Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma

When the Radio Television Digital News Association, which bills itself as "the world's largest professional organization exclusively serving the electronic news profession," opened its annual convention in Las Vegas on April 12, it was with a panel of journalists from broadcast, radio and the Associated Press (see a complete list here), focused not on the digital newsroom, but on the earthquake that devastated Haiti on January 12. According to the RTDNA website, the discussion that ensued was dominated by ethical questions.

How much distance should a journalist maintain between herself and the story? And, when a story is as tragic as that of the Haitian earthquake, how much distance is possible?

 "Most of us journalists try to act like cowboys and act tough, but I have seen the toughest journalists break down," [Medical Contributor for Fox Chicago News Dr. Mona] Khanna said. Most of the panelists agreed on the value of treating journalists for post traumatic stress disorder, especially those who have experienced it first hand.

Jonathan Katz of the Associated Press, the only American foreign correspondent based in Haiti at the time of the earthquake elaborated on his own experience in a video recorded after the panel: 

Toward the end of the video, he is asked how he stays "mentally fit." After joking that he'd been drinking vodka at the panel, he answers: "Honestly it's an open question. It's only been three months."

"I know that some of my colleagues have been suffering, you know, nightmares and a lot of things like that. As I said in the panel, I've become hyperaware of the movement of buildings …  which I think is a sign of that kind of hyperawareness that comes with something like PTSD … but, honestly … I'm just the sort of person that often rolls with this kind of stuff. This is what I chose as a profession and it wasn't an accident. This is the sort of thing that I feel capable of doing."