Last Thursday on 25th, Douglas Blackmon came to our school and had a great speech about his career in his journalism experiences at the part of Foster-Foreman Conference. His experience with professional working as a journalist in some field such as the election of President Obama, the rise of the tea party movement, the fall of the Berlin Wall, 9/11, Hurricane Katrina and the BP oil spill. He won a Pulitzer prize with a bestseller book named Slavery by Another Name, an analysis of how slavery persisted into the 20th century. He spoke about his childhood to explain his background of the books and his experience with his career. He went to Black school as one of a few white kids, and that experience built an ethical issue in his childhood. One of the most interesting stories from his speech was his ethical and race problem when he was in BP oil spill and got a traumatic issue which is a psychological problem while working in different countries.
Douglas Blackmon discussed with traumatic events that made him suffer from PTSD symptoms because he could not get any offer for the treatment at that time when he was arrested at the war. “witnessing the death and the suffering of others and confronting dangers that increasingly include kidnapping for ransom and staged executions can prove emotionally challenging, leaving journalists vulnerable to psychiatric illnesses like posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and major depression.2 Data from a systematic review of journalists in general, and not those exclusively focused on conflict, also speak to higher rates of PTSD than in the general population.3 Taken collectively, the current literature points toward a profession at risk for trauma-related psychopathology.”(Feinstein, 1). He described how journalist face the tragic events when they report on and their perspectives of it. He said newsrooms are covering various and multiple issues of many traumatic stories, however, the offering for the psychological support is not provided well if they need help. I believe he was also one of the victims among the journalist who suffered from the PTSD after surviving and overcame by himself.
Douglas also discussed about the unethical issue. He faced how much and how many ethical problems occurred and how much he was suffering from them while working as a journalist. He shared some stories that he experienced about being unethical when he covered and reported the stories to public. During BP oil spill, the time he had to report on the dead people because of his responsibility for crimes report as being a journalist. Also, the discrimination against black people was his one of the things he was struggling with, when he covered about victims caught up in the street violence. He went through lots of emotional guilt about victims when he covered them. “Most news journalists will work with a crisis‐related assignment at some point during their careers. Even though assignments seldom reach the same dimension as the Oslo/Utøya incident, reporters will be at risk of exposure to traumatic events either on the scene of the unfolding event, or in a more indirect manner, for example, when editing distressing event‐related pictures in their home offices” (American Psychiatric Association, 2013; Simpson & Coté, 2006; Weidmann & Papsdorf, 2010 cited in Backholm, K. and Idås, T. 2015). He mentioned the risk with the active role of journalists during difficult work-related circumstance.
I think the ethical dilemmas as journalists between moral behaviors versus as professional journalists are still dilemmas and remains as controversial issues. If they are not being a good journalist, journalism cannot be existed, however, they cannot be a good person as well. This is the worst thing to be a journalist I think and that made me hesitate to be a journalist after I went to his speech. His speech was very interesting and lots of lessons from his experiences but as being as a famous journalist he had to go through a lot of things. “In addition to the development of instruments, future research should focus on investigating in more detail whether actively carrying out a task incongruent with personal values is more harmful than only experiencing internal ethical doubts as a journalist. Other areas of interest include the roles of postassignment feedback from first‐hand victims, and workplace social support in relation to work‐related guilt and long‐term psychological impairment.” (Backholm, K. and Idås, T. 2015)
Reference
Feinstein, A., Osmann, J., & Patel, V. (2018). Symptoms of PTSD in Frontline Journalists: A Retrospective Examination of 18 Years of War and Conflict. The Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, 63(9), 629–635. https://doi.org/10.1177/0706743718777396
Backholm, K. and Idås, T. (2015), Ethical Dilemmas, Work‐Related Guilt, and Posttraumatic Stress Reactions of News Journalists Covering the Terror Attack in Norway in 2011. JOURNAL OF TRAUMATIC STRESS, 28: 142-148. doi:10.1002/jts.22001