"Journalists have often been considered the "fourth emergency service". They are first on the scene, alongside paramedics, fi re and police, running towards danger rather than away, and providing independent, veritable and crucial information in the public interest. And yet, unlike frontline workers
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, little (if any) counselling or training is offered to journalists on how to deal with the horrors they witness, and the trauma they absorb from being at the forefront of human suffering. Further, limited to no training is given to student journalists on how to prepare themselves for trauma, be it from war scenes to the everyday "death knock". New research is demonstrating a rise in post-traumatic stress disorder amongst journalists resulting from the "everyday" trauma they encounter. There is also a noticeable increase in reluctance from new journalists to undertake emotionally distressing assignments. Editors in industry are now calling for educators to invest in curricula that centre around understanding how to cope with distress and trauma, and why work like this is vital to facilitate the work journalists do hold power to account. This book investigates the cause and effect of trauma reporting on the journalist themselves and provides a toolkit for training journalists and practitioners to build resilience and prepare themselves for trauma. It draws on national and international experiences enabling readers to gain valuable insight into a range of contemporary issues and the contexts in which they may work. This edited book offers a blend of academic research studies, evidence-based practitioner interviews, and teaching resources drawing on the experiences of journalists and academics nationally and internationally." (Abstract)
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"Australia and New Zealand have reputations as countries prone to catastrophic and frequent natural and man-made disasters. Therefore, it is no surprise that antipodean academics want trauma-informed education for their journalism students. This study presents the Australian-New Zealand results of a
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2021 survey exploring educators’ attitudes toward embedding trauma literacy into journalism curriculum. It mirrors a survey from the UK-based Journalism Education and Trauma Research Group. The Australian-New Zealand results confirm that educators want more training to effectively embed trauma-informed reporting into their curricula. The discussion notes the availability of local, research-based teaching materials, and identifies barriers to implementation." (Abstract)
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"This chapter suggests methods for encouraging well-being among journalism students and refers to ground-breaking court cases that have put media organisations on notice, requiring them to provide psychologically safe workplaces for journalists." (Abstract)
"This book examines how journalism can overcome harmful institutional issues such as work-related trauma and precarity, focusing specifically on questions of what happiness in journalism means, and how one can be successful and happy on the job. Acknowledging profound variations across people, genre
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s of journalism, countries, types of news organizations, and methodologies, this book brings together an array of international perspectives from academia and practice. It suggests that there is much that can be done to improve journalists’ subjective well-being, despite there being no one-size-fits-all solution. It advocates for a shift in mindset as much in theoretical as in methodological approaches, moving away from a focus on platforms and adaptation to pay real attention to the human beings at the center of the industry. That shift in mindset and approach involves exploring what happiness is, how happiness manifests in journalism and media industries, and what future we can imagine that would be better for the profession. Happiness is conceptualized from both psychological and philosophical perspectives. Issues such as trauma, harassment, inequality, digital security, and mental health are considered alongside those such as precarity, recruitment, emotional literacy, intelligence, resilience, and self-efficacy. Authors point to norms, values and ethics in their regions and suggest best practices based on their experience." (Abstract)
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"Religion has ‘returned’ to news discourses, since 9/11, with a focus on Muslims and Islam and more recently on Catholicism (in the wake of paedophile priest scandals) and anti-Semitism (with the rise of the far-right movements). These news dis
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courses, however, tend to adopt limited perspectives, and do not reflect the diversity of practices and viewpoints within these religious traditions. As Australia becomes increasingly ‘superdiverse’, there is a greater need for the inclusivity of cultural perspectives of these religions. Current research findings show that religious literacy among media practitioners in Australia is not only limited to specific notions about a small number of religions, it is exacerbated by an Anglo-Celtic dominance in the media workforce. This article suggests that for news media to provide a more culturally and religiously inclusive public service to promote societal understanding, current and emerging journalists require a more reflexive understanding of religions, through journalism studies and humanities more broadly, and how they have historically shaped the world, and continue to do so." (Abstract)
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"This article has provided a benchmark for further detailed examination of the issue of foreign aid and media education in Solomon Islands. It acknowledges that aid funding comes with a political agenda and that there are difficulties in evaluating the effectiveness of media education where recipien
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t countries did not start as empty vessels to be filled with Australian values and behaviour. Drawing on the thinking of Kincheloe (2008), this article acknowledges that students (of journalism, or of anything else), need to be aware that power comes through attempts to win people’s consent, by social and psychological means. Despite some early political mistakes in the way media assistance was conducted by Australian staff, the later SOLMAS project performed some important work, especially around the 2010 election, with staff acutely aware of the limitations of the project and of the work of expatriate trainers. This article also raises concern about ABC International’s lack of transparency over the SOLMAS project (in fighting access to documentation about the project). It is ironic that the ABC International managers in Australia clearly saw their role firstly as part of Australian foreign policy, rather than journalism trainers/supporters of the Fourth Estate in the Pacific." (Conclusion, page 46)
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"Using Bourdieu’s field theory, this thesis describes journalism education from the perspective of Australians who specialise in teaching outside Australia. It uses three data sources: a content analysis of media in Solomon Islands; a survey and in-depth interviews with Australian journalism educa
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tors; and a case study of Solomon Islands. It is significant in that for the first time this thesis describes a group of Australian journalism educators (as opposed to journalists) in depth. In the case study, the thesis describes the work done in rebuilding the media in a post-Conflict situation (Solomon Islands), paying attention to the characteristics and influences of Australian educators and contrasting the educators’ views with those of Solomon Island journalists and civil society leaders. This thesis features in-depth interviews and surveys of 44 Australian educators as well as 25 people connected to the media in Solomon Islands." (Abstract)
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