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Dorie Griggs on helping journalists cope with traumatic stress
Chaplains and Journalists
Imagine you are on the first day of your first job right out of college. You walk into a gruesome crime scene. In front of you lie several bodies bloodied from the gun fight that ended just a short while ago. You are given the task of investigating the scene and writing a report all within a few hours.
This is just one scenario a new journalist may face. Reporting the news in a timely manner often means pushing your own emotional reactions to the side.
Throughout my adult life I’ve had the privilege to listen as news journalists relay similar situations they’ve encountered while doing their jobs. Each journalist developed coping skills for handling the violent and traumatic events he or she reported. Some eventually left the field too overwhelmed by the stories they covered.
Many journalists enter the profession out of a desire to help society, to expose an injustice and to improve the human condition. Like first responders to any emergency, journalists must develop coping mechanisms to process their experiences while continuing to do their jobs.
The journalists who write or talk on air about a story have one outlet for the difficult situations they’ve witnessed, but they generally have to develop their own support network. Photojournalists and videographers often do not have the writing outlet. Doing their job properly requires close proximity to the event with only the lens of their camera between the trauma and their eyes. They too must develop their own outlets for processing what they witness.
Chaplains have a tremendous opportunity to be a caring presence to these journalists. Over the past six years I’ve studied the field of news journalism and found a great deal of acceptance and also skepticism among news professionals.
They often appreciate the fact that a non-journalist relates to their particular job stress but are wary of anyone from a faith community they perceive as trying to push a religious agenda.
Still, a chaplain can reach out to news journalists in many ways:
- Put any discussion of religion aside and be a listening presence for the journalist.
- Send an email after reading a story with “Thank you” in the subject line. In the body of your message express appreciation for their work and recognize the difficulties of reporting on the difficult situation. Very rarely do journalists hear words of appreciation.
- A chaplain can work through local journalism associations to provide workshops and coordinate educational sessions for first responders and the local journalists who report on violence, trauma and other difficult stories.
To learn more about journalists and the particular difficulties they face in the course of their work you can visit these web sites:
After a career in various public relations and marketing positions, Dorie L. Griggs attended Columbia Theological Seminary. She graduated in 2002 with a master of divinity degree. After graduation she served as the Communications Manager for Faith And The City, a nonprofit organization with programs in several Atlanta area seminaries. In that capacity she produced the award winning interfaith dialogue cable TV program, Faith And The City Forum. She is the author of a self-care advice column for newspaper journalists, One-On-One, which appeared in the e-Letter of the Southern Newspaper Publishers Association in 2003-04. Griggs currently works as a consultant to several nonprofit organizations.
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