. One of the common threads was the fact that just like police officers and firefighters and emergency workers and school teachers at Columbine, we also have a need for help after we've witnessed horrific events or we've experienced some kind of trauma. But the journalism profession, one, has not been very good at offering help and, two, journalists are very resistant to it. You heard Frank's story where, you know, and it took him what, seven years until he figured out what was really happening to him. So it's new territory for us. And it's through the Dart Foundation and through Chris' work at BBC and with the New York Times he's doing and some other news outlets that we're starting to see some change being made in the newsroom culture.

The common threads I found about why journalists resisted -- and part of this data was gathered during my time as a reporter in the Balkans, part of it was gathered when I was really doing more formal interviewing for the article. But the first and, perhaps, the most pervasive common thread that keeps us from seeking help is the notion that the standard newsroom routine or tradition or script, whatever you want to call it, demands a certain amount of stoicism, a certain amount of detachment on the part of those of us who gather news. So it's inbreed in us and this “macho culture” -- for lack of another term, we'll call it a macho culture -- that repeatedly I heard reporters and photographers admitting that any kind of emotional fall-out, admitting to it to their editors or even to other colleagues would collide with that detached, dispassionate demeanor. When I was interviewing Chris for the article, he said, and I think the direct quote was, “They fear being exiled as some kind of wimp.” So there's that “wimp factor” in there. So journalists are worried that it might be a sign that they were getting too close to a story. That they were no longer objective or neutral. That they were stepping over the line into advocacy reporting.

Which leads to the second common thread that some in the news gathering business feel that it's actually dangerous to their careers to admit to their editors that they're stressed out over assignments. By admitting that they have mental distress of any kind, they're worried that their editors will pull them off important stories, particularly if they're out there covering in conflict zones and the kinds of issues we've been talking about here, that they'll pull them off, bring them home, and assign them to softer stories. So if, you know, if that fear exists that's going to get in the way of them being able to admit they need help.

And the lack of time was the third common reason journalists stated to me that they did not seek help, particularly if they were filing daily stories. When they would come back to the newsroom, generally, they would talk to other colleagues or even while they were out in the war zones, talk to other colleagues. But they did not seek psychological counseling. They didn't really do any kind of formal debriefing even when it was available, as it is at the New York Times with their employee assistance plan, which covers it. But when I interviewed the person at the New York Times who runs it, she said, “we have a very hard time, you know, with our reporters accepting that this is available and that it's confidential and that they can benefit from it.”

And this is sort of almost a semi-fourth reason, but a lot reporters told me they just didn't want to talk to somebody who had never been a journalist and didn't know about the rigors of our profession. That they felt very strange going to someone like Frank, you know, someone who was not a journalist. And the quote I had that I use over and over, a reporter said to me, “I can't imagine spilling my guts to someone who has never interviewed a 12 year old who has been gang-raped, who has never smelled a rotting corpse, who has never had to get up close to see if, in fact, the skull had been shattered. How can they know what I'm feeling?”

So those are the reasons that we're resisting it now. Dr. Feinstein's working on some research that will give us greater insight into some of this.

Sherry Ricchiardi, Bio.
Professor, Indiana University, School of Journalism

Back to Top