NYT profiles CBT

Earlier this month, the New York Times ran a detailed look at the rise of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and the wane of psychoanalysis and psychodynamic therapy among American clinicians.

Reporter Alix Spiegel writes:

The method, known as C.B.T., was introduced in the late 1960's by Dr. Aaron T. Beck. The underlying theory says it is not important for patients to return to the origins of their problems, but instead to correct their current "cognitive distortions," errors in perception that lead them to the conclusion that life is hopeless or that everyday activity is unmanageable.

For example, when confronted with severely depressed patients, cognitive behavioral therapists will not ask about childhoods, but will work with them to identify the corrosive underlying assumptions that frame their psychic reality and lead them to feel bad about themselves. Then, systematically, patients learn to retrain their thinking.

The therapy dwells exclusively in the present. Unlike traditional psychoanalytic or psychodynamic therapy, it does not typically require a long course of treatment, usually 10 to 15 sessions.

Speigel notes that the rise of CBT came about after the technique was repeatedly validated in randomized controlled trials. She also notes that many therapists consider psychodynamic therapy to be valuable in some circumstances and the technique has not been completely discarded:

New research suggests that psychodynamic therapy exploring the past can be as effective as cognitive work. In the last three years, psychodynamic therapists have started to subject their approach to same vigorous research as that used for cognitive therapy. The studies show similarly good results.

Danger increases in Iraq

It was already the most dangerous place in the world for journalists, but now conditions in Iraq are getting even worse. Three Al Arabiya staffers were murdered near Samarra yesterday as they reported on the attack of holy cites there.

Initially, it was reported that the three had been kidnapped before their murder, but now there are indications that they were in fact murdered on the spot.

Most of the violence against journalists in Iraq has been carried out against Iraqi journalists. Al Arabiya has suffered a number of losses in the nearly three years since the war began. Al-Arabiya spokesman Jihad Ballout told Arab News:

... “Previously five of our staff were killed in a car bomb in Baghdad and three others by the US forces.”

Naturally, these incidents have caused staff at Al-Arabiya to reconsider their security arrangements and ways of protecting their field reporters, Ballout said, and added that despite the tragedy Iraq would continue to be covered comprehensively by the network.

“We are committed to our professional role and in providing distinguished coverage to our viewers,” said Ballout. “Reporters are humans after all and they are subject to depression and anguish like anyone else under these circumstances. We would completely understand if any of our staff wanted to leave, but so far we have not received any such indications,” he said.

The increasing danger has led some journalists to consider carrying weapons. The International News Safety Institute advises against this, however:

INSI believes that the safety of journalists would not be improved, and in fact probably would be diminished, were they to carry weapons.

"Journalists increasingly are being targeted in conflict largely because they have lost, in the eyes of certain elements, their status as neutral observers. If they bear arms they reinforce this misguided belief by placing themselves on one side or another," said INSI Director Rodney Pinder.

"A journalist with a gun says some people in the situation I'm covering are my enemies and I am prepared to kill them if necessary. That is not the position of a neutral civilian."

PTSD among British Iraq war vets

The Independent today notes that, while 1,333 British servicemen and women have received official diagnoses for mental health problems, "many soldiers suffering from mental disorders after returning from Iraq are not being given the care they feel they need."

Reporters Kim Sengupta and Terri Judd write:

Questions have also been raised about the level of care being given to regular soldiers, reservists and members of the TA, some of whose symptoms emerged after ending active service. Many are not included in the figure of 1,333. Many claim they have been abandoned by the military establishment.

The story profiles several soldiers, including Private Peter Mahoney, who committed suicide in August 2004. Judd writes:

Pte Mahoney's death at the age of 45 will never be recorded on army mental health figures as post-traumatic stress disorder due to service in Iraq. He refused his wife's pleas to seek help.

Today's Independent also features a brief history of British military psychiatry.

"Attacks on the Press in 2005"

The Committee to Protect Journalists has released its annual worldwide survey of press freedom, Attacks on the Press. Not surprisingly, the report found Iraq to be "the most dangerous place for journalists in 2005."

By CPJ's count, 47 working journalists were killed worldwide in 2005; 22 of those deaths were in Iraq:

Iraqi journalists bore the brunt of these attacks as it became increasingly hazardous for foreign reporters and photojournalists to work in the field. American freelancer Steven Vincent was the only foreign journalist to be killed in Iraq in 2005; five foreigners died there a year earlier.

CPJ's count is lower than that of some other organizations (as noted in a previous post) because CPJ uses a strict criteria when counting deaths:

CPJ considers a journalist to be killed on duty if the person died as a result of a hostile action, including retaliation for his or her work; in crossfire while covering a conflict; or while reporting in dangerous circumstances such as a violent street demonstration.

Attacks on the Press includes details about each journalist killed in 2005. It also includes details about individual journalists who are imprisoned as a result of their work. CPJ counts 125 editors, writers and photographers imprisoned worldwide as of Dec. 1, 2005. The "leading jailers of journalists," according to the report, are: China, with 32 jailed; Cuba, 24; Eritrea, 15; and Ethiopia, 13.

How many journalists killed in Iraq?

Writing in the International Herald Tribune, Eason Jordan, the former chief news executive of CNN, notes that the most commonly cited tally--61, from the Committee to Protect Journalists--doesn't count media support staff or deaths from accident or illness. He notes that the U.S. military, in its accounting of war dead, includes "deaths due to hostile action" and those "attributed to nonhostile causes such as accidents and health ailments." This composite tally, Jordan notes, "is widely reported by news outlets."

Why then, Jordan asks, does the CPJ's partial tally seem to be preferred over the all-inclusive tally of 101 media deaths compiled by the International News Safety Institute? [Note: link is to a Word document; click here for an html version.]

Jordan's op-ed has been criticized for seeming to criticize CPJ. In a letter to the IHT, CPJ executive director Ann Cooper writes:

As a press freedom organization, CPJ focuses its research on attacks on the press so those responsible can be held accountable. Each case is thoroughly vetted to determine that the death was related to the person's journalism or was the result of a hostile action. Traffic accidents and illnesses in the field are deeply regrettable, but are not press freedom violations.

Jordan is right to say that media support workers such as translators and drivers are on the front lines in Iraq, and CPJ recognizes their crucial role by documenting all cases involving media workers on a separate list.

At CJR Daily, Paul McLeary writes:

Obviously, INSI's ground rules are more expansive than other organizations -- it counts deaths from natural causes, such as heart attacks, strokes and pulmonary infections. But it is disingenuous of Jordan to tout INSI's figure as the true number, while ignoring the fact that different watchdog organizations may have different guidelines. As part of his argument, he asserts that "media workers such as translators and drivers are vital members of news gathering teams, facing the same risks as traditional journalists and paying a heavy price for doing so." We totally agree. But so do CPJ and RWB [Reporters Without Borders] -- though Jordan tries his best to make it sound as if they don't.

Cooper and McLeary seem to be taking issue more with Jordan's tone (and with Jordan himself) than with what Jordan wrote. Jordan's point--as I read it--was to raise the valid question of why the news media seems determined to underestimate the Iraq War's toll on the news media. Why are partial tallies preferred over all-inclusive tallies? As Jordan put it:

The CPJ excludes from its tallies non-hostile on-the-job deaths such as that of the embedded NBC News correspondent David Bloom, who died of a pulmonary embolism after being cooped up in a U.S. military armored vehicle for the better part of several days -- clearly a war-related death.

If a U.S. soldier in Iraq died that way, or if a soldier who was a translator or a truck driver was killed, he would be included in the Pentagon's death toll. Bloom, among others, deserves the same consideration in the overall news media death tally.

...

The CPJ's tallies serve a useful purpose. But the whole number of media deaths in Iraq should be reported, just as the Pentagon's all-inclusive count of military fatalities is reported.

Update: Eason Jordan has posted a response to Paul McLeary's CJR Daily commentary. Jordan writes:

... Many news consumers believe, wrongly, that the 61 is the whole number of journalist losses in Iraq. That misunderstanding is not the CPJ's fault. Despite your suggestion to the contrary, I noted in my op-ed that the CPJ maintains multiple tallies, explained why, and made clear the CPJ excludes certain deaths from its tallies, while the INSI in its tally includes them all. Unfortunately, news reports rarely mention the CPJ's media worker tally, leaving the impression the 61 is a whole, all-inclusive number. I have no issue with the CPJ, which I admire. My issue is with news reports citing the 61 number while often overlooking the other two categories of deaths that bring the total, all-inclusive death toll 101. If military deaths are counted and presented in news reports in all-inclusive numbers -- they should be and are -- then journalists and media workers deserve the same consideration.

"The glamour of war"

In Friday's Boston Globe (and reprinted Monday in The International Herald Tribune), University of Maine journalism teacher Michael Socolow writes about "the glamour of war" and its appeal to journalists.

Discussing the case of former ABC News correspondent Richard Gizbert (who turned down an assignment in Iraq, was fired, and then successfully sued ABC), Socolow writes:

Gizbert's prudence, however, is not a virtue prized among war reporters. The job requires accepting enormous risk and living life as a gamble. So why do so many volunteer? One explanation rarely surfaces in this discussion. That's the powerful, almost narcotic pull of experiencing life at its most intense. In the war zone, senses are primed, awareness is heightened, and profound bonds of friendship are indelibly formed. Sharing drinks and stories of narrow escapes, the combat journalist finds a community supportive of the addictive adrenaline habit that infects them all.

Risking life daily is powerfully romantic, and challenging that concept is anathema to the war reporter. In the conclusion to ''Dispatches," Michael Herr recounts a conversation with the severely injured photojournalist Tim Page. Page's body had been badly ravaged by a bomb in Vietnam. A publisher proposed that Page author a book titled ''Through with War." The book would ''take the glamour out of war."

Page would hear none of it. ''Take the glamour out of war! I mean, how the bloody hell can you do that?"

In a letter submitted to the IHT (and forwarded to the Dart Center by e-mail), International News Safety Institute director Rodney Pinder takes issue with Socolow's analysis, and notes that war-zone journalists "are not thrill-seekers and self-publicists all":

As a former foreign correspondent, I know too that international reporters work basically from the need to tell the story. Sure, we have our share of adrenalin junkies -- as well as those who seek to hide their bravery behind a mask of cynicism and self-deprecation -- but only fools would do this just for the rush and that is no description of the colleagues I have worked with (and lost) in wars and insurgencies over the years.

European journalists rally for Jill Carroll

In Paris today, one month after American reporter Jill Carroll was kidnapped in Iraq, dozens of journalists demonstrated against her capture. The journalists were accompanied by French actress Juliette Binoche and former French hostage Florence Aubenas. The demonstration was organized by the press-freedom group Reporters Without Borders.

On Sunday, a banner with a photo of Carroll was hung from a balcony at city hall in Rome, Italy. Reportedly, the banner will remain there until Carroll's release.

There is still no word on Carroll's fate. David Cook, The Christian Science Monitor's Washington bureau chief, told Editor & Publisher: "We continue to explore every avenue that we can think of" ... "We are working closely with her family and exploring every option."

More mine deaths

The deaths this week of two West Virginia miners led that state's governor to order a halt to mining until adequate safety measures are put in place, several news outlets reported yesterday.

However, Roanoke (Va.) Times reporter Duncan Adams reports that many mines in West Virginia have not halted operations. He writes:

Along West Virginia's Coal Heritage Trail and its sinuous wind between Bluefield and Welch, the tough and dangerous toil of coal mining continued Thursday. Miners dug, trimmers loaded rail cars, truckers braved steep and narrow haul roads.

The previous day, reacting to a string of mining related deaths in his state, West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin had beseeched mine operators to consider temporary shutdowns for safety's sake.

Reactions to Manchin's call varied Thursday in this territory of mountain hollows and coal-blackened lives. But the most consistent response seemed to be one big shrug.

Meanwhile, in China, 23 miners were killed Wednesday, with 53 others sickened by gas after an explosion in Shanxi Province.

Florida sex predator program failing

Miami Herald reporter Jason Grotto looks at Florida's program for providing treatment to sex predators. The program, Grotto reports, is "not only failing, but backfiring."

The four-part series, "Predators Among Us," is the result of a six-month investigation. (Link via IRE's ExtraExtra.)