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The September 2004 killing of 344 people, more than half of them children, by gunmen who seized a school in the North Caucasus town of Beslan in Russia has consistently been reported by journalists who were there to have been one of the most distressing journalistic assignments they'd ever undertaken.
 One year on, BBC Television producer Ewa Ewart broadcast a powerful documentary in Britain, "The Children of Beslan," retelling the story of the school siege through the voices of children who survived. (The documentary aired in the US on HBO.)
Speaking via audio link from Baton Rouge in Louisiana, where she was covering the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Ewart told an audience of journalists, aid workers and mental health professionals attending a screening of the documentary at London's Frontline Club how the story, in her words, "belongs to the children, and has to be told through the children's eyes."
"Never before has there been such a big number of children taken purposely by a group of terrorists to advance their political goal," said Ewart. "Never before have such a big number of children paid with their lives for a political crisis created by adults."
 Following the screening, the themes of how the media report such profound children's trauma were taken forward by a discussion panel including
- Bill Yule, child psychologist from London 's Institute of Psychiatry ;
- Lynne Jones, Consultant Child Psychiatrist and author of Then They Started Shooting, a book on the experience of children in the Bosnian war;
- Ian Prince, Editor of the children's news programme Newsround on BBC Television;
- and Jonathan Charles, BBC foreign correspondent who covered the Beslan siege and who has written powerfully about his experience here on the Dart Centre website (click for link).
Ewart found that most of the children were very eager to share their stories and the details of what they went through. However, she said, she had found herself on a "constant guilt trip" making them relive their experiences.
Jonathan Charles said that he would have found it very difficult to go back and talk to the children, partly because he would have felt that he was exploiting them and partly because he could not put himself through such an emotional process.
 "I don't remember anything more emotionally challenging and testing than making this film," Ewart responded. "Not even the experience of the war zone can compare to that."
Ewart said she had gone to Beslan six months after the siege to collect material for the documentary, and went out without any explicit preparation about trauma, or awareness of the emotional toll it might exact on her. She operated, she said, purely on instinct.
This was a point picked up by the Dart Centre's European Director Mark Brayne, who described as disturbing—and as a reminder of how journalistic culture needs to change—the fact that Ewart could go to Beslan without conscious preparation, training or education for the experience.
It was a particular goal of the Dart Centre, said Brayne, to help journalists understand the impact of trauma on themselves and their stories, and to encourage them and their organisations to prepare properly for the reporting of trauma.
"Trauma constitutes a very large part of news- and programme-making," said Brayne. "And journalists have no training at the moment in an understanding of what it is they're witnessing.
"One of the things that I hope will come out of evenings like this, and the training being done at the BBC, and the bridge-building we're doing between journalism and the mental health professions, is a much more sophisticated and joined-up approach to journalism."
Jonathan Charles agreed, saying that journalists are mentally ill-equipped to deal with trauma. He had seen colleagues, fixated on getting the story, going in and traumatising people with their questions, without thinking about their responsibilities as journalists.
However, he added, things are starting to change, as organisations like the BBC begin to train journalists in trauma-awareness.
Ian Prince of Newsround found it very powerful to hear a story that has affected children so much told in children's own terms. The children came across as empowered, he said, in the way they were able to explain the terrible events that happened to them.
From a broadcasting point of view, Prince stressed, it is crucial that children's voices are heard in all the stories, no matter what they are. "If we ignored children and what they have to say, I think that would skew any perception about the impact that these stories have had."
Bill Yule of London's Institute of Psychiatry worried whether re-telling their stories was cathartic, or actually re-traumatised the children. The fact that they can recount what happened to them, he said, does not mean that it is cathartic.
Ewart agreed, saying that in the first half of the film, the children were very matter of fact and dispassionate when they recounted the "three days of horror".
It was in the second half, when they talked about the present and how they were coping and that they started faltering emotionally.
Finally, psychiatrist Lynne Jones emphasised the importance of Ewart's process of building up strong relationships with the children beforehand. However, she did stress that there is a responsibility to follow up.
"You have helped in the healing process by forming a relationship," she said, "and you can seriously mess them up if you just rupture that."
In such circumstances, mental health professionals and journalists, Jones said, can work together for the benefit of the children or the traumatised victims. The journalist does not need to become a therapist, but should have the knowledge of how to handle trauma, and collaborate with therapists where needed.
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