Dart Community Weighs in on Sandy Hook

In the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings, Dart Center staff and affiliates were in the news, speaking about best practices for journalists covering tragedy involving children, and how to move forward. 

“A journalist is advised to do no harm,” says Dart Ochberg fellow and BBC producer Stuart Hughes in a conversation with the BBC on the ethics of interviewing traumatized children. “What’s the news value of interviewing these children? What are we doing to these children if we put them in front of a camera and in front of a microphone? And is it worth it?”

Click below to listen to the full conversation.

Dart’s Executive Director Bruce Shapiro spoke on the topic during an Education Writers Association webinar entitled “Interviewing Children: An Education Reporter’s Guide," as well as with Sally Sara on the ABC. He also spoke on Connecticut Public Broadcasting Network's Colin McEnroe show on the complexities of covering real times news. Shapiro and Dart Resarch Director Elana Newman, the McFarlin Professor of Psychology at the University of Tulsa, also spoke to the the Huffington Post's Michael Calderone.  

Frank Ochberg, founder of the Dart Center, provides tips to aid the recovery process for parents and educators of young children across America in an article for CNN. “You certainly can protect your young child from an overdose of trauma imagery,” Ochberg writes. “The cumulative effect of televised violence, trauma and grief can be debilitating. It takes less of a dose to upset a child.”