Special project: New Australasian DVD

FOR the past four months, senior GTV9 reporter Brett McLeod has spent a good deal of his spare time producing a cross-industry trauma and journalism awareness DVD for the Dart Centre Australasia.

The project grew out of an idea fleshed out by 16 senior journalists and newsroom managers from a cross-section of Australian and New Zealand news outlets at the Dart Centre for Journalism and Trauma’s inaugural Beginning to Make a Real Difference retreat held in Coffs Harbour in April.

There was consensus at the end of that retreat about a growing need to begin discussions in newsrooms about issues around covering traumatic news. One way of doing this effectively, all agreed, was to show the stories of news personnel at all different levels and from a variety of organisations.

This would replicate the successful approach the Australian Broadcasting Corporation took with its excellent in-house training DVD produced and launched earlier in 2007 (see Lisa Millar’s story).

After recording key interviews in Canberra, Melbourne, Sydney and Adelaide, Brett’s cross-industry News Media and Trauma DVD is nearing its launch and, he says, he’s more convinced than ever that such a tool is needed in Australasian newsrooms.

“Across the industry there’s some common understanding of what needs to be done in terms of preparing people to do this sort of work,” Brett said, “but it’s not often enunciated by experienced staff nor by newer journalists, probably for fear of being seen by their peers as ‘too soft’.”

That’s not what it’s about at all, Brett says.

“It’s about doing the job professionally and turning out a better product without harming ourselves or others.”

When Brett started to ask cross-industry colleagues to participate in this new project, well-known journalists from metropolitan and regional media promptly agreed.

Eight appear in the finished News Media and Trauma DVD:

• Nine Network senior reporter Peter Harvey
  
• News Limited photographer Renee Nowytarger (The Australian)
  
• former reporter and now 2UE program director Greg Byrne
  
• senior Sunday Age reporter Gary Tippet
  
• WIN TV regional Victoria reporter Erin Cassar
  
• Seven News reporter Jess Adamson and cameraman Rob Brown, both from South Australia
  
• senior ABC reporter and former foreign correspondent Philip Williams.
  

Each interviewee spoke openly about issues arising from covering traumatic news stories as well as the ways newsrooms can better prepare people to do this sort of work and to support their staff while they are doing difficult assignments.

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On the road ... with Brett McLeod

IF the adage that doctors make the worst patients holds true for other professions, then journalists should be the worst interview subjects.

In fact making the News Media and Trauma DVD has shown me that journalists, and photographers, and camera operators are in fact good interviewees ­ they’re just a bit shy. Everyone I approached agreed to be interviewed, much to my relief. I sent Peter Harvey a long screed about Dart, the purpose of the DVD, how important his contribution would be, etc. I must have spent an hour on the email.

He shot one back within a few minutes saying “Great, let me know when you want to do it.”

That was to be the typical response. There was no scientific method involved in selecting subjects.

I just picked people I’d worked with over the years who I felt represented different parts of the industry, with experience ranging from 40 years in the industry to just a few months. And most were very anxious about appearing on camera!

Is it because we work in a competitive industry where we fear ridicule from our colleagues? Possibly.

I think it’s more to do with the fact these interviews were about an area that’s very personal in a very public profession.

We deal with some of the worst events in modern life. We throw ourselves at the stories and exhaust every angle we can find. But what happens when we go home?

A common response from those I approached to be interviewed was: “I don’t really know much about trauma, I’ve never covered a war or a disaster or anything”.

Which is exactly the point: The events that traumatise us need not be large-scale tragedy. They can be the story you cover tomorrow.

Jess Adamson went through the physical and personal rigours of reporting the tsunami in Aceh, only to find the story that was most deeply upsetting had happened metres from her desk.

Peter Harvey has covered wars from Vietnam to Lebanon, but an image from the Sydney morgue in the 1960s is still with him.

And there need not be one event that gets to us.

Gary Tippet speaks of the “drip, drip, drip” effect on our psyche when we cover trauma after trauma.

What pleased me about the interviews was a thread of what is “the right thing to do” when it comes to victims of trauma.

We put ourselves in their shoes – or try to – before approaching them. And it makes us better journalists.

And I found we are searching for “the right thing to do” when it comes to dealing with our own trauma.

Discussions with colleagues, alcohol, therapy, quiet contemplation – the different methods we’ve tried are on display.

The News Media and Trauma DVD isn’t a self-help tool – no answers are given. The aim is simply to get a dialogue going.

I hope those who watch it get as much out of it as I have in helping put it together.

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A vote of thanks

THE Dart Centre for Journalism and Trauma would like to thank the Nine Network – especially Brett McLeod, Paul Webber, Michael Venus and Tony Shepherd and those journalists willing to tell their stories – for willingly and generously supporting the creation of this important teaching tool for newsrooms.

The News Media and Trauma DVD will be instrumental in engaging journalists in conversations about dealing with potential trauma exposure as well as ethical and sensitive reporting techniques for new journalists.

Along with many working journalists, the Dart Centre believes that raising these issues and developing skills in how to better deal with the consequences of trauma exposure results in better journalism and, ultimately, better stories for journalist, their employing organisations and the people they cover.

None of this could have happened without the support of Nine in Melbourne.

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ON the job ... ABC reporter Lisa Millar with ABC news cameraman Craig Berkman on the waterfront in Honiara in October 2006 when they were covering political instability in the Solomon Islands.

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In mid-November 2007, Lisa joined nine other Dart Ochberg Fellowship winners from around the world (see sidebar) who met in Baltimore to swap stories and ideas, discuss unexpected fallout from covering such stories and learn more from experts in the field.

“I’d never even thought of the subject before I covered the hanging,” she admits. “I had done lots of big stories, I did police rounds for many years and had covered murders, grisly trials and all of that.

“But, after I had spent two weeks standing outside a jail waiting for man to be killed, it was different. The job itself was very draining and, two days after returning home to Brisbane, I was driving along on my day off and heard a radio news bulletin that discussed his funeral.

“I was surprised that it hit me very hard and I just broke down and cried. I literally had to pull over on the side of the freeway and it took me some time to compose myself.

“I realised for the first time that (my work) had affected me and I didn’t really understand why.

“Not long after that I was invited to sit in on a focus group within the ABC that was looking at a BBC trauma awareness training program and I couldn’t help but wanting to say and know more.

“That was about 18 months ago and I was then asked to be part of our organisation’s process to create a similar package here in Australia.

“Along with (ABC staff development manager) Heather Forbes, we produced a DVD that contained interviews with journalists, tape editors, camera personnel who all shared personal instances of covering difficult stories.

“We launched the DVD and an accompanying training package a few months back and we’re progressively rolling it out to colleagues across the country.

“The reaction has been surprising. It’s had a huge impact when it’s been shown to staff in Melbourne, Western Australia, the managing director and the ABC Board.

“So many people have never really thought about this area and we should be discussing these things.

“Recently I attended a black tie dinner in Sydney with a number of media bosses who, when they heard of the project, were very interested.

“There really hasn’t been this conversation in the industry before and it’s important that we have it.

“It’s also interesting to see that when people begin to talk about it, you start to hear accounts of their earlier encounters with trauma and what they or others have done to deal with those experiences.

“You know it’s not about turning journalists into sooks but about extending our careers in healthy ways and going in with a completely open mind. There’s so much to discover.

“We’re beginning to see some changes, but it’s a gradual thing. It will take time. It may even be a generational thing. Most senior staff have been as open to learning more about this as the younger ones have. We’re very lucky at the ABC to have support from the top down for education in this area.”

During her well-earned trip to Baltimore this year, Lisa hoped to find out more about what other journalists were doing and what approaches were working best in other news organisations.

“I guess I’m still looking for some answers to questions that are asked of me from time to time that I find myself still unable to fully answer,” Lisa explains.

Look for Lisa's special report on her Baltimore trip in the next edition of Update.

LISA Millar joins a growing group of Australasian Dart Ochberg Fellows ... from left, Gary Tippet, senior writer at The Sunday Age newspaper (2004), Philip Williams, senior ABC reporter (2005) and Melissa Sweet, freelance health journalist and author (2006).

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A different take on trauma

RECENTLY Lisa was talking to ABC foreign correspondent Shane McLeod during his visit to Sydney from his current base in Tokyo. They had both covered the hanging in Singapore: “We were reminiscing about the assignment. He said he felt, for him at least, (doing that assignment) was worse than covering the tsunami – a story of thousands of nameless bodies versus a story of one person on death row. I guess the point is that it can be a different story for everyone that might be the trigger – and that’s why I find this subject so interesting. It doesn’t necessarily have to be the most gruesome or bloody story you cover that can be the one that affects you long after the story is over.”

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In her dreams

THREE things Lisa Millar says she would like to see:

• Younger people in newsrooms not intimidated about expressing feelings or their concerns.
  
• More senior people as open as possible to this subject, too, so they can give and get support.
  
• A job where she’d be going to work two days a week and bringing home $250,000 a year ... the first two, she admits, are more do-able!

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About this year's Australasian fellowship

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IT WAS late July 2000. As I drove the 45 minutes to the small country town, all I could think was “please don’t let them cry in front of me”.

I was a young journalist and I was off on my own to interview the family – a mother specifically – of 12-year-old Billy Huddleston whose murdered body was found only the night before.

No one taught us how to handle such a situation in any journalism classes in university. For that matter, I don’t recall anyone ever mentioning this would even be a possibility in our job, let alone a regular occurrence (at least for some of us who go on to become police rounds reporters).

Many thoughts went through my head as I drove – how do I approach the grieving family? Would they be mad that journalists were imposing on them during such a time? How do I get the best story out of them without seeming like I was a heartless person?

When I arrived, some TV reporters were already at the house. In this case, fortunately, the family was willing to talk because, at this point, their son’s murderer had not yet been caught nor even identified.

I introduced myself and listened as the TV reporters did their interviews. I patiently waited until it was my turn, and the TV cameras had all left.

One of the first things I have learned is that some people are often more willing to talk to a newspaper journalist than they are a TV reporter who comes in with large, imposing equipment.

Also, if you have the time, waiting for TV and other reporters to leave often gives you the opportunity to get a different version of the events and a fresh story angle from other media.

I sat down in the living room with Billy’s mum, step-father, older brother, sister and Billy’s niece. I did not, at first, pick up my notebook. I offered my condolences and shared in the shock at what had happened to little Billy. I expressed that I did not know what they were going through, that I could only imagine, how it was unfair.

I said it gently, compassionately, delicately. I apologised for being there at all and for having to meet under these circumstances. I offered them thanks for being courageous enough to talk to the media about the situation.

Again, in this case I was lucky because they knew it would help find little Billy’s killer and they wanted the world to know what had happened to their son, brother and uncle. I explained I would like to capture a portrait of what type of kid Billy was.

I took it slow. I commented on how cute Billy’s 18-month-old niece was as she wandered around talking her baby language. Billy adored his niece, I was told. Stories and anecdotes about Billy with the baby and other friends started to flow forth from the family. What else did he like to do? I asked. I smiled at the right times along with the family, if it was a happy anecdote.

I let the family have a conversation and I listened intently, making mental notes on what stuff would make the story. I finally picked up my notebook and started taking notes. Only now did I ask more specific questions.

When did you see him last? What were you, and he doing? And so on.

I probably spent a good hour there on my own, just talking to them. I was also my own photographer for the day so, after they were comfortable with me, I started moving around and taking photos to go with the story. (I had explained to them first I would also need to take photos).

Things I have learned from this sort of work:

1. Every family you approach after losing a loved one reacts differently. This is not something you can learn from textbooks. Some families think it is outrageous that journalists are approaching them so soon. Others are more approachable. Again, I was lucky on this one. With families who are not quite so willing to talk, they may say things to you in their grief that aren’t true about you as a person, or about how horrible it is you are imposing on them at that time. Try not to take it personally. Don’t dwell on any comments that might hurt your feelings – or the feeling you get when you just want explain to them that is just not the sort of person you are, it’s just an unfortunate part of your job. Ultimately, though, be understanding.
   
2. Use common sense. Of course you’re there for a story, but don’t just rush in and act like you would, say, on a happy pic-story. These are real people with real grief and unexpected complications. The fact they’ll talk to you at all so soon is something to be grateful for as, ultimately, it will make your job easier. Do not go in acting your normal, happy self, or in a seemingly detached, heartless way, like you are in a hurry (as happened with one of the TV reporters I saw on this job. It was obvious she was there to get the story and get out as quick as possible, and she did not seem to make much effort to be compassionate). Of course, this TV reporter may simply not have been good at handling these situations or unable to handle these situations as well as other reporters. Not everyone is able to handle these stories. The thing to try to remember is that, no matter what you can or can’t handle, be compassionate!
   
3. If they do cry in front of you, stop interviewing and give them a few minutes. They will usually compose themselves and continue, but do not rush them.
   
4. Talk to neighbours, especially if the family isn’t talking. It’s a slightly easier way to get a story about the person in question and less emotionally draining on everyone involved. If you are perceived as a reasonable reporter, that will be communicated to the family.
   
5. Always ask to speak to the closest family member to the victim when you visit a family home. Quite often, the closest person to the victim would be willing to talk but extended family and friends will try to protect them and block requests for interviews. Requests from journalists may never get passed along at all. If the person you want to interview is not at home when you call, come back and try the house again later. When they return, ask to speak to them directly. At the very least, leave your business card, explain that you would like to tell their story about their loved one.
   
6. Remain neutral during follow-up investigation stories (balance your story with the families’ side and the investigators’ side). Don’t become a family spokesperson – it’s not your job.
   
7. Emotionally remove yourself from the reality of the situation as much as possible. These difficult stories can be quite depressing. If it affects you in any way, try your best to talk about it with a friend or fellow journalist who understands the situation you experienced. Turn the emotion around to realising how grateful you are to have your friends and family in your life around you and who are still thriving. You cannot bring their loved ones back, so the best you can do in your job is to write some articles that a) they can keep as a tribute to their loved ones; and/or b) will help catch a criminal and get them off the streets.
   
8. The unwritten “rule” is that reporters should not get too close to stories. That needs to be taken on a case-by-case basis. For me, in these cases, it has varied. In this particular case, Billy’s mother, Rachel, and I have stayed in quite close contact. She told me she had gotten to know me better when I spent the time with her in the beginning. She said she appreciated that I checked in with the family often in the beginning – she felt like I cared about finding her child’s killer. This of course, besides making me feel good on a personal level (which was a bonus, not a necessity, in this job), led to better and more frequent stories than the rest of the local media reported. Rachel or her family members would always think to call me first with any new details, etc., and, if I could not get information out of investigators, often a family member would give me a tip or the information straight up. I have remained in touch with Rachel over the years. Unfortunately, it has become less and less, mainly because of my schedule, but, we still exchange emails. If I was still living in the area, I would have started on a book about the Huddlestons’ experience and what has happened to their family since the murder, as their lives have fallen apart. I would not have known this if I had not stayed in touch. Whether staying in touch with people you interview is a good or bad thing, I personally think is up to the individual. I’ve covered other murders since that were the result of drug wars or extended criminal families. I’ve not really kept in touch with these families, as most didn’t want to talk openly for obvious reasons.
   
9. As much as possible, try to cover every aspect of the case, from start to finish, including every court appearance of the alleged perpetrator, if possible. That way the family and investigators get to know you and trust you more if they see and speak to you more often.
   
10. It’s important to open communication lines with young/new journalists before they head out on a “death knock” for the first few times. Share with them positive ways they could try handling grieving families. These new journalists, too, may not have had exposure/training for these interactions and may have concerns they are reluctant to articulate. I try to share ideas about how to word delicate questions. In the Billy Huddleston situation, my editor basically said get out there and find out about Billy. Perhaps he thought I had done this before. Don’t make that assumption.
    

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About this reporter

JODIE Munro O’Brien graduated from Central Queensland University and worked for a Rural Press weekly newspaper as a general reporter for a year before travelling to the United States in late 1998.

She landed work as a reporter on a mid-sized daily newspaper and she subsequently married a US Marine she’d met earlier in Australia.

When he left the service to begin a career as a chef, they moved to Charlotte, NC, and Jodie was working at a daily newspaper based about 20mins outside of Charlotte when she began what’s become a familiar role of police rounds reporter.

“I started out as the government reporter and then about six months into it,” Munro O’Brien recalled, “I filled in for the police reporter who was busy and it happened to be a story about a missing child, a 12-year-old boy. Three days later they found his body.

“It was my first real ‘cops’ story. I loved the adrenaline rush but it was a really sad story. I found you either love this work or you hate it.

“After I really got into it, this case, I started to ask for this round and other people were, like, ‘thank God’ because they didn’t get the assignment.

“I don’t know whether it was personality or that I just learned to handle people who’d been in bad situations but others just couldn’t seem to handle that.”

Years after her first big traumatic news report from the small town of Oakboro, North Carolina, Jodie and her husband returned to Australia to live, where she is now a police rounds reporter at The Courier-Mail in Brisbane.

She is still occasionally in touch with Billy’s mother.

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Learning more about trauma and journalism

THE Dart Centre for Journalism & Trauma has several useful web resources of value to journalists at all stages of their careers, but especially to those new to the industry and students. Here are just some accessible via the main website www.dartcentre.org:

• Tragedies and Journalists (online version of popular booklet)
  
• Journalists as First Responders
  
• Open Letter to Editors and Managers of Australasian News Media
  

WHEN a big news event happens in the hometown of any media organisation, the stakes are much higher for those who must live with and report on incidents, people and places they know - or have witnessed - personally. Plus they must work with media from elsewhere who will have different news agendas and perspectives.

Bruce Shapiro*

IT takes a single phone call, a single alert on a police scanner, a single wire-service bulletin bearing word of catastrophe to upend the well-ordered chaos of a newsroom.

In Minneapolis recently, it was the interstate highway collapse. Suddenly local print and broadcast journalists tore up their plans for the coming week, and threw themselves at a horrific scene whose basic facts were still far from clear.

It was the same, just a few months ago, for reporters in the US state of Virginia.

Though the incident itself was different in Minneapolis — and the body count thankfully lower — the bridge collapse recalls the Virginia Tech shootings and the intense pressures on hometown journalists to:

• get the story right
  
• the shocking and urgent accounts of survivors and witnesses
  
• the almost instant deluge of national news teams
  
• the certainty that this single event would dominate the lives of local journalists — and their community — for weeks, months or longer.
  

Two months after the Virginia Tech shootings, at the invitation of the Virginia Press Association, some 60 reporters and editors who had covered that story gathered to talk privately about their coverage.

In workshops facilitated by the Dart Center in the cities of Roanoke and Richmond, these journalists discussed what went right and what went badly, as well as the ethical quandaries and news choices they faced.

And they agreed to go on the record about lessons learned from covering the Virginia Tech incident — lessons that would apply not just to another university shooting but to any other large-scale catastrophe.

A few of their lessons:

• Send a message from the top: Take care of yourself. On a large-scale breaking news story it makes a difference when top a newsroom leader — an editor or news director — reminds journalists of the need for sleep, breaks and other self-care steps. This isn’t just a matter of occupational health but of preserving news judgment and the capacity to stay on the story for the long haul.
  
• Have a trusted editor on scene. The Richmond Times-Dispatch sent a highly-regarded desk editor to join reporters on the ground at Virginia Tech. The result: better communication, and a greater willingness by editors back in Richmond to hear reporters’ concerns.
  
• Trust your news judgment and ethics, and be strong enough to say no. Some wire-service editors and broadcast producers far from the Virginia Tech campus demanded intrusive or exploitative interviews. Whatever the competitive national media may be doing, remember that you must retain the trust of your local community.
  
• Plan ahead: Have a big-story coverage strategy. Reporters at both The Richmond Times-Dispatch and The Roanoke Times agreed it would have made a difference — on everything from communications to deployment of reporters — for their newsrooms to have prepared for being in the middle of a community catastrophe and a national story.
  
• Don’t chase every detail. Once the national press lands, rumours and false leads abound. Local news teams can and should make their coverage decisions and stick to them.
  
• Make non-traditional assignments. Remember that an education reporter, a business journalist, and an arts writer can bring a fresh eye and perspective to a critical breaking story. A catastrophe is by nature an unconventional event; don’t be trapped by conventional beats and expectations.
  
• You are part of this story: Don’t forget what it feels like. For local journalists, an event like the Virginia Tech shootings inevitably resonates with family, friends and neighbours. Many reporters in Virginia described their embarrassment and shame at intrusive and unethical national reporters. Remembering those feelings will ensure more responsible coverage of victims and survivors in day-to-day news as well as large-scale events.
  

* A veteran reporter on human rights, criminal justice and related issues, Bruce Shapiro is the executive director of the US Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma.

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HARRY Bhaskara, a senior editor with The Jakarta Post, front, and journalist Loly Nuria Fitri who is trauma project co-ordinator with Indonesia’s Yayasan Pulih (Trauma Recovery Foundation) at the recent Dart Centre Australasia workshop in Indonesia.
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Recently, a special three-day workshop was held for a small group of journalists in Jakarta with the assistance of former Tempo journalist and now director of the Institute for Press and Development Studies, Ignatius Haryanto. He reports below on the valuable exercise:

IT WAS a very rare opportunity for us in Indonesia to have a workshop that was, in essence, a special collaboration between health practitioners and journalists who have to respond to the issue of journalism and trauma.

It was indeed a very good workshop which was led by the team at Yayasan Pulih (Trauma Recovery Centre) - Jakarta with contributions by Dart Centre Australasia managing director Cait McMahon, who shared her knowledge and listened very carefully to the experience of Indonesian journalists in this area.

Although Indonesian journalists face many traumatic events – such as terrible accidents, social conflicts, earthquakes in some regions and, in Aceh, the effects of the tsunami in December 2004, one of the worst-affected regions in Southeast Asia, etc. – most don’t realise those events can really affect them, causing traumatic responses and perhaps, in the end, affecting the journalism they produce.

Only a small group of journalists have been aware of this issue, largely because so little work has been done to raise this issue in newsrooms.

Besides, most journalists operate in a culture where they don’t want to admit that covering such traumatic events causes particular consequences. If our colleagues knew that we were affected by an incident, they might start making fun of us, call us weak, soft, pale, or ‘chicken’.

After having this three-day workshop, this group of Indonesian journalists is now fully aware this issue is a serious one. We came to realise that, if we care about the good quality of our journalism, we should also care about the condition of journalists.

But, we also realise this can be a very difficult task, especially to some stakeholders – like journalists themselves, editors in newsrooms and media owners.

For many journalists, covering risky events is perceived as prestigious, and potentially influential for their careers. They may be inclined to discount the risks in doing such work.

Sometimes journalists can be careless or reckless when reporting or they may go in unprepared for the work they will be asked to do.

Editors in newsrooms often don’t realise what kinds of effects this type of work may have on reporters when they cover traumatic events.

Of course, it will be of benefit if an editor has faced similar experiences in the past. In such cases, an editor is more likely to accept some unusual behaviour from reporters after they return from assignments.

If editors don’t have such experience, they may label the reporter as lazy, lacking in initiative, unenthusiastic, etc.

A good editor will understand these difficult situations, and some will allow time for reporters to relax and recover.

It helps if an editor is a good listener, so that reporters don’t feel alone in these circumstances.

With media owners, sometimes it’s even harder to convince them, since they deal with “the big issues” – company revenue, efficiency, expanding their networks, etc. ssues such as “healthy journalists” may seldom come to mind.

Therefore, it is important for us to convince them how a good-quality journalism product will come from healthy journalists or media workers.

From this perspective, they may see that putting the issue of journalists encountering trauma as a “big issue” they need to address.

There is still a long way to go and much homework to be done in the near future. But we are looking forward to staying in touch with Dart and other institutions that care about this issue.

To Dart, especially to Cait, thank you for sharing your knowledge and experience with us in Indonesia. We hope it will strengthen your network in Asian countries as well.
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AGENCY photographer Ahmad ‘deNy’ Salman, front, and Ignatius Haryanto during the Dart Centre Australasia workshop in Jakarta.

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Feedback from this group

THINGS this group of 10 participants said they found beneficial:

• gathering with other media people
  
• the presence of a media-aware psychologist
  
• sharing similar ideas about journalism and trauma
  
• sharing ideas about what can be done next
  
• the shared understanding that Indonesian journalists face serious potential threats and, as a result, trauma
  
• realising the absence of explanation about the relationship between journalists and trauma is across the board at this time
  
• identifying/planning the training that could take place
  

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JOURNALIST and journalism educator Trina McLellan is secretary of the Dart Centre for Journalism and Trauma - Australasia and volunteer editor of Update.

WITH a career in journalism and communication spanning 25 years, Trina McLellan is secretary, and a founding board member, of the Dart Centre for Journalism and Trauma - Australasia.

Currently working at The Courier-Mail in Brisbane as a newspaper sub-editor and occasional online sub-editor, Trina has also designed and delivered tertiary journalism courses and worked in communication roles in higher education, the public service and private enterprise.

She has researched the impact of news reporting on victims and survivors of traumatic incidents and completed a Master of Arts thesis based on this research.

Her Dart Centre role is voluntary and, as part of her contribution, she compiles, edits and designs the online and .pdf versions of this newsletter.

She also assists in the delivery of training courses, gives guest lectures and tutorials to journalism students and co-operates with other Dart Centre members on specific trauma and journalism projects.

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August

IT HAS been a particularly busy period for the Dart Centre for Journalism and Trauma - Australasia, beginning in August with the important training visit to Jakarta by the managing director Cait McMahon (see Trauma and Journalism in Indonesia).

September

Cait McMahon and Melissa Sweet met with media executives when they visited both SBS and SkyNews in Sydney. They also spoke to the School of Public Health at the University of Sydney on media and disasters. The Seven Network also requested and had a briefing after hearing about the work Dart has been doing with news organisations across Australasia.

October

Kimina Lyall and Gary Tippet spoke at the Regional Journalism Conference for the Walkley Foundation on journalism and trauma. Brett McLeod also spoke, to a group of community broadcasters at the same conference, about dealing with traumatised and distressed interviewees.

November

Cait McMahon attended the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma’s annual executive meeting held in Washington. Gary Tippet also visited Washington for the Dart Society meeting, where he is on the executive. He also participated in a Dart Society panel at the University of Maryland Journalism School.

Cait McMahon and Dart Europe’s Mark Brayne then visited the Headington Institute in Baltimore. This organisation provides psycho-social support for aid workers around the globe and does valuable cross-cultural training and awareness work.

Then, also in Baltimore, Cait McMahon attended the annual International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies conference along with Lisa Millar. Dart Centre representatives gave several presentations, including an impressive one by photographer Clarence Williams and others about the special challenges of covering New Orleans post-Hurricane Katrina and the ongoing impact on media who must continue to cover the story in a climate where the rest of the country has “tired” of hearing about the disaster.

Neil Greenberg – the Surgeon Commander in Britain’s Royal Navy who has been a leader in the introduction to the UK’s armed forces and police of a system known as Trauma Risk Management (TRiM), based on peers supporting each other – has worked closely with the Dart Centre in Europe. He gave an excellent presentation at ISTSS about TRiM , which the Royal Marines use which has been adapted for Dart to use when training journalists. Before the end of the ISTSS conference, Cait McMahon chaired a Media Special Interest Group that looked at cross-cultural issues relating to journalism training and research.

December

Cait McMahon flew to Phnom Penh to work with a group of Cambodian journalists who will be covering the Khmer Rouge Trials. This training was at the invitation of Dr Andrea Rubenacker on behalf of Deutsche Welle. Dr Rubenacker is the project manager for DW’s training academy. The session also involved DW’s Ulrich Kohler, as well as psychiatrist Dr Sotheara Chhim – Cambodia’s only ISTSS member – who helped facilitate bi-lingual conversations.

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ONE of the tragic complications of major news stories can be the serious injury or death of a team member covering that incident.

Conveying that difficult news to families, peers and industry colleagues can seem daunting.

The task can take on an extra level of complexity if the injury or death occurs to an editorial team member working in an overseas or remote location.

The Dart Centre for Trauma and Journalism - Europe, drawing on the expertise of the London Metropolitan Police and the British Foreign Office, has an excellent guide available for newsroom managers who find themselves confronting this sort of predicament.

It is packed with useful practical advice and observations, including:

• how best to prepare yourself
  
• what to do when you get there
  
• things to say and, importan