Aengus Collins on the professionals who view increasingly disturbing TV images so that we don't have to
Television news bulletins in recent weeks have made for unusually disturbing viewing. There has been a personal intensity to some events that makes them much more difficult to bear - the Beslan siege; the beheading of two American hostages in Iraq; the blurry pictures of Kenneth Bigley, caged, chained and lost to his distress.
The images can be difficult to watch. But newsrooms rely on 24-hour feeds of footage from around the world containing raw, unedited and uncensored images. These are recorded and then passed on to producers and editors who decide which images to use in the stories they are running.
If viewers find edited excerpts of the moments preceding a beheading difficult to stomach, how much more distressing must it be for the person who has had to do the editing? It is no surprise that media organisations have been turning to trauma counsellors for help with providing the appropriate support to their newsroom staff.
Mark Brayne was a BBC journalist for 25 years. He is a qualified psychotherapist and is now European director of the Dart Centre for Journalism & Trauma, a US organisation that provides best-practice advice to media organisations on how to support staff who are exposed to violence and trauma, whether in the field or in the newsroom.
"Gruesomeness isn't new," says Brayne. "What is new is the amount of it and the extent to which it can now extend unbidden into a journalist's work environment. With digital and handheld cameras, e-mail and the Internet, the amount of footage being distributed is massively greater than previously. And the violence is more pornographic than even five or 10 years ago. Images are being shot and distributed that would not have been before. Humans are good at coping with trauma. Research shows it and history shows it. But if it becomes too much or too raw, it can have an injurious effect."
And that is what has been happening in recent weeks. "There has been an accumulation of terrible footage. The cup is overflowing and normal coping mechanisms - such as newsroom black humour - aren't always enough."
Deciding which images are too disturbing to be shown to the audience has always been at the heart of the editorial process in the newsroom. But managing stress and trauma in employees who may have little choice about whether or not they view such images is a more recent phenomenon. 9/11 was something of a landmark in this, as in many other respects, bringing into stark relief the fact that it isn't only journalists sent out into the field who can be traumatised by what they see.
"Many people based in the newsroom can be exposed to really, really gruesome footage," says Nick Wrenn, CNN International's managing editor for Europe, the Middle East and Africa. "They see appalling images of human suffering, but often it doesn't sink in until some time afterwards. With 9/11, for example, it wasn't clear initially as the pictures first came in quite how many deaths or how much individual suffering we were watching. And in a breaking-news situation, the focus in the newsroom is on getting the story out - it's only later that you realise the true horror of it."
The major broadcasters make sure that newsroom staff have access to any external support they need. There are 24-hour confidential counselling helplines as well as one-to-one sessions for employees (or their family members) who request them. But the most important role for the counsellors isn't to deal directly with individual instances of trauma, but to increase the general awareness of trauma in the newsroom and to teach teams of journalists how to deal with trauma more effectively among themselves.
"Peer support is the single most important thing," says Brayne, who many broadcasters recognise as one of the most authoritative voices in this area. Try to change the newsroom culture so there's a supportive environment.
"Journalists can be a hardened bunch, and that can be a very healthy thing. But it becomes unhealthy if it begins to mask distress or if it prevents team members from expressing distress. The stigma has to be taken out of emotional distress."
The BBC's head of news gathering, Adrian Van Klaveren, points to the formal counselling that's available to employees, but he stresses the importance of more informal support systems. "We encourage our teams to get together and discuss the issues that concern them," he says, noting that in recent weeks the disturbing nature of the images coming from Iraq and elsewhere has been raised. "It's important that people feel that they're in it together. That's not to downgrade the role of external support or counselling - we have to make sure we offer both."
RTÉ reporters in the field during the Iraq war were offered counselling services, but as yet no similar service is available to newsroom staff. "It is under discussion," says RTÉ spokesperson Carolyn Fisher, "and action will be taken as is felt necessary. There is an informal arrangement at present where staff are warned of particularly disturbing footage in advance and advised not to view specific material."
She notes that RTÉ's news division operates on a smaller scale than those of the multinational broadcasters, making it easier for managers and colleagues to spot at an early stage if someone is having difficulties coping.
There is still a lot of work to do, according to Brayne. But he is generally positive and says the importance of introducing formal and informal support mechanisms is being recognised. Major news organisations, including the BBC, CNN, ITN and Sky are all responding positively.
It's in their interest to take this issue seriously, he says. "Helping newsroom journalists deal with trauma makes for happier, more functional teams. And it leads to better journalism. Because if people learn to understand and cope more effectively with their own experience of trauma, they will learn to report traumatic news events more insightfully."
• www.dartcenter.org