An Exploratory Study of Traumatic Stress among Newspaper Journalists

An unwritten code among journalists holds that no assignment, no matter how brutal, can defy one's capacity to take a photograph, gather facts, and produce a story. Moreover, it is part of the code that the journalist then proceeds to the next assignment without acknowledging or treating the emotional toll of the tragic event. Marguerite Higgins, the famed combat correspondent and photographer, expressed the code's assumptions in a memoir in which she described the liberation of the German concentration camp at Buchenwald at the end of World War II. After describing images of piles of human bodies, she wrote: How did all this affect me personally? The truth is that at the time I felt no strong emotional reaction to the things I heard or saw. My condemnation and disgust were of the mind. And I believe that is generally true that a journalist covering a war, a train wreck, a concentration camp, or some other disaster, tends to compartmentalize his emotions and isolate them from professional reactions. He feels no more personal involvement than does a surgeon performing a delicate operation or a regimental commander ordering a comrade into battle. At Buchenwald all my energies were concentrated on obtaining the pertinent facts of the case against the Nazis in the shortest possible time; for, in the light of the importance of the story and the vast number of facts to accumulate, I had an uncomfortably early deadline (Higgins,1955, p.76). Higgins did not appear to sense that "no strong emotional reaction" might itself be an emotional reaction. The idea of a compartment that the reporter can enter and leave at will explained an emotional process she did not understand. She was apparently unaware that "concentrating on obtaining facts" was the usual way people facing terror insulated themselves from the emotional shock waves from what they saw. Journalists continue to mention the "compartment" in talking about how they are affected by the stories they cover. Recent knowledge about the nervous system suggests though that the metaphor of the compartment is a faulty explanation for what occurs when a reporter confronts death and violence. Is it really possible that reporters and photographers suffer no emotional consequences from their work? Can journalists truly "compartmentalize" or repress the horror while they go about the routine of producing the news? Is it humanly possible to encounter such scenes without being deeply affected? Does the journalist come to the task prepared in the ways of a surgeon or a regimental commander? Is it possible to move from one compartment to another - from newswork to private concerns -- without carrying along the burdens of traumatic experience? After such events as the Oklahoma City federal-building bombing in 1995 and the explosions of airliners over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988 and near New York City in 1996, more reporters wrote or spoke publicly about the emotional toll of such stories. An Oklahoma City newspaper reporter who covered the bombing aftermath wrote about her own sense of dread and loss of security. She described the impact on the newspaper staff, including repressed emotions, broken personal relationships, eating disorders, skyrocketing use of sick time, cautious writing, friction between reporters and editors, and grief (Aiken, 1996). Aiken and her colleagues, of course, were part of the community whose members died or were injured. In the Lockerbie jet explosion, journalists who were not otherwise part of the community were similarly affected. Deppa (1993) and her associates interviewed reporters who had gone to Lockerbie. One reporter's personal struggle after the crash was likened to those of townspeople, relatives of victims, police officers, and other emergency workers. All were said to have shown some symptoms of psychological stress. Reporters admitted having dreams about the crash, among other ways in which the event intruded into their awareness, and taking pains to avoid reminders of the crash. …