Interview with Guardian Australia reporter Ben Doherty
When Walkley Award-winning journalist Ben Doherty found himself in the middle of a military crackdown on the 2010 protests in Bangkok, he witnessed the violent and deadly repression of the red-shirt protest against the coup.
Doherty said he did not sleep well for “weeks and weeks” as he came to terms with the traumatic scenes he had witnessed – 91 people were killed.
“I’d forgotten, to a degree, my sort of journalistic distance that I need to bring, and my sort of professionalism,” he told City Journal. “That sort of shook me a little bit.”
Guardian reporter Ben Doherty. Photograph: supplied.
This sort of exposure to traumatised people and distressing content is not out of the ordinary for journalists, it’s a part of the job.
What journalists witness on the frontline of news sourcing has been likened to the experiences of police, firefighters and paramedics, but they do not receive the same level of emotional support in the industry.
Journalists are on the frontline of news sourcing. (TERJE SOLLIE)
The push for change is widespread as current and former journalists, educators and academics argue the industry has a lot of catching up to do in how it deals with mental health and related stigma.
Ohio University teaching fellow Bailey Dick told City Journal the industry could do “nearly everything” better to deal with mental health and trauma.
Ms Dick, a sexual assault survivor, said her personal experience of post-traumatic stress disorder helped her see symptoms and coping mechanisms in fellow journalists.
“I think that a lot of how journalists have been trained and conditioned to report exacerbates this problem,” Ms Dick said.
For example, a 2019 study of the psychological toll of everyday trauma revealed journalists are prone to substance abuse and engagement in risky behaviour as coping mechanisms.
The Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma is leading the way in providing training and support to journalists and news organisations to eliminate workplace negligence around trauma.
It has advised a number of international organisations such as the BBC, Reuters and Newsweek and in Australia helped the ABC to put in place a peer-support program.
“There are some subgroups that are more at risk, like reporters who cover cops or war or disaster,” the Dart Center’s Dr Elana Newman told the Columbia Journalism Review.
“But journalists in all areas need some training in how to cover trauma. It comes up in every beat.”
Newsroom culture has traditionally expected that reporters did whatever they needed to obtain and tell the story, no matter how detrimental that was to their mental wellbeing.
“The culture of the profession says, ‘We are observers; we aren’t the ones to be observed,” Ms Newman told the Huffington Post.
There have been calls for news organisations to create safer workplaces. (FAUXEL)
In Australia, there are signs news organisations now are being held to a higher standard than in the past.
In February 2019, a Victorian judge awarded $180,000 in damages to a former The Age journalist for the PTSD she suffered between 2003-2013 when she worked at the paper.
In a world-first, the judge ruled The Age had breached its duty of care to the employee by failing to provide a safe workplace and appropriate psychological support.
The woman’s lawyer Bree Knoester told the ABC news employers could do a lot more to create safe workspaces for their employees.
“It’s about having an environment in which everyone is trained in recognising symptoms, in recognising the risk that their work poses,” Ms Knoester said.
Doherty, now a reporter at Guardian Australia, said journalists needed to recognise when to take some time out from reporting.
“I do think you need to look after yourself a bit, be gentle with yourself sometimes, and recognise when you need to step back, you need to take some time away, you need to turn your phone off for a couple of days and disappear,” he said.
“Your ability to function as a journalist is not improved by you being traumatised as well.”
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(Featured Image: Red Framed Eyeglasses on Newspapers. SUZY HAZELWOOD)
