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Experts and journalists who have researched and worked with trauma survivors say that practicing trauma-informed journalism not only leads to better, more accurate stories, but also helps protect survivors from further harm.

by Naseem S. Miller | April 13, 2022 |

By Vivienne Serret | The Independant Florida Alligator

Editor’s note: This article contains mention of sexual assault.

To all my student journalists: If you find yourself hyper-focused on climbing to the top and leaving everyone behind to fend for themselves, it’s time to put the pen down and ask yourself to remember why you started doing this in the first place.

It’s an easy answer for me — I want to give people a voice because the little girl I was never got one.

During the Spring 2024 semester, I published an article on a UF student who had sexually assaulted another student. I called the victim, who emotionally recounted to me her experience and for the first time in my career I let myself curl up into a ball and cry after our talk. I saw myself in her and thought, this is why I do what I do.

Our conversation inspired me to deliver a speech in front of student senators about my own experience as a victim of sexual assault. It was hard — going up in front of nearly one hundred other students and admitting that I, a journalist often writing about other people’s experiences and trauma, was a victim, too. Still, I found a weight had been lifted off my shoulders. My job is to tell people’s stories, it was finally time to tell my own.

“I was raped.”

To say it out loud for the first time was a powerful thing. Maybe, just maybe, I was healing.

It was only two weeks after having come forward that I found myself in a miserable position — it happened again. A close friend had assaulted me, and just a few days later, my editor handed me a new story. Another student had been assaulted by a friend, too. To say I panicked was an understatement. I fell behind on my work while my peers began to get published in most of Florida’s respected newsrooms. Others were receiving job offers from places that had rejected me. My editors began to question my work ethic, or lack thereof.

The incident report sitting on my desk could have been mine if I had mustered the courage to report it. I was biting more than I could chew just to try and prove to myself and the entire journalism school I was better than I seemed. I wanted everyone to congratulate me, yet all my stories fell through. I only had a couple bylines, how could I explain myself?

Maybe it was the fear of being told I had committed a conflict of interest, or the fear of hearing the dreaded question, “So, what were you wearing?” Maybe it was the fear of my assault becoming the newsroom’s talk of the week like it was in high school.

Eventually, I confided in my editor after the pain of missed deadlines sat on my shoulders. There are only so many times you can keep holding things in.

It’s not just me.

In a 2011 report published by The Committee to Protect Journalists, it highlighted the experience of Colombian journalist Jineth Bedoya Lima, who had been beaten and raped by attackers while on assignment for El Espectador, a newspaper located in Bogotá, Colombia.

“Since she began speaking out, Bedoya said, she has encountered a number of journalists — from Colombia to the United States to Europe — who had been raped or sexually abused but chose to stay quiet because of cultural and professional stigmas,” the article writes.

Similarly, in a 2012 study published by the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies, it found “preliminary evidence of a relationship between guilt cognitions and PTSD symptoms among journalists exposed to work-related trauma.”

31.5% of journalists participating in the study had been exposed to sexual assault.

In a 2021 article published by VICE News, it tells the story of Felicia Sonmez, a Washington Post reporter who sued the Post and a handful of its current and former top editors after “the paper’s brass had twice blocked her from covering sexual misconduct stories, because Sonmez went public with her own claims of sexual assault.”

These are just some of the few articles and studies out there detailing the experiences of journalists, like me, who write about the same things we go through.

And there are probably hundreds of journalists who have yet to come out in fear of repercussions, backlash and shame. When your job is to be objective and tough, who tells your story?

So what now?

I guess there’s no easy, tell-all answer to that question. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned it’s that the people I interview, like me, are just people figuring out how to navigate their trauma and longing for someone to listen.

Journalism can be a “dog-eat-dog” world, but please, maybe it’s time to approach our colleagues with more grace. Unfortunately, I know I’m not the only one in Weimer Hall who finds themselves wincing at a story that hits too close to home.

I just hope that maybe part of my story is the start of bringing another young journalist comfort.

Vivienne Serret is a UF journalism and criminology senior.

Mallory Carra | NBCU Academy

Newsrooms have been leaning into trauma-informed journalism in recent years. Here’s what that means.

When NBC News reporter Nicole Acevedo was assigned a story about the impact of President Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan in 2022, she set out to interview a dozen program applicants about what it would mean to their finances and futures. However, one of the applicants’ stories surprised her, making her pivot to a trauma-informed approach: The interviewee mentioned how a sexual assault during college caused her to take a leave from school, impacting her loans.

“I tried to assess where the person was in that process,” Acevedo said. “Does it feel like it’s very fresh? Or even if it happened a long time ago, sometimes when people talk about these things, they’re transported back into that moment. And is that what I’m experiencing with this person? Do I have a sense that that’s what’s happening?”

Trauma-informed journalism — or reporting stories with an understanding of trauma and how it impacts victims — has become more common in recent years. From the #MeToo movement to the Covid pandemic to war, it’s become much clearer how trauma touches the stories journalists tell. Between 80% and 100% of journalists have been exposed to traumatic events at work, according to ongoing research at Columbia University’s Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma.

“In a way, every story should be trauma-informed,” said Bruce Shapiro, the center’s executive director. “So much of reporting involves the worst things that happen to people – everything from intimate partner violence to war, torture and genocide. They pose the most fundamental questions to society about how to keep people safe.”

Common traumatic incidents journalists have witnessed include car accidents, fires and natural disasters, according to the Dart Center. When covering those, Shapiro said, it’s important to speak to the victims in a way that makes them feel safe, provide transparency and tell their stories in acute detail, Shapiro said.

I spoke with several trauma-informed journalists about how they approach reporting on traumatic events. Here’s what they had to say.

Prepare with trauma-sensitive interview techniques

Acevedo was well-equipped for the interviewee who talked about their sexual assault because she utilizes trauma-informed reporting in her coverage of Latino communities for NBC Latino, including stories about immigration and Hurricane Maria’s aftermath.

But for journalists who may be new to covering traumatic events, Shapiro advises reporters to plan for their interviews. Before talking to a trauma survivor, journalists should do as much research as possible on who they are and what they went through. They should also familiarize themselves with how trauma works. He referred to Dart Center psychiatrist Dr. Frank Ochberg’s “three acts of trauma”: the breaking phase, when it’s new and fresh; the recovery phase, where the victim comes to terms with what happened; and the acceptance phase, where healing may or may not occur.

Next, the reporter should plan interview questions and where they want the conversation to go. It’s important to make them feel safe and give them more of a say in the interview location and who will be present during the interview. “Survivors are not sure who to trust and who not to trust,” Shapiro said. “So we need to do things like show up on time, not go past the time we asked for, or at least get permission if we’re going to go longer. Be extra transparent about who we are and what we’re doing.”

Acevedo said that when she’s worried an interviewee may easily get retriggered, she starts off with easy-to-answer, fact-based questions, like, “How old are you?” to ground them in the current moment. “I just try to bring them back when their head is going that way, because I don’t want to exhaust the person during an interview,” she said.

Former TV journalist, certified trauma professional and author Jeanie Y. Chang said retriggering is likely to happen — and trying to avoid doing so may seem like the reporter is downplaying what the survivor went through. “It’s almost easier to be direct,” she said. “Say, ‘I know this is tough. I’m here to ask some questions. But if there are some questions that are too hard for you, just tell me.’”

Try to prevent retriggering when you can

For nearly 15 years, journalist Tamara Cherry reported on traffic accidents, fatal fires and homicides for the Toronto Star and Toronto Sun newspapers and Canada’s CTV Network. Now, she advises journalists on using trauma-informed techniques through her communications and public relations firm Pickup Communications.

Cherry instructs reporters to ask the people they’re interviewing how they want to be identified — as a survivor or a victim, or even how they want their name to appear. Once, she did media outreach for a military veteran who didn’t want to only be referred to by his last name on second reference, a common journalistic practice, because it triggered his post-traumatic stress disorder from his days as a cadet.

“For him, just being referred to by his last name was very triggering,” Cherry said. “It’s just like if you’re going to ask someone what their pronouns are. The stakes are so incredibly high for that victim or survivor and for your reporter, as well.”

Cherry also advises journalists to be particular about what kind of visuals to use for stories dealing with trauma. Based on research she did for her book “The Trauma Beat: A Case for Re-Thinking the Business of Bad News,” Cherry suggests that if the story has a visual — such as an accident where one car of people survived and the other car had people who died — journalists should use the footage of the car where the passengers survived. The script can include a line saying, “Out of respect for the victim’s family, we are only showing the vehicle where everyone survived.”

“It’s the validation for those victims and survivors that are watching from home or that will be Googling the case because so many of them undoubtedly will, in the days, weeks, months to come,” Cherry said. “Because those images, not only do they stick in the minds of victims and survivors, but once we’ve used an image like that, it’s in the archive, and they will be used again and again.”

Write the story with extra care and review

When it’s time to write a story, Acevedo takes great care in framing it and centering on the victim’s or survivor’s perspective. “I try to write the story, thinking, ‘Who has the most to lose here?’ And it’s usually the people that I’ve interviewed,” she said. “And I consider, ‘How do I frame this story in a way that demonstrates that?’ Then I start to figure out what’s the accurate language and the right framing, just making sure that I’m centering the person most affected.

It’s common journalistic practice and a policy at most news outlets to never let sources review a reporter’s story before it goes online or live on TV. “At NBC, we train our reporters to empathize and connect with their sources,” said Nina Sen, NBC News standards director of race, class and gender. “We can also give sources anonymity. For example, we never name sexual assault victims unless we ask permission, and we feel they would be comfortable being public.”

The bottom line is to make survivors feel safe and centered during the process. “If you are worried about showing a survivor your story and them withdrawing their consent, you’ve probably done something wrong along the way,” said Cherry, who often reviews reporters’ stories dealing with trauma. “I know that feeling where you let a story go to air and you just hope the family likes it and they don’t call you in tears saying you got this fact wrong. We should never be holding our breath for that.”

Shapiro advises journalists to let survivors or victims know about the reporting, editing and fact-checking process their piece may go through before going live. “Sometimes give a little more review of quotations than we would otherwise give and be transparent about fact-checking,” he said. “Really carefully explain that fact-checking is for their protection, so we can defend their testimony. Those aren’t extravagant, radical departures from journalism practice, but they do require a constant alertness.”

Remember self-care

While writing her book, Cherry looked back at her journals from 2006 and 2007, when she covered crime for the Toronto Star and Toronto Sun, and she saw entries about how awful she felt. “There were clear signs that I was not OK with some of the things that were going on,” she said.

And that’s why it’s important for journalists who cover traumatic events to keep an eye on their mental health. Rates of PTSD among journalists vary but can be as high as 59% depending on their geographic location and the beat they cover, according to ongoing research at the Dart Center.

Chang suggests that journalists get some distance from the tough stories they’re working on. “You need your whole other life outside of the job,” she said. “Drop that actual story from your head and move on for a second. And then obviously, you have to come back to that as you’re writing.”

Shapiro, who has written about self-care practices for NBCU Academy, emphasizes that all reporters — whether they cover trauma or don’t — should have a self-care plan.

“It’s as important to the success of your story as verifying facts and checking,” he said. “Reporters who don’t take care of themselves are not able to be fully present for the survivors whose stories they’re trying to tell, or for the community who they’re trying to serve by telling a good story.”

Matthew Pearson | The Conversation

It’s a phone call most journalists dread to make.

A woman in her 20s has died after she was struck by a car while riding her bicycle.

“What is your favourite memory of Eleanor?” a journalist asks the woman’s father in an interview.

The man’s voice quivers. “I don’t have a favourite,” he says. “Every one of the moments I spent with Eleanor was my favourite. It’s hard for me to imagine that I’m not going to ever feel that again.”

While this exchange modelled the kind of real situation that unfolds in news reporting, it was a simulation exercise. I designed it to help journalism students develop and practice trauma-aware interview skills.

Front Lines of Conflict

Journalists often find themselves on the front lines of conflicts, natural disasters, accidents, acts of violence and other human catastrophes.

Many journalists are assigned to cover such stories without the benefit of training on how to approach these situations — and the people caught up in them — ethically and sensitively. They also typically lack training or support on how to take care of their own mental health and well-being.

In 2022, I co-authored a study with colleagues Dave Seglins, Tracey Lindeman and Cassandra Yanez-Leyton in partnership with the Canadian Journalism Forum on Violence and Trauma. Our study, Taking Care: A Report on Mental Health, Well-Being & Trauma Among Canadian Media Workers, found the vast majority of journalists working in Canada today receive no formal trauma training in journalism school.

Most don’t receive training in the newsroom either. Instead, they cobble together skills by talking to others or figuring out an approach on their own, often without knowing what is considered best practice.

Trying to solve part of this problem was a motivating factor in the creation of a specialized speaker series and course on trauma-informed reporting.

For the course, I developed an interview simulation exercise that saw journalism students interview professional actors who portrayed people who have experienced a traumatic event.

Trauma-informed Reporting

Research about ethical reporting on victims of violence and trauma dates back to the 1990s, and coalesced with the creation of the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma at Columbia University’s journalism school. In the decades since, researchers around the world have conducted numerous peer-reviewed studies on newsrooms and traumatic stress.

A focus on reducing harm to trauma survivors acknowledges the potential adverse effects of news coverage on individual sources and their communities.

In Decolonizing Journalism: A Guide to Reporting in Indigenous Communities, Anishinaabe journalist and professor Duncan McCue dedicates an entire chapter to trauma-informed reporting. The book offers interviews with Indigenous journalists and advice to help journalists proceed down a less harmful path in their interactions with and reporting assignments on Indigenous people.

Reducing harm is also a central premise in the work of journalist and trauma researcher Tamara Cherry, whose book The Trauma Beat: A Case for Re-thinking the Business of Bad News examines the impact of the media’s glare on trauma survivors.

Learning to Cover Trauma

When it comes to reporting on traumatic events or interviewing survivors, while there is no way to prevent adverse effects, training can help minimize them.

The question I often pose to students or during training sessions with newsrooms is not: Do we or don’t we cover it? The question is: How do we cover it?

Simulation-based learning is common in the field of medical education, as well as in the training of teachers, engineers and managers.

Simulation-based learning “allows reality to be brought closer into schools and universities” and provides learners with an opportunity to “take over certain roles and act in a hands-on (and heads-on) way in a simulated professional context,” according to researchers who looked at dozens of studies to investigate the effectiveness of simulation-based learning.

Becoming Familiar with Best Practices

Despite the evidence that classroom simulations are beneficial in the training of news professionals, they aren’t widely used. One 2016 study of 41 accredited journalism schools in the United States found only three programs incorporated role-play exercises and invited trauma victims to be guest speakers.

Simulations allow students to engage in behaviour that approximates a real situation and react as a journalist might, while at the same time permitting the instructor to observe, coach and offer feedback.

Incorporating simulations can positively contribute to a journalists’ professional growth. As one student said after participating in the simulation exercise in my course:

“It lets students become more comfortable with this kind of interview so that when they do eventually start doing these, they are familiar with the best practices … which means that it’s likely to go a little bit smoother than if they hadn’t done that.”

Case-study Scenarios

I developed four case-study scenarios that reflect the kind of reporting assignments an early-career journalist might receive in a newsroom, such as sudden death or critical injury.

Students chose which scenario they wanted to do and prepared for the interview with a professional, paid actor. The interviews, conducted and recorded over Zoom, ranged between 15 and 40 minutes.

Letting students choose a scenario was important because it acknowledged one of the key principles of a trauma-informed approach: empowerment, voice and choice. No one should feel forced to participate in a simulation that might mirror their own previous experiences or otherwise be upsetting or uncomfortable for them.

At the same time, I acknowledge the four scenarios all reflected incidents that could be described as acute. “Acute trauma” refers to a psychological trauma that occurs in response to a single, highly-stressful event such as a car crash, natural disaster or the sudden death of a loved one — as opposed to “chronic trauma,” referring to ongoing or repeated traumatic experiences, such as emotional, physical or sexual abuse or intimate partner violence.

Experience in Low-stakes Environment

Among the important lessons students highlighted after the exercise were increased confidence in themselves and their abilities to successfully conduct sensitive interviews.

Students also said the exercise underscored the importance of research, transparency, informed consent and having a self-care plan for after the interview, when emotional weight might settle in the journalist’s mind.

Speaking more broadly to the value of such simulation exercises as part of a journalism education, students said it was helpful to get hands-on experience in a low-stakes environment.

Learning by doing and then reflecting on the experience has considerable value, as does learning to manage one’s emotions, especially anxiety, in advance of trauma-intensive interviews.

By Karim Doumar | ProPublica
Illustration: Laila Milevski/ProPublica

This column was originally published in Not Shutting Up, a newsletter about the issues facing journalism and democracy. Sign up for it here.

I’m Karim, an audience editor here at ProPublica. That means I spend many of my working hours reading about pain and suffering and working with reporters whose job it is to bear witness to the most traumatic moments of people’s lives. It’s something I’ve thought about and struggled with a lot during my time at ProPublica, and it’s been exacerbated by living through the pandemic news cycle of constant misfortune and death.

Last week, in partnership with The Texas Tribune and NBC Universal, we published a story about a family poisoned by carbon monoxide fumes in Houston during the severe winter storms and power failures in February. The reporters, Perla Trevizo, Lexi Churchill, Suzy Khimm and Mike Hixenbaugh, show how a team of first responders visited Shalemu Bekele and Etenesh Mersha’s home following a 911 call reporting that the family had fainted; after knocking on the door, the emergency responders left before making contact with those inside.

After hearing nothing for several hours, Michael Negussie, the cousin who had initially called 911, called back, trying to communicate the urgency of the situation. By the time a second emergency crew pushed through what turned out to be an unlocked door, Mersha and her 7-year-old daughter had died. Bekele and his son were taken to a nearby hospital. When they were revived, they learned they’d lost half their family.

Reading the story brought me to tears. Reporting it must have been a real challenge. Living through it? An unimaginable nightmare.

I spoke with some ProPublica journalists about how they approach the challenges of uncovering deep abuses of power, broken systems, betrayals of public trust and more. It won’t surprise you to learn that writing about the pain and suffering at the core of any journalism about unnecessary deaths is gut-wrenching. Harder still? Keeping faith with the sources who share the worst events of their lives with us, while reporting fairly on the institutions that failed them.

What We Owe Our Sources

To tell this story, reporters obtained the 911 audio recordings of Negussie warning that his cousins might be suffering from carbon monoxide poisoning. Experts say the recordings indicate a need for policy changes. But the reporters were also interested in Negussie’s point of view.

There are moments when a person’s individual pain perfectly encapsulates and conveys the breakdown of a larger system. That was the case with the 911 audio. The calls, which you can hear in the story, document Negussie’s desperation and visceral fear as he pleaded for someone in authority to help his family members.

Zahira Torres, the editor on the project, said it’s important in situations like these to make sure family members are aware of what we’re publishing. “As journalists, we have to be independent, and we have to be able to say, ‘Does this matter to a story?’ and move forward if it does,” Torres said. “But if families feel really strongly about why that is not something they want to share about themselves and their experience, then we have to be really thoughtful about that.”

In this case, Negussie knew the story was important and wanted the news organizations to use whatever tools were necessary to cover it. We shared the recordings of the 911 calls with him, but he told our reporters he couldn’t bear to listen. They were just too painful.

Agents, Not Anecdotes

Adriana Gallardo, a ProPublica engagement reporter, has grappled extensively with reporting on trauma. A project she worked on called “Unheard” (which recently won the Society of Professional Journalists’ Ethics in Journalism Award) told the stories of sexual assault survivors from Alaska, a state where sexual violence is endemic.

To do that, Gallardo and her reporting partners had to restructure the editorial process and think critically about how to gather and disseminate accounts of trauma.

While a traditional story may rely on a few anecdotes to convey the emotional weight of the problem, Gallardo didn’t want one or two survivors to shoulder that burden alone. “No one person was going to carry the weight of explaining the whole issue,” she explained. She wanted to present the survivors’ stories together to lighten the individual burden of illustrating the human toll of sexual violence and the resilience of survivors. ProPublica designer Agnes Chang was instrumental in building a special page where these elements could be shown.

When ProPublica works on such stories, our journalists check and recheck our facts to make sure that the information we publish is as accurate as we can make it. As part of her reporting process for the Unheard project, Gallardo also did emotion checking: “I never wanted to destabilize somebody for the sake of our story, so at every step of the way we were checking in to make sure that they were still emotionally OK to continue with us, the same way that we only continue with them if their stories are checking out factually.”

The process was time-consuming and challenging, and some of the survivors we interviewed decided upon reflection to withdraw their participation.

“I wanted them to be agents instead of anecdotes. If this happened to her, and this is what she did to get through it, and this is what she believes is a solution, then we should include all of those parts, not just the tragedy,” Gallardo said.

The result? A gripping, emotional and sensitive portrayal of sexual violence in Alaska that captured the full scope and complexity of the issue for every survivor involved.

“You Find a Balance”

ProPublica is all about doing journalism that prompts change. Often, the best way to do that is with the most vivid, memorable instances of a failing of government or business. We’ve written about how COVID-19 tore through poultry plants, how women unnecessarily died in childbirth, how states fail to fairly compensate people for limbs lost in industrial accidents.

We know we’re exposing you, our readers, to some gruesome stories, and we want you to know that these decisions are made with care and often intensely debated among editors and reporters.

Responsible reporting on trauma shouldn’t spread more trauma — it should do the opposite. As Torres and Gallardo both know and show, the reporting needs to shed light on systems; explaining what went wrong can illuminate how to fix it.

“For me, a story feels empty if it doesn’t have some level of ‘it doesn’t have to be this way,’” Gallardo said. “It may not be what everyone wants to hear, and it might not be something we can buy our way out of or legislate our way out of, but that’s important, too.”

After the project about sexual violence survivors in Alaska was published, Gallardo and many of those at ProPublica who worked on it met with the survivors who played a role in the story to debrief about the process and share their feelings on the project.

I hope you’ll continue waking up every day and finding the strength to not only read the news, but find stories that make space for both sadness and hope. As we were wrapping up our chat, Torres had one last thing to add about how to read without losing your mind: “You find a balance. You find the things that give you joy. But you also find the things that make you inspired to act.”

By Silvia Foster-Frau | The Washington Post

When the Rev. Sharon Risher heard about the mass shooting at Atlanta-area spas, her thoughts turned to the Asian American community and what she knew it must be going through. She went through it herself six years ago when her mother, Ethel Lee Lance, was killed by a gunman at a historic African American church in Charleston, S.C.

“There is this automatic melancholy,” Risher said. “Because now you know there is another group of people out there that’s getting ready to go through hell.”
March 16 marked a turning point for many Asian Americans: It was the day their community was stricken by a mass shooting, becoming the latest minority group to suffer an attack that killed several of its own.

There’s a specific kind of grief that arises from being targeted, one that more and more marginalized people in the United States know too well. The shooting survivors and victims’ family members span geographies, races and religions, but they are bonded by the shared trauma they have experienced.

These tragedies often leave many in those communities who weren’t directly affected feeling unsafe and traumatized. After a shooting, many members of these communities say they felt hyper-aware of their race and an escalated sense of fear that the same could happen to them or those they love. A mass shooting seems less senseless or inexplicable when it’s directed at one of your own.

“It’s not a situation anymore where you can just wake up and go out,” said Arah Kang, 25, a Korean American in Atlanta who didn’t know those killed at the spas but now keeps a stun gun in her car and carries pepper spray on her key chain. “You become hyper aware of your racial identity, because the way [you] look is what’s putting a target on your back.”

More than 700 miles away in Chicago, Mindy Hong has been gripping a can of pepper spray as she walks her dog.

“The shooting made me realize that it could be worse than being verbally harassed or physically attacked,” said Hong, 29, a second-generation Chinese American. “You could be murdered.”

Monnica Williams, a psychology professor and mental health disparities scholar at the University of Ottawa, said mass shootings that target marginalized communities can cause a collective racial trauma among members, sometimes manifesting in depression, anxiety and other mental and physical illnesses.

“Part of the grief around it is knowing that you’re in a country where the society does not have your back,” Williams said. “That’s what’s hard to wrap your head around — it’s a sense of betrayal.”

That betrayal was felt in 2012 when a gunman killed seven worshipers at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin, and then again in 2015 when another gunman killed nine at the historic Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston. It was felt a year after that, when a gunman opened fire at the Pulse night club in Orlando, killing 49 clubgoers, many of them LGBTQ-identifying and Latino. And in 2018, when a gunman killed 11 Jewish worshipers at the Tree of Life building — and a year later, when another gunman fired shots in a Poway, Calif., synagogue. And that betrayal was felt in 2019 when a gunman opened fire in an El Paso Walmart and killed 23 people, most of them Mexican Americans and Mexican nationals.

And then last month, a man with a self-described sex addiction allegedly opened fire at three Atlanta-area spas known for employing Asian American women, leaving eight people dead. Although authorities have yet to label it a hate crime or say that race was a motivating factor, many Asian Americans see the shootings as an attack on their entire race.

At the same time, hate-crime numbers have shown some of the highest spikes in more than a decade, with more than 7,300 incidents reported in 2019, according to the FBI’s 2020 report. Experts say the number is an undercount in large part because local law enforcement agencies do not have to submit hate-crime data and many don’t. The number of homicides driven by hate more than doubled in 2019 compared with the previous year, according to a Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism analysis.

Bonds have formed between these grieving communities: An El Paso survivor has checked in on a victim’s daughter in Charleston for every tragic anniversary, trial update or subsequent mass shooting — including this one. The Tree of Life synagogue has dedicated itself to supporting other survivors, its rabbi saying in a statement that “we know the pain and stinging loss” Asian Americans are experiencing. Black and Asian American artists came together to paint a mural in Atlanta reading “Black Lives Matter” and “Stop Asian Hate,” a picture of clasped multicolored hands between them.

In the wake of the Atlanta shootings, Risher’s phone and social media lit up with messages.

“That’s how survivors, all of us, are able to get through. You check in on each other,” Risher said. “You know the person who reached out to you knows exactly the feeling of trauma and grief and heartache you’ve been going through.”

Charleston

The 2015 shooting at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church wasn’t just an attack on the victims and their families, said Malcolm Graham, whose sister, Cynthia Graham Hurd, was one of nine victims.

“It was an attack on a race of people,” said Graham, a Charlotte City Council member. “And that attack has been going on in this country well over 200 years. That’s something that you just don’t get over, that you can say ‘I forgive you’ or sweep under the rug. . . . You never get over it.”

Black Americans have long been the frequent target of hate crimes, and they are more than three times as likely to be killed by police than their White counterparts, according to a 2020 study by Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health researchers. In a country where the legacy of slavery lingers in less tangible but equally pervasive ways, many Black Americans say they don’t feel safe walking alone at night.
When another mass shooting targets another set of people based on race or religion, Graham said the trauma resurfaces.

“When these events happen, it brings back so much memories of what happened in Charleston because it’s basically the same pattern of things,” he said, describing the United States as if it were a stuck record, constantly repeating the same verse — the same kinds of attacks, the same groups of people getting hurt.

Risher, the minister who lost her mother in the church shooting, said the Atlanta attack reminded her again of the obstacles she’s faced as a Black woman, and the ones Asian American women face, too.

Confederate flag comes down on South Carolina’s statehouse grounds

“Every which way you turn around, America has done something to marginalize a group of people. And they are not wanting to let that power go,” she said. “People will die before they let that power go.”

Pittsburgh

Tree of Life Rabbi Jeffrey Myers said his synagogue practices the “ministry of presence” — a phrase he learned from the Rev. Eric Manning of Emanuel AME Church in Charleston. After mass shootings, synagogue members reach out to the affected communities and let them know that they’re present, they’re listening.

The Georgia massacre “increases the fear level now of all Asian Americans who prayed, ‘Am I next?’ And I know how that feels, to have your community wonder, ‘Am I next?’ ” said Myers, a survivor of the deadliest attack against Jews on American soil.

Fliers that Asian American restaurants posted in the synagogue’s Squirrel Hill neighborhood after the 2018 Pittsburgh shooting to show their support for the Jewish community have been recirculating in recent weeks. One read: “Many of our business members have thrived in this city particularly in Squirrel Hill, and if we shared in this good fortune, then we bear the burdens.”

It was a reminder that Asian Americans and Jews shared similar status as minority communities in the United States — and now, communities affected by mass shootings.
The suspected Tree of Life gunman’s animus toward the Jewish community appeared to arise not solely out of traditional antisemitism but also out of anger that many Jewish people are allies and advocates for immigrants and refugees, according to social media posts identified by authorities. Their intercultural spirit was part of why they were targeted, and in the wake of the attacks, it is how they began to heal, Jewish faith leaders said.

‘We will rebuild’: Pittsburgh’s community holds vigil to mourn — and unify

“We will never be totally healed — we’ll always be healing. Because when these mass shootings occur it rips the scab right back off,” the rabbi said. “We hope what we’ve learned can be of value to other communities. I wish we never had to post anything or call anybody or say anything. But we are here, and that’s part of who we are now.”

Unlike Black, Brown and Asian mass-shooting victims, many of those affected by the synagogue shooting can choose whether they want to show their identity in public, and how. And after the tragedy — despite the fear it inspired — many Jews felt their faith and pride grow.

Jeff Finkelstein, CEO of the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh, said he arrived at the Tree of Life building while the shooter was still inside. Just one week after the tragedy, as he headed to synagogue, he deliberately put on his kippa, a traditional cap, before he reached the building.

“I wanted to show that I’m not scared to be Jewish, because I wasn’t,” Finkelstein said. “This was an incident, it was horrible, but it was one incident and I wasn’t going to let it keep me from living my life as an American and as a Jew.”

El Paso

Luis Calvillo, 34, was recovering from post-traumatic stress disorder from his time deployed with the Army in Iraq when he was shot five times at Walmart on Aug. 3, 2019. He dove under the bake sale table of the soccer team he coaches to save himself.

That feeling of adrenaline and fear came rushing back to him when he saw the news out of Atlanta.

“I just put myself in their shoes and I prayed they will come out all right,” said Calvillo, whose 61-year-old father, Jorge Calvillo Garcia, was one of 23 people killed in the shooting.

The shootings in El Paso, Atlanta and elsewhere left many pondering what pushed the gunmen to such acts of hatred.

“I keep on wondering, ‘What goes through the head of those people? To start to go and shoot so many people, as many as they can?’ ” said Francoise Feliberti, a volunteer for the El Paso soccer leadue Paso Del Norte Soccer Association, which includes the team Calvillo coaches.

The suspected Texas gunman, who faces 90 counts of federal hate-crime and firearms charges, had set out to kill Mexicans and Mexican Americans to prevent the “the Hispanic invasion of Texas,” according to a manifesto he allegedly posted online.

He did what many mass shooters have done before him — he cited a previous shooting, in this case the New Zealand mosque tragedy, where 51 Muslims were killed. The result was the deadliest hate-driven homicide event since FBI hate-crime reporting began three decades ago, according to the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism.
The shooters “still believe on the White empowerment that was given years back and they want to continue with their empowerment,” Calvillo said.

“That’s why we get targeted,” he said, and that’s why they’re not the only ones.
Since surviving the shooting, Calvillo has opted to open-carry a gun to protect himself.

“That’s what we have come to. It’s sad that we have to go to violence instead of just civil matters, but it is what it is,” he said, adding: “It’s very sad who we’ve become.”

Atlanta

These mass shootings follow a similar pattern: A gunman shows up, and then the police. The news cameras arrive, and soon after, the public outrage. The calls for action rise as the makeshift memorials grow. Donations to families and causes flow from across the country.

And then there are the funerals. And the slow disappearance from the public eye.
The mass shootings follow similar patterns, and Atlanta was no different.

Alexis Suh, 28, recently attended a victim’s funeral in Atlanta. An old Korean ballad played during the service, and the victim’s family members spoke about the woman they’d lost: a typical Korean grandmother who loved her children and especially doted on her grandchildren.

“That shook me,” said Suh, who didn’t know the victim or her family, but in many ways felt as though she did.

Since the shooting, Suh, a real estate finance attorney in Atlanta, installed a security system for her home. She has found herself repeating a new refrain to her friends and family: “Be safe.”

Along with recalculating risk, the attack caused many to reexamine cultural norms.
“There is a very big sense of betrayal. Confusion and betrayal. Because we’ve been fed that if we just do the right things, put our head down, work hard, harm wouldn’t be done to us. That we would be protected by America,” Suh said.

That was a lie, she said, and March 16 proved it.

But amid the grief, she is reminded of the Korean word “jung.”

It has no English translation, and it’s difficult to define. It describes a sense of solidarity, connection and understanding even among strangers; an intangible, collective bond between people; an inexplicable desire to care for one another.

Jung is “what defines our community, and that’s what’s come out the most,” said Suh. “Sometimes love is communicated in the Western world and the Eastern world very differently. But there’s still so much love.”

A growing movement recognizes the toll reporting can take on members of the media

By Rebecca A. Clay | American Psychological Association

Today Show host Hoda Kotb broke down in tears on live television after interviewing New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees about how COVID-19 was affecting Louisiana. She wasn’t the only reporter to show emotion on air. MSNBC news anchor Rachel Maddow teared up at the close of her show as she remembered a colleague who had died of COVID-19. And CNN host Erin Burnett cried during an interview with the widow of a COVID-19 victim. Those tears are just one sign of the trauma being experienced by journalists covering the COVID-19 pandemic, both in the field and in the newsroom. And that trauma can lead to mental health challenges.

“Journalists are currently bearing witness to individual and collective grief at high levels,” says psychologist Elana Newman, PhD, research director at the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma, a project of the Columbia University School of Journalism.

Now there’s growing awareness within newsrooms that journalists who are covering the pandemic and other traumatic events such as terrorism, disasters or shootings can’t—and shouldn’t—just “suck it up and move on,” says Newman. Psychologists have played a key role in that culture shift, promoting journalism that takes into account the potential impact of trauma on both reporters and sources. In addition to treating journalists who have experienced trauma, these psychologists are advising newsrooms on how to prevent reporters from developing mental health problems. Psychologists are also teaching journalists how to avoid inflicting additional trauma on sources through their reporting.

Treating Trauma

Most journalists report having faced on-the-job exposure to traumatic events at some time in their careers, according to research compiled in a fact sheet by the Dart Center. “When we talk about journalism and trauma, we immediately think of the war correspondent or the reporter covering a mass disaster like 9/11,” says Newman. “We forget about the community police reporter or the local journalist who is reporting about a neighbor who was in a car accident or sexual assault coverage—the daily grind of trauma.” As the pandemic spreads, so will reporters’ exposure to trauma.

Fortunately, journalists tend to be resilient, with relatively low rates of PTSD despite high exposure to stressful events, says Newman, citing more than a dozen research studies on stress and trauma among reporters.

Certain factors do increase journalists’ risk for developing PTSD, however. Newman and colleagues have found that an avoidant coping style, a personal history of trauma, high intensity and frequency of exposure and organizational stressors such as inconsistent leadership or conflicts with editors increase reporters’ risk for developing PTSD (Smith, R.J., et al., Stress & Health, Vol. 34, No. 2, 2018). Additional risk factors include coverage of war and the drug trade and exposure to “user-generated content”—the unfiltered social media posts and other material that provide eyewitness views of breaking news.

When journalists do seek help for trauma—whether it’s a war correspondent who has witnessed atrocities or a local reporter who has covered a school shooting—psychologists should be flexible and mindful of their hectic schedules, says Emily Sachs, PhD, a San Francisco private practitioner who works with journalists.

“A lot of therapists might interpret people being in and out of treatment as treatment avoidance,” she points out, explaining that breaking news, travel and other factors can cause missed appointments. “And there’s a difference between ‘I can’t do self-care’ and making excuses and very legitimate deadlines and real pressures from editors.” Sachs begins by educating journalists that what they’re feeling is normal, then teaches practical self-assessment and coping skills to help them respond better to the pressures they face. “The message I want to send to journalists is that learning a bit about trauma and active coping is worth some time investment, even if it feels really hard to put work down,” she says.

Reporters also tend to focus on strained relationships with friends and family in therapy, says private practitioner Jack Saul, PhD, who directs the International Trauma Studies Program in New York City and treats journalists struggling with job-related trauma in his private practice. “Often journalists don’t want to burden their family or friends with what they’ve experienced or reveal the kinds of dangers they put themselves in, so they will often just not speak about it,” says Saul.

Saul helps journalists find ways to explain to loved ones that they don’t want to discuss the events they have witnessed or experienced until they’ve come to terms with them themselves. “That helps them restore some connection in relationships that can be damaged by silence and secrets,” he says. Sometimes it’s the very person a journalist would ordinarily talk things through with—a fellow journalist—who has been killed.
Saul urges these patients to keep the dialogue going by writing letters to the lost colleague or meeting with his or her family.

Journalists may also experience severe guilt or even “moral injury”—a term once limited to soldiers—after witnessing a terrible event without being able to intervene, says Saul. Just as journalists who feel they’re risking their lives without anything ever changing can experience moral injuries, so can journalists on less risky assignments, such as those covering climate change who devote their careers to a message that often falls on deaf ears.

Providing Support

Newsrooms are increasingly beginning to provide more psychological support for journalists. Psychologist Cait McMahon, PhD, founding managing director of a Dart Center satellite office called the Dart Centre Asia Pacific in Melbourne, Australia, goes into newsrooms to train journalists, news managers and editors about trauma. “If you just train journalists, it puts the whole onus on the individual,” says McMahon. “Managers and editors need to also be trained in their duty of care.”

McMahon has developed a version of psychological first aid for journalists, offering guidance to editors and administrators on how to recognize signs of trouble, how to manage staff exposed to trauma and when to refer a journalist to counseling. For reporters, the emphasis is on clarifying what trauma is and offering self-management strategies and ways to check in with themselves after traumatic events.

Psychologists are also helping to ensure that journalists aren’t aggravating trauma in the people they interview. While journalists want as much detail as possible, asking survivors to relive a traumatic incident may reignite terrifying memories, says Katherine Porterfield, PhD, a consulting psychologist at the Bellevue/New York University Program for Survivors of Torture, who teaches trauma-informed reporting to Dart Center fellows and other journalists. That involves teaching journalists the difference between a source who may be experiencing a normal dissociation from a traumatic event and a source who isn’t credible.

She also advises reporters to check in with sources throughout the interview, give them breaks and tell them they can end the interview if they need to. “It’s never worth hurting them,” she says, “even for the story.”