A handful of dust
James Fenton on witnesses to war
Saturday January 1, 2005
The Guardian
It used to be said - perhaps it still is - that there is a hierarchy
of courage among the journalists covering war. The reporters come
lowest in this. Anything that takes place in the war zone is grist to
their mill. It is good for them actually to have witnessed incidents
they write about, but often their most striking material comes from
what they have been told. And the reporters achieve excellence
through their writing, not through their great deed of daring,
although the latter might not come amiss.
Above the reporters come the photographers, who clearly must be
witnesses. But, again, it is a matter of anything that happens in the
war zone. The photographer may not spend his time most profitably at
the front line (assuming there is such a thing). It may be that the
most interesting sights
and events, from his point of view, are taking place at a certain
distance from the front.
Anyway, the crucial question is choice: the photographer sees
something that will make an expressive image, and he chooses to snap
it. Don McCullin used to get irritated that, if he was working in the
company of others, as soon as he snapped a certain object, fellow
photographers would rush to whatever it was he had seen, and try to
bag the same shot. One imagines, though, that they can seldom have
secured a great advantage thereby.
At the top of this courage hierarchy come the journalists least often
known by name: the cameramen. These are expected to be assiduous in
seeking out the action, and when fighting takes place they are
supposed to stand up and film it. Of course if there is no action to
be filmed, they will seek, somewhere in the war zone, those scenes
which most effectively express the news that is unfolding. But, in a
highly competitive profession, they are expected not to miss out on
the fighting. They work generally under the severest restraints.
More at: http://books.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,1381385,00.html
Monday January 3, 2005
The Guardian
James Fenton writes with insight and relevance about the work of
photojournalists in covering war and tragedy (A handful of dust,
Review, January 1). He wonders to what extent the suffering and
trauma of journalists has been researched or recorded.
At the Dart Centre for Journalism and Trauma in Europe, Australasia
and the US, we are building on what's now a substantial, although
still very new, body of research confirming the psychological trauma
that journalists, editors, and their support teams can indeed
experience.
Hacks, like other professional first-responders to trauma, are a
resilient bunch. Many of us at the Dart Centre are former
correspondents ourselves, and we know all too well how journalists
will keep working - and excelling - through reporting sometimes
unimaginable personal anguish and distress.
We also know of the longer-term price some of us pay - in broken
relationships, alcohol abuse, depression, anxiety, and also in terms
of full-scale post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD.
Anthony Feinstein, a South African psychiatrist working in Canada,
has researched the long-term experience of war reporters and
photographers. He found that levels of PTSD over a 15-year career are
the same as for military veterans - about one in four.
Several news organisations are now beginning to take trauma and the
need for educating news teams seriously, notably broadcasters and
news agencies such as the BBC, Reuters and CNN. The broadsheets are
taking longer to get the message.
Mark Brayne
Dart Centre
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Via / By / Excerpted / From / Tip from / Thanks to:
From: peter evans
To: caj-list@eagle.ca
Date: Mon, 03 Jan 2005 17:33:30 -0400
Subject: Photojournalists in war
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