Live News - A Survival Guide - International Federation of Journalists

Live News — A Survival Guide for Journalistssomeone summarily executed, warned at the London conference:“I know there are other people who do offer this kind of counsellingand I would appeal to the psychotherapeutic community tomake sure that it’s the right kind of counselling and that it’s veryspecific and very tightly targeted. Otherwise, it’s going to get a badname in the journalism business.”Psychotherapist Gabrielle Rifkind also cautioned against ‘quickfix-it’ solutions, calling instead for efforts to build an emotionallyliterate culture. “It’s not the level of trauma that’s the problem,”said Rifkind, “it’s the question of how that trauma is processed,and that’s why self-awareness becomes important.”International moves to improve knowledgeA number of initiatives are under way to improve knowledge ofpost-conflict stress. The London conference, Emotions, Trauma andGood Journalism, called for a European Centre for Journalism andTrauma to be established with a brief to offer life skills trainingand therapy, to campaign and to organise research. Just such aCentre is now being set up in partnership between the BBC and theDart Center for Journalism and Trauma, based at the University ofWashington in Seattle in the United States. Dart Europe is directedby Mark Brayne, who was for 20 years a foreign correspondent forReuters and the BBC, with postings in Moscow, Berlin, Vienna andBeijing. Amongst other assignments, he covered the build-up to thekillings in Tiananmen Square in 1989, the revolution in Romaniaand beginnings of war in Yugoslavia.In the 1990s, Mark Brayne trained as a psychotherapist, graduatingin 2000 with a Masters degree and a research thesis into thePersonal Experience of the Foreign Correspondent. As editor withthe European languages sections of the BBC World Service, MarkBrayne has been a driving force behind the provision of compulsorysurvival training for reporters and producers working in hostileenvironments and areas of natural disaster. He helped to establishthe BBC’s first confidential counselling service in the early 1990s.The Media Diversity Institute is planning events in Central andEastern Europe to promote a climate of understanding about howtrauma affects news gatherers. The aims are to build PTSD intoexisting programmes for journalists’ education about workingwith victims of violence and trauma, and to promote a climate ofunderstanding about how trauma affects news people. ■‘Ultimatelythis is aboutbetter journalism’“Ultimately this is aboutbetter journalism. This isabout enabling journalists topresent a better picture ofthe world back to thosethey serve. It’s aboutchanging the culture withinorganisations where we canencourage journalists torecognise that they do havean emotional response towhat they’re doing and it’sokay to talk about it.Perhaps, ultimately, with theaim that journalists will beso healthy in theirapproach, that they won’tneed to take their problemsto specialists becausethey’ll be able to process itas they go along, with theircolleagues."My understanding of this isthat if I am more self-awareas a journalist, if I have agreater emotional armourywithin myself, and anawareness of that armoury, Ican use those internal toolsto tell a better story; and amore authentic story. ■Mark Brayne, speaking atthe London conference,Emotions, Trauma and GoodJournalism.95