tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/war-correspondent-62378/articlesWar correspondent – The Conversation2022-03-22T10:58:33Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1796012022-03-22T10:58:33Z2022-03-22T10:58:33ZUkraine coverage shows gender roles are changing on the battlefield and in the newsroom<p>News coverage of Ukraine’s war with Russia has been illustrated by images of men, young and old, taking up arms and fighting for their country. The political leaders involved are men who represent very <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-zelenskyy-emerged-as-the-antithesis-of-putin-and-proved-you-dont-need-to-be-a-strongman-to-be-a-great-leader-178485">different versions</a> of masculinity.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, from an ad hoc TV studio outside Kyiv, Ukrainian news anchor Marichka Padalko drew attention to the nuances of gender roles during wartime. Interviewed by video link at Oslo’s House of Press, Padalko relayed a discussion she recently had with her husband about who should take care of their three children. </p>
<p>“I must defend the country,” her husband told her. Over a 20-year career as a reporter and anchor, Padalko has built solid audience trust. She felt she couldn’t abandon her people at a crucial time in history. “So do I,” she responded.</p>
<p>In the face of Russian <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/25/us/politics/russia-ukraine-propaganda-disinformation.html">disinformation campaigns</a>, Padalko believes ensuring her fellow citizens get accurate accounts of the conflict is a task equally as important as fighting the Russian militarily. Eventually, her husband travelled with their three children to the western border of the country to bring them to safety.</p>
<p>“I do not have the luxury of seeing my children, but I know they are safe,” Padalko said before bravely declaring: “We will continue to broadcast until the very last minute.”</p>
<h2>Gender and war</h2>
<p>Besides the powerful testimony of being torn between motherhood and journalism in wartime, Padalko’s comments are a reminder of how gender-segregated wars often take shape.</p>
<p>“The connection between war and gender is arguably the most consistent gender issue across cultures,” renowned political scholar Joshua Goldstein <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/gb/academic/subjects/politics-international-relations/international-relations-and-international-organisations/war-and-gender-how-gender-shapes-war-system-and-vice-versa?format=HB&isbn=9780521807166">wrote more than 20 years ago</a>. He argued that this is a result of traits being equated with masculinity being constantly portrayed as aggressive and more appealing in situations of war.</p>
<p>In contrast, women are often portrayed <a href="https://www.nordicom.gu.se/en/publications/gendering-war-and-peace-reporting">as guided by pacifism and concern for others</a> – typically feminine attributes. At a first glance, reports from the war in Ukraine seem to reinforce these gender stereotypes: the endless flow of women and children leaving their country, while men between the ages of 18 and 60 stay behind to fight. On closer inspection, much of the news coverage from the war in Ukraine shows the changing gender roles in war. </p>
<p>A recent <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/01/podcasts/the-daily/ukraine-russia-kyiv-civilian-military.html?showTranscript=1">New York Times podcast</a> brilliantly addresses the insecurities and fears of Ukrainian men. Listeners are introduced to Eugene, who is ready to fight but cannot come to terms with the fact that the enemy, Russian soldiers, are his neighbours. Another young man desperately tries to cross the border to Poland, without success. He expresses his deep fear of holding a gun and carrying out violent actions and finds it terribly discriminatory that men are not allowed to leave: “I’m an illustrator. I’m trying to draw motivational posters. And just because, I’m sorry, I have a penis, I cannot leave.”</p>
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<p>Television reports have featured crying men, devastated by how their lives changed in the blink of an eye, <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2022/2/28/fleeing-ukraine-i-would-have-done-anything-to-keep-him-with">shattered by the sight</a> of their mothers, wives and children fleeing the country. Their stories add nuance to the binary designations that are usually found in war reportage: fight v flee, brave v fearful, active v passive, men v women. </p>
<p>The Ukraine war coverage helps us see that there is not necessarily a difference between fleeing to save your children or fighting the enemy with weapons or words. All are actions of war.</p>
<h2>Emotion in the media</h2>
<p>In the newsroom, television reporters (not least male reporters) seem to show more emotion in the coverage of this war than what was traditionally seen in war reporting. This is perhaps a testament to the relatively recent emotional turn in journalism. The attention to <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/21670811.2020.1727347">emotion in journalism</a> represents a shift that has opened up new spaces for more emotional and personalised forms of expression in <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781473957909.n9">public discussion</a>.</p>
<p>Not to be outdone, <a href="https://www.voanews.com/a/in-ukraine-female-war-reporters-build-on-legacy-of-pioneers-/6485720.html">the inspiring work by female reporters</a> covering this conflict hasn’t gone unnoticed.</p>
<p>While not a journalist herself, Ukraine’s first lady, Olena Zelenska, has also joined the information battle to defend her country. As a screenwriter, she wrote for the comedy group that brought <a href="https://theconversation.com/volodymyr-zelensky-the-comedian-who-defied-the-might-of-putins-war-machine-178660">Volodymyr Zelensky into the limelight</a>. Now, she uses her communication skills to dictate the pace of the ongoing information war.</p>
<p>Zelenska’s battlefield includes social media, where she shares images by professional photojournalists and adds <a href="https://www.instagram.com/olenazelenska_official/?hl=nl">poignant captions</a>. In one <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/Caj_kRcMgan/">post</a>, Zelenska included pictures of women in military uniform in the trenches, women as part of a rescue crew with helmet and headlights and women caretakers of newborn babies in a provisional bomb shelter. She wrote: “Our new opposition has a female face to it.” Posts like this support new war narratives that don’t differentiate between fighting and caring as actions of war.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="InstagramEmbed" data-react-props="{"url":"https://www.instagram.com/p/Caj_kRcMgan","accessToken":"127105130696839|b4b75090c9688d81dfd245afe6052f20"}"></div></p>
<p>Gender both shapes and is shaped by media content. These personal stories contribute to the overall narrative of the war and feed into a larger story of power and information exchange. The more complex and human media portrayals of gender may also affect the world’s understanding and empathy of Ukrainians’ peril on the battlefield and as refugees, and eventually influence the mood for change in international security policies.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/179601/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Bruce Mutsvairo receives funding from Norwegian Research Council</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kristin Skare Orgeret does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>War is a gender issue in many ways, but the coverage of Ukraine shows how the portrayals of men and women are changing.Kristin Skare Orgeret, Professor of Journalism and Media Studies, Oslo Metropolitan UniversityBruce Mutsvairo, Associate Professor in Media Studies, Utrecht UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1407482020-06-16T12:25:51Z2020-06-16T12:25:51ZA myth to encourage Uncle Sam: how US journalists sold America the story of heroic Britain in 1940<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/341880/original/file-20200615-65952-13zb0kh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C5991%2C3970&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Their finest hour: the Battle of Britain memorial at Victoria Embankment in London.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">CarlsPix via Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Of the myths initiated in the summer of 1940, none was more essential than that Britons were “<a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-11213968">all in it together</a>”. This image of a united people was a brilliant invention. It worked because it actually inspired the conduct it purported to describe and had the added benefit of influencing American opinion. Convincing Americans that Britain was capable of fighting on was an urgent priority. American journalists contributed enormously to its achievement.</p>
<p>Isolationism, the belief that America should avoid involvement in foreign wars, had widespread support in 1940. Joseph Kennedy, US ambassador in London, warned the State Department against involvement. Noting Churchill’s hunger for American aid, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1964/11/29/archives/father-and-sons-the-founding-father-the-story-of-joseph-p-kennedy.html">Kennedy advised</a>: “Unless there is a miracle, they realise they haven’t a chance in the long run.” </p>
<p>Such official pessimism was reinforced by questions about why, if it was a democracy, Britain still had an empire. There was widespread doubt whether its notoriously stuffy bureaucracy was capable of fighting a modern war and Americans wondered why Britain’s class system was so rigid.</p>
<p>Britain’s class-ridden social order offended America’s certainty that “all men are created equal”. The Britons of 1940 did not appear equal and American mass media did not depict them as such. Historian <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/4289165">Angus Calder notes</a> that in the United States “a Disneyland conception of England as a country of villages, green fields and Wodehousian eccentrics” clashed with a harsher reality of inequality, injustice and snobbery.</p>
<p>This was depicted in The New York Times. It greeted Britain’s wartime coalition by reporting that observers “see in the new government evidence of a trend towards breaking down the class social structure which existed in England before the war”. But London correspondent <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1940/05/19/archives/coalition-meets-british-problem-new-cabinet-follows-precedent-and.html">Robert P. Post warned</a>: “Class distinction is very strong in this country. It will take some time before it breaks down completely.”</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342111/original/file-20200616-23235-11fvund.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342111/original/file-20200616-23235-11fvund.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342111/original/file-20200616-23235-11fvund.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342111/original/file-20200616-23235-11fvund.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342111/original/file-20200616-23235-11fvund.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342111/original/file-20200616-23235-11fvund.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342111/original/file-20200616-23235-11fvund.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">CBS radio broadcaster Ed Murrow (seen here in the 1950s with US president Harry Truman) was an influential voice in favour of supporting Britain’s war effort.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">University of Maryland Library</span></span>
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<p>Journalism academic Philip Seib recalls that the <a href="https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5422698&t=1592213434601">famous CBS radio correspondent Ed Murrow also worried about</a> “the inequities of the British class system”. However, as the Battle of Britain began, Murrow set off for Kent to witness aerial combat between the RAF and the Luftwaffe. Ably supported by American newspaper reporters, he would use the opportunity to guide American opinion in precisely the direction the British war effort required: towards the belief that Britain could win and was worthy of their support and admiration.</p>
<h2>‘Hell’s Corner’</h2>
<p>The journalists worked from an area of the Kent countryside just outside Dover, <a href="https://www.kentonline.co.uk/canterbury/news/kents-blitz-spirit-keeping-calm-and-carrying-on-224551/">known as “Hell’s Corner”</a>. A group of reporters, including Vincent Sheean of the North American News Agency, Ed Beattie, of the United Press, and Drew Middleton, of Associated Press, travelled down from London to this location from which, <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/4289165">as Middleton wrote</a>: “You could be on your back, with glasses, and look up and there was the whole goddamn air battle.”</p>
<p>If Middleton’s description indicates excitement, it is not misleading. Any reporter who has covered conflict knows that adrenaline plays a role as important as any commitment to public service. Indeed, adrenaline and commitment make excellent partners. They worked for <a href="http://www.sc.edu/uscpress/books/2019/6023.html">Ben Robertson of PM</a>, a left-leaning New York evening newspaper. Robertson promoted his paper’s anti-isolationist views in his reporting from Shakespeare’s Cliff, a mile west of Dover. He <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=JLWuDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT131&lpg=PT131&dq=ben+robertson+It+was+not+we+who+counted,+it+was+what+we+stood+for.+And+I+knew+now+for+what+I+was+standing+--+I+was+for+freedom.+It+was+as+simple+as+that.&source=bl&ots=3lLATkYVUa&sig=ACfU3U2ZKTKWBimku-7igKI4N69DDqfczg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj9mfCt4oPqAhWpUBUIHX7aAXkQ6AEwAHoECCsQAQ#v=onepage&q=ben%20robertson%20It%20was%20not%20we%20who%20counted%2C%20it%20was%20what%20we%20stood%20for.%20And%20I%20knew%20now%20for%20what%20I%20was%20standing%20--%20I%20was%20for%20freedom.%20It%20was%20as%20simple%20as%20that.&f=false">recalled that</a>: “It was not we who counted, it was what we stood for. And I knew now for what I was standing – I was for freedom. It was as simple as that.”</p>
<p>Robertson was one of 150 correspondents who gathered on the cliff to witness the fighting, two-thirds of them American. The veteran British war correspondent Richard Collier notes in his book <a href="https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/1500056675">The Warcos: The War Correspondents of World War II</a> that: “They had brought along their typewriters, their cameras and their binoculars but somewhere back in their London hotel rooms they had left behind their objectivity.”</p>
<h2>British virtues explained</h2>
<p>Virginia Cowles, a Vermont-born society figure and columnist whose work appeared on both sides of the Atlantic was <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/charlesmoore/8701504/Virginia-Cowles-The-American-who-saw-Britain-at-its-best.html">determined to promote the British cause</a>. On June 29 1940, she broadcast to the United States on BBC Radio. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Reports current in America that England will be forced to negotiate a compromise – which means surrender – are unfounded and untrue. The Anglo-Saxon character is tough. Englishmen are proud of being Englishmen. They have been the most powerful race in Europe for over 300 years, and they believe in themselves with passionate conviction … When an Englishman says: ‘It is better to be dead than live under Hitler’, heed his words. He means it. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Vincent Sheean of the North American Newspaper Alliance compared the RAF’s defence of the skies to <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=T7diBwAAQBAJ&pg=PA39&lpg=PA39&dq=Vincent+Sheean+of+the+North+American+Newspaper+Alliance+britain+madrid&source=bl&ots=-KJG54YOIm&sig=ACfU3U0S9-ma7t4NeHKM-lpXs8Vwi-9N2Q&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiOxciZ8IPqAhXHQhUIHeMwCo8Q6AEwAHoECDIQAQ#v=onepage&q=Vincent%20Sheean%20of%20the%20North%20American%20Newspaper%20Alliance%20britain%20madrid&f=false">the defence of Madrid</a> during the Spanish Civil War while, for PM’s Robertson, the battle conjured images of American settlers defending their stockades. Raymond Daniell of The New York Times <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=T7diBwAAQBAJ&pg=PA39&lpg=PA39&dq=Neutrality+of+thought+was+a+luxury+to+which+war+correspondents+in+that+first+World+War+could+afford+to+treat+themselves.+We,+their+successors,+cannot&source=bl&ots=-KJG54YPGo&sig=ACfU3U0VzJU_ezjfU3sRRhp3AkCDmycIIA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwipy7TA8IPqAhWRURUIHeQhDYgQ6AEwAHoECC8QAQ#v=onepage&q=Neutrality%20of%20thought%20was%20a%20luxury%20to%20which%20war%20correspondents%20in%20that%20first%20World%20War%20could%20afford%20to%20treat%20themselves.%20We%2C%20their%20successors%2C%20cannot&f=false">did not regard partiality for the British cause as a flaw</a>, arguing that: “Neutrality of thought was a luxury to which war correspondents in that first world war could afford to treat themselves. We, their successors, cannot.”</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342122/original/file-20200616-23247-10so5ax.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/342122/original/file-20200616-23247-10so5ax.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=472&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342122/original/file-20200616-23247-10so5ax.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=472&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342122/original/file-20200616-23247-10so5ax.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=472&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342122/original/file-20200616-23247-10so5ax.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=593&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342122/original/file-20200616-23247-10so5ax.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=593&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/342122/original/file-20200616-23247-10so5ax.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=593&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">The Blitz: young children sitting in front of their bombed-out house in London, 1940.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">UK National Archives</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The American reporters were greatly assisted by the news department of the Foreign Office and the American division of the Ministry of Information. Initial plans to ensure that Britain’s story would be told effectively in the United States had been <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/46507c80-3ed1-11dd-8fd9-0000779fd2ac">prepared before the war</a>. Now Whitehall made sure that America’s news about the war was routed through London and moulded by British publicity and censorship.</p>
<p>Britons were not equal during the Battle of Britain or the Blitz that followed. The experience of evacuation had illustrated the extent of class division. Newspaper archives (sadly not available online) report that in September 1939, there had been cries of protest when children from inner-city slums were evacuated to wealthier middle class homes. Suffering in <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/press/dispatches-from-the-blitz-why-peter-ritchie-calder-was-a-true-war-hero-1989929.html">poorer areas of cities during air raids</a> would confirm it. </p>
<p>But total war inspired a desire for social justice. It culminated with the election in 1945 of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2001/mar/14/past.education">Clement Attlee’s Labour government</a>. The irony is that American journalists, few of them committed socialists, helped to inspire it.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/140748/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tim Luckhurst has received research funding from News UK and Ireland Ltd. He is a fellow of the Royal Society for the Arts and a member of the Free Speech Union and the Society of Editors </span></em></p>US correspondents in Britain played a big part in convincing the American public to support the British war effort.Tim Luckhurst, Principal of South College, Durham UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1306572020-01-28T12:26:04Z2020-01-28T12:26:04ZFergal Keane: hopes that BBC reporter’s courage will help remove stigma of PTSD in journalists<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/312218/original/file-20200128-81411-1ov0o1s.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=2%2C4%2C708%2C526&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">BBC Africa Editor, Fergal Keane, in a still from the 2001 film about the Rwanda genocide, Hope in Hell.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Comic Relief</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the hard-nosed world of journalism, admitting to suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) has traditionally been taboo – a sign of weakness never to be admitted to colleagues in the newsroom where the remedy was often a stiff drink or two. Despite <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2001-05050-011">repeated efforts</a> over the past decade to <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.3109/09638230903191231">draw attention to the dangers of mental illness</a> faced by foreign correspondents, that stigma <a href="http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.998.6973&rep=rep1&type=pdf">has not gone away</a>.</p>
<p>It can only be hoped that may change now that one of the BBC’s most high-profile correspondents, Fergal Keane, has <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2020/jan/24/bbc-fergal-keane-to-step-down-after-revealing-he-has-ptsd">shared publicly</a> the PTSD he has been tussling with privately for several years. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-51236199">The BBC announced</a> that after decades of covering conflict, its veteran war reporter would be changing his role from that of Africa editor to “further assist his recovery”. The corporation’s head of newsgathering, Jonathan Munro, said: “It is both brave and welcome that he is ready to be open about PTSD.”</p>
<p>Keane is not the first correspondent by any means to have shared in public the impact that covering a relentless diet of conflict, crisis and disaster can have on even the most resilient human being. His BBC colleague Jeremy Bowen, Middle East editor, <a href="https://www.radiotimes.com/news/2017-05-17/jeremy-bowen-on-reporting-in-the-middle-east-i-kept-getting-dreams-about-having-to-bury-the-cameraman/">spoke about his own diagnosis</a> of PTSD in 2017, characterised by bouts of depression related to his work.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/312219/original/file-20200128-81341-17c2m6y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/312219/original/file-20200128-81341-17c2m6y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312219/original/file-20200128-81341-17c2m6y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312219/original/file-20200128-81341-17c2m6y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312219/original/file-20200128-81341-17c2m6y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312219/original/file-20200128-81341-17c2m6y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/312219/original/file-20200128-81341-17c2m6y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Janine Di Giovanni, winner of the 2018 Courage in Journalism Award.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">World Bank Photo Collection</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
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<p>Renowned foreign correspondents such as <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2011/jun/26/janine-di-giovanni-war-memoir-family">Janine di Giovanni</a> have also written movingly about the effects of PTSD. In her <a href="https://www.csmonitor.com/Books/Book-Reviews/2011/0930/Ghosts-by-Daylight">2011 memoir, Ghosts by Daylight</a>, she confessed that crisis had become normality and “this real life, with all its sharp edges was terribly difficult”.</p>
<h2>Combat fatigue</h2>
<p>Almost two decades ago, research by South African psychologist Anthony Feinstein underscored the importance of efforts to introduce structured trauma training and counselling into news organisations. His <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12202279">first major study</a> of 140 war journalists published in 2002 found that they had significantly more psychiatric difficulties than journalists who did not report on war.</p>
<p>In particular, the lifetime prevalence of PTSD in journalists who cover war was similar to rates reported for combat veterans, while the rate of major depression exceeded that of the general population. In 2018, Feinstein <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0706743718777396">conducted a retrospective study</a> of PTSD data collected over 18 years from journalists who have covered conflict across four continents. </p>
<p>Between 1999 and 2017, data had been collected from 684 journalists covering stories ranging from the 9/11 attacks and the Arab Spring to drug wars in Mexico and the refugee crisis in Europe. The data showed that the majority of the correspondents did not display prominent symptoms of PTSD at any one moment in time. But over a longer time-frame (many correspondents were spending well over a decade covering conflict) the data confirmed that rates of the full PTSD syndrome can approach those experienced by those engaged in actual combat – and he cautioned that news organisations could not afford to be complacent when it came to their duty of care.</p>
<h2>Raising awareness</h2>
<p>Large news organisations such as the BBC and Reuters have made great strides in recognising the issues associated with PTSD and providing both training and support. This has been reinforced by the work of a US-based global charity, the <a href="https://dartcenter.org/">Dart Centre for Journalism & Trauma</a> which offers a range of best practice guidelines and resources to safeguard the mental well-being of journalists.</p>
<p>This is not just about those on the frontline of foreign reporting. Almost every journalist will end up covering traumatic news events in their career – whether this be sexual violence, traffic accidents, or criminal trials. Most recently, there is a <a href="https://medium.com/@emhub">growing awareness</a> of the dangers posed to journalists in the newsroom monitoring incoming, raw user-generated content from the sites of conflict, terror and disaster worldwide – what has been dubbed the “[digital frontline]”.</p>
<p>It is a point that was highlighted in a 2015 survey by <a href="http://eyewitnessmediahub.com/research/vicarious-trauma">Eyewitness Media Hub</a>. This major study on the issue surveyed 122 journalists around the world and concluded that:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Office-bound staff who used to be somewhat shielded from viewing atrocities are now bombarded day in and day out with horrifically graphic material that explodes onto their desktops in volumes, and at a frequency that is very often far in excess of the horrors witnessed by staff who are investigating or reporting from the actual frontline.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Slowly but surely, journalism courses at universities in the UK are becoming aware of the importance of trauma training before students enter this professional environment. We would like to think that the work we are doing at Bournemouth University through both education, research and professional practice – in conjunction with the Dart Centre, BBC and others – is starting to make a difference.</p>
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<p>The aim is to create an awareness of how people caught up in traumatic news might react and how to conduct ethical interviews with victims and survivors of trauma. In addition, we feel it is only responsible to make our journalism students aware of the mental stresses that journalists are exposed to whether on the frontline or in the newsroom.</p>
<h2>Coping strategies</h2>
<p>That doesn’t mean we should assume that every journalist who covers a distressing news story or handles sensitive material will develop PTSD. But it is important to do our best to build resilience and develop coping strategies so that journalists can bounce back stronger from the impact of covering distressing news.</p>
<p>As Keane’s case illustrates, PTSD can often present itself long after events. He has spoken and written about the effects that covering the 1994 Rwanda genocide had on him. It can only be hoped that the courage Keane has displayed in moving himself away from the frontline will send a signal that it is acceptable to recognise mental health issues in journalism. </p>
<p>Far from turning his back on the profession, according to the BBC he intends to “continue to provide original and compelling journalism” and hopes to draw on his experiences to guide and nurture young journalists. This can only be positive for the next generation of journalists.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/130657/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stephen Jukes is a trustee and chair of the Dart Centre for Journalism & Trauma in Europe. Before moving into the academic world he worked as a foreign correspondent and was the Global Head of News at Reuters.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Karen Fowler-Watt works for Bournemouth University and is a member of the BJTC and NCTJ industry councils. She was formerly a BBC journalist.</span></em></p>Keane is stepping back from his role as the BBC’s Africa editor due to a long struggle with PTSD after years reporting from conflict zones.Stephen Jukes, Professor of Journalism, Bournemouth UniversityKaren Fowler-Watt, Senior Principal Academic, Centre for Excellence in Media Practice (CEMP), Bournemouth UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1065162018-11-13T14:56:14Z2018-11-13T14:56:14ZMarie Colvin: Lindsey Hilsum’s revealing biography of courageous war reporter is compelling stuff<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/245138/original/file-20181112-83573-7b3m7x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Marie Colvin, who died after being targeted in a shell attack in Homs, Syria, in 2012.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=51045820">Wikipedia</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>For <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/oct/27/lindsey-hilsum-interview-marie-colvin-in-extremis-biography">Marie Colvin</a>, it was Lebanon’s <a href="https://www.merip.org/mer/mer133/war-camps-war-hostages">War of the Camps</a> that brought home the power of journalism. In April 1987 <a href="https://www.upi.com/Archives/1987/04/09/The-Red-Cross-today-evacuated-47-seriously-wounded-Palestinians/4460544939200/">Burj al Barajneh</a>, a Palestinian refugee camp, was besieged by <a href="http://countrystudies.us/lebanon/88.htm">Amal</a>, a Shia militia backed by the Syrian regime.</p>
<p>Colvin and her photographer <a href="https://breathepictures.com/tom-stoddart-photojournalist-podcast/">Tom Stoddart</a> paid an Amal commander to briefly hold fire while they ran into the camp across no-man’s land. The assault on the camp was relentless and women were forced to run a gauntlet of sniper fire to get food and water for their families.</p>
<p>One young woman, Haji Achmed Ali, was shot as she tried to re-enter the camp with supplies. As she lay there wounded, no man dared pull her to safety. But then, Colvin reported:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Two [women] raced from cover, plucked Achmed Ali from the dust and hauled her to safety. It is the women who are dying and it was women who tired of men’s inaction.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Despite the best efforts of volunteer medics, Achmed Ali would not survive. At the hospital another woman appealed to Colvin to tell the world the young woman’s story.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/245118/original/file-20181112-83579-1vfa1mv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/245118/original/file-20181112-83579-1vfa1mv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=888&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245118/original/file-20181112-83579-1vfa1mv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=888&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245118/original/file-20181112-83579-1vfa1mv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=888&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245118/original/file-20181112-83579-1vfa1mv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1116&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245118/original/file-20181112-83579-1vfa1mv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1116&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245118/original/file-20181112-83579-1vfa1mv.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1116&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Penguin</span></span>
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<p>War on Women, the powerful piece Colvin wrote, was splashed across the front page of the <em>Sunday Times</em> on 5 April 1987. “The facts were clear and brutal,” writes Lindsey Hilsum in <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/nov/03/in-extremis-by-lindsey-hilsum-review-life-war-correspondent-marie-colvin">In Extremis: The Life of War Correspondent Marie Colvin</a>, “as Marie had seen it with her own eyes”.</p>
<p>The effect was almost immediate. Three days later the Syrian regime ordered its proxy militia to stand down and for the first time the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) was able to enter the camp. A herd of journalists soon followed. “In a few days the War of the Camps was over,” writes Hilsum.</p>
<h2>Complexity</h2>
<p><em>In Extremis</em> is Hilsum’s riveting story of how Colvin went from a carefree idealistic youth in Oyster Bay, NY, to an audacious war correspondent who reported from sites of merciless violence in <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-14649284">Lebanon</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-prison-called-gaza-new-book-offers-a-startling-insight-into-everyday-life-in-the-territory-88200">Palestine</a>, <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3293441.stm">Chechnya</a>, <a href="https://asiafoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Timor-Leste-StateofConflictandViolence.pdf">East Timor</a>, <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-12004081">Sri Lanka</a>, the <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-17632399">Balkans</a> and <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/04/libya-story-conflict-explained-160426105007488.html">Libya</a>. Until <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2012/feb/22/marie-colvin">her death</a> at the hands of the Syrian regime, Colvin remained indefatigable, never losing her idealism or youthful energy. </p>
<p>By eschewing hagiography for complexity, Hilsum has created a captivating portrait. The Colvin that Hilsum reveals is shaped by the loss of a beloved father, by the spirit of competition, by being a woman in a male-dominated field, and, above all, by a moral commitment to bearing witness and a natural affinity for the underdog.</p>
<p>By casting Colvin’s triumphs against the demons that pursued her – the turbulence of failed romances, the struggles with alcohol, the traumas of war – Hilsum gives a truer sense of the challenges that she faced. By capturing Colvin’s vivacity, generosity, humour and affability, Hilsum also shows how this inveterate raconteur came to be loved and admired in equal measure. </p>
<p>Like Ernest Hemingway, Colvin had invested in her own legend and sometimes strained to live up to it. But there was nothing inauthentic about her capacity for empathy or her commitment to the truth. Though in times of peace she struggled to distinguish herself, in times of crisis she unfailingly outshone her peers. While the Middle East remained her main beat, she also ventured farther afield, from Chechnya to Sri Lanka and East Timor.</p>
<p>But if East Timor was the site of her <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/baby-clothes-on-the-barbed-wire-as-militias-close-in-9g8kchs5xv8">greatest triumph</a> (her defiant refusal to abandon trapped refugees eventually led to their safe evacuation), Sri Lanka became the site of her <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1316434/Wounded-reporter-may-lose-her-sight.html%22%22">greatest trauma</a>, losing an eye to a soldier’s grenade while returning from a visit to the Tamil-controlled north. But while the trauma would haunt her and briefly sapped her confidence, she remained undeterred. She courted greater danger in subsequent years and turned the eye-patch into part of her legend.</p>
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<h2>The making of a legend</h2>
<p>By the time Colvin entered <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-35806229">Syria</a> in 2012, the reporting landscape had changed. Israel and Putin’s Russia had demonstrated that journalists could be targeted with impunity and killers elsewhere had taken note. Before Colvin entered the besieged Syrian enclave of Baba Amr with photographer <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/long_reads/paul-conroy-marie-colvin-syria-homs-war-photographer-ptsd-free-syrian-army-a8520576.html">Paul Conroy</a>, they had been warned that regime soldiers had orders to summarily execute journalists found in the area.</p>
<p>But Colvin and Conroy agreed that the story was worth the risk; they crawled through three kilometres of a drainage pipe to infiltrate. They found Baba Amr’s only functioning hospital inundated with the dead and the dying; they met nearly 150 widows and orphans in a crowded basement sheltering from the regime’s shelling. <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/final-dispatch-from-homs-the-battered-city-0ntg7xk3397">Widows’ Basement</a>, Colvin’s haunting last story for the <em>Sunday Times</em>, was also her most poignant. </p>
<p>What happened next fused Colvin’s life and legend and placed her convictions beyond any cynic’s doubt. Five days before her death, Colvin had made it safely out of Baba Amr. But having seen what she had seen, she felt a moral compulsion to return. Conroy had misgivings, but he shared Colvin’s sense of commitment.</p>
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<p>The regime meanwhile had tightened the siege and an informer had alerted it to the journalists’ presence. Colvin was conscious of the risks but made a fateful choice: hoping that her reporting would once again stir the international community into restraining a killer, she spoke to the BBC and CNN, emphasising the urgency of the situation. The regime used the signal from her satellite phone to pinpoint her location and killed her with artillery. The regime would lay many more sieges and no western journalist would dare enter another. </p>
<p>At a 2006 <a href="https://www.frontlineclub.com/about-us/">Frontline Club</a> (a London hub for foreign correspondants) event about the killing of Russian journalist <a href="https://cpj.org/data/people/anna-politkovskaya/">Anna Politkovskaya</a>, Colvin interrupted the panellists’ abstract digressions and encouraged everyone to ask the more pertinent question:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Who killed Anna? That’s the best thing we can do … That’s what we can do as journalists.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Now Colvin’s family is trying to establish the same about her killers. And this is also the best thing we can do as citizens: support the investigation and ensure that Colvin’s killers don’t enjoy the impunity that Politkovskaya’s did. Until we resolve to protect our truthtellers, truth will remain fragile and justice will be denied.</p>
<p>For all her emotional turmoil, personal flaws and misjudgements, Colvin was an exemplary friend, human being and journalist. She maintained an unwavering commitment to showing “humanity in extremis” – with truth, empathy and responsibility. Hilsum has written a book as compelling as its subject.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/106516/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Idrees Ahmad has received funding from the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland. </span></em></p>The American reporter killed in Syria was a complex figure, but her commitment to the truth was authentic and unwavering.Idrees Ahmad, Lecturer in Digital Journalism, University of StirlingLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.