I was living with my wife and six-year-old daughter in New York and working as UN correspondent for Agence France-Presse when two hijacked airliners flew out of a clear sky on a beautiful September morning in 2001 and brought the twin towers crashing down in flames. 

In the ensuing weeks, it was the grief of those who had lost relatives and friends in the attack which put the greatest immediate stress on me but I was also troubled by the virtual separation from my family.  

My wife, who had just taken our daughter to school, saw me leave for the World Trade Center but for the next two hours she had no news of me because almost all telephone lines had been destroyed.  

Afterwards, I was out of the house from six in the morning to midnight, working on the biggest news event of my career at precisely the time when my daughter most needed reassurance.  She had just entered the school gates when the first plane hit, and for a week afterwards she could see and smell the smoking ruins from our apartment.

Anxiety about our families, and their fears for us, contribute to the stresses on reporters which have been a focus of the work of the Dart Center and its associates for some years.  Convincing journalists of that, and persuading their bosses to act upon it, requires a profound change in the culture of the profession, however.

On September 23, the Center hosted a day-long discussion which Mark Brayne described as “the first of its kind, probably, in the history of western journalism.”

It began with some frank comments from a war correspondent's wife and included some lively debate about how to explain to a young child why a loving parent would want to go away to a dangerous place.  About two dozen people — journalists and senior editors from print and television, family experts, psychologists and representatives of specialist NGOs — took part in a general and group discussion.

The meeting produced a remarkable number of concrete suggestions and concluded by setting up a task force to take the proposals further. Among the key ideas, some of which might be incorporated into a Charter of Family Rights:

1) Couples should be briefed on the possible implications for relationships of separation under stress

2) Give reporters one or two days to decompress after a traumatic assignment so their families are not exposed to raw emotions

3) News organisations should set up a 24-hour, seven-day single telephone line to answer calls from spouses and partners of reporters on dangerous assignment

4) Allow reporters to refuse or interrupt an assignment for family reasons without fear of sanction

5) Designate a family liaison officer to keep contact with the families of reporters sent to dangerous places

6) Encourage reporters to telephone their loved ones regularly without feeling guilty about the cost

7) The duty of care to reporters' families is an extension of an editor's responsibility

8) Editors and managers should make contact with spouses and partners of correspondent to provide them with information, assurance and support

9) Freelance and local staff should be given the same protection and support as expatriate journalists or foreign correspondents

10) News organisations should produce a booklet to educate correspondents on how to handle stress in relationships and how to explain a war correspondent's job to children.