Situation Definition:
Doug Blackmon is a very experience writer when it comes to race. He’s been working since he was fifteen years old to make a name for himself in the journalism field. His two biggest recognitions are his Pulitzer Prize winning book, “Slavery by Another Name” and his coverage on the BP oil spill. He spoke during the Foster-Foreman Conference on Thursday, October 25. Growing up in the south, he grew up surrounded mainly by African-Americans, which drove him to write about race. During his Q&A, two of his main ethical issues that I found the most interesting were how he handled covering violence when reporting and how he handled the trauma he encountered when he was in other countries for reporting purposes.
Analysis:
During the Q&A Blackmon was asked about treatment for the trauma he experienced. Blackmon responded with the fact that he wasn’t offered any treatment. He touched on the fact that journalist companies are now starting to provide support for journalists who suffer from PTSD because of the things they’ve seen while on the job. In the article “Mediating Effect of Depression Between Exposure to Potential Traumatic Events and PTSD in News Journalists” it states that “approximately 50% of the participants that had completed their study had worked with a potentially traumatic assignment (PTAs) during the past 12 months since the study was conducted.” This article shows that journalists face a lot of traumatic instances and they are the ones to suffer from it. The fact that they have to deal with this and aren’t offered some sort of therapeutic treatment is a real ethical issue.
Another issue that was touched on during the Q&A was how he handled covering violence when he was reporting. He spoke about how during the BP oil spill, he spoke about how instead of reporting on the ten people who were killed during it, he went farther beyond the typical only reporting on the deceased. Blackmon sent out a group of people to track down the other people who were on the boat and do in depth reports on those people. He said that his story proved to be very successful. In “Covering Violence: A Guide to Ethical Reporting About Victims and Trauma” it states that “according to the authors, new organizations realize that violence sells and thus show a blatant lack of compassion at times when covering tragic events.” This shows that in traumatic situations, going down the route of glorifying the violence doesn’t always have to be the right way to go, which is a way to be more sympathetic toward the people who were harmed or worse during those traumatic events.
Conclusion:
When it all comes down it, I really liked the lecture by Doug Blackmon, and I thought it was really interesting. I really liked the way that he went from when he started to what he was doing now and he didn’t only talk about his successes as a journalist, which I thought was really humbling of him. I was really able to recognize the fact that there isn’t enough help for the journalists that suffer from the traumatic experiences that they went through. I also learned more tips on how to properly report on violent and traumatic instances.
Cites:
(2012) The mediating effect of depression between exposure to potentially traumatic events and PTSD in news journalists, European Journal of Psychotraumatology, 3:1, DOI: 10.3402/ejpt.v3i0.18388 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.3402/ejpt.v3i0.18388?scroll=top&needAccess=true
Kay, Linda. “Covering Violence: A Guide to Ethical Reporting about Victims and Trauma.” Canadian Journal of Communication, William Cote and Roger Simpson, cjc-online.ca/index.php/journal/article/view/1277/1293.