FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – The Center for Ethics in Journalism annual media workshop will feature the general manager for the Roanoke, Virginia television station that had two reporters shot on-air earlier this year.
Jeff Marks, general manager of WBDJ 7 will participate in a panel for Newsrooms Under Pressure: Trauma in Journalism Nov. 20 at the University of Arkansas.
Joe Hight, the former managing editor and information/development director at the Oklahoman during the Oklahoma City bombing, and Visiting Distinguished Professor David Handschuh, who shot photographs at ground zero on 9/11, will join Marks on the panel about trauma in reporting.
“Journalists, at times, find themselves covering dangerous stories,” said Larry Foley, chair of the Lemke Department of Journalism. “It doesn’t happen often, but it can happen, even when the story didn’t originally seem to be threatening.”
This workshop will explore how journalists can be exposed to traumatic events, and how afterwards, they must deal with the residual impact, whether physical or emotional, Foley said.
“The frontlines are moving from foreign soil to the communities journalists work in,” said Ray McCaffrey, director of the Center for Ethics in Journalism.
“We saw it first with the Oklahoma City bombing, then Columbine, 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina; every other week journalists find themselves covering a traumatic event at their front door step,” McCaffrey said.
The workshop will bring in a number of distinguished journalists, like Handschuh, Marks and Hight, who can give special insight into what covering events of this kind at home can be like for reporters, McCaffrey said.
The workshop will provide hands-on training for reporters and students working in a fast-paced digital environment.
“Before you could gather around the light table to look at photographs and check-in with each other,” said Handschuh.
Now journalism is moving to a freelance economy where you work from your laptop in the field with no way of checking in face-to-face with other peers or coworkers, Handschuh said.
The panel will focus on methods for managing self-care, and how reporters can better interview victims of crimes, natural disasters and other traumatic events.
The panelists will answer questions and participate in activities throughout the day to assist professional journalists, editors, producers and university students learn the best practices for emotional care and interviewing technics.
The panel will include Sgt. Craig Stout, of the Fayetteville Police Department, Thomas Good, assistant chief of the Fayetteville Fire Department, Dr. Valandra, professor in the UofA School of Social Work and African and African American studies, and Ananda Rosa, director of the UofA School of Social Work undergraduate program. Kyle Kellams, the news director at KUAF, will moderate the panel discussion.
The media workshop will be Friday, Nov. 20 at 8 a.m., in the Donald W. Reynolds Center on the UofA campus. Breakfast will be served during check-in. Registration for the event can be done by emailing uajourethicsevents@gmail.com, or by visiting the media workshop Facebook event page.