Resources for journalists in Ukraine
Why is understanding trauma an essential tool in journalism?
Reporting on individuals and communities in the aftermath of violence and tragedy takes skill, sensitivity, and at times personal courage.
This demanding work also benefits from specific knowledge and insight. The resources on this site are written in collaboration with media workers who have a deep commitment to innovation and ethical practice. These same journalists and filmmakers have also been at the forefront of an important new conversation about protecting colleagues mental health and wellbeing.
The advice comes both from working experience — lessons from the field — and from a dialogue with a modern, evidence-based understanding of how exposure to trauma affects brains, bodies, and communities.
On this site, you can explore the following themes:
- How to work sensitively with sources affected by traumatic events.
- What factors to consider when disseminating distressing content to the public.
- How to safeguard one’s own well-being on trauma-related assignments.
- What newsrooms can do to take care of colleagues and configure their newsrooms to promote resilience.
Russia’s full-scale invasion has placed Ukrainian society under immense strain. Trauma awareness is also about covering the mental health impact of these psychological challenges without minimisation or exaggeration. Accurate, insightful reporting on trauma-related issues is fundamental to the continuing resilience of Ukrainian civil society.
See resources related to this topic
LEADING RESILIENCE: A GUIDE FOR EDITORS AND NEWS MANAGERS
A manual created in collaboration with the ACOS alliance adapted for Ukrainian news organisations.
Trauma interviewing: working with vulnerable sources
Journalists often walk into other people’s lives during or after the worst things that they have experienced. At such times, the standard interviewing approaches used in situations with lower stakes are not sufficient.
The guidance in this section explores what is different about interviewing survivors of violence and tragedy. They discuss the need to see the person, before the story, and in particular:
- How to approach a vulnerable source and what obtaining an interviewee’s informed consent really involves.
- Advanced listening techniques which help to build a sense of safety in a conversation.
- How to minimise the risk of causing additional harm through inappropriate interviewing styles.
- Why it is important to slow everything down and to take extra care with factual accuracy and other ethical obligations.
- How effective boundaries can protect sources and also help journalists themselves to handle the emotional loading that comes from hearing other people’s suffering.
The resources come in different lengths that are short tips sheets that give a quick overview of what every journalist needs to know and more detailed guides that explore the intricacies of war crimes investigations, involving torture and conflict-related sexual violence.
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Trauma Interviewing
Learn a practical framework for interviewing people affected by trauma.
Working with sources on war crimes investigations
Advice on how to interview survivors of torture and other abuses.
Staying well: self-care and peer support
In covering Russia’s war of aggression, Ukrainian journalists have shown impressive levels of personal resilience. But it is clear that covering atrocities can also exert an emotional toll, with the potential for burnout and various mental health issues.
Being aware that there are risks is one thing; knowing how to manage them is another. Exposure to violence initiates deep biological survival responses. These reactions are there to protect people, but they are also hard to monitor and understand. This is true both for survivors and also for journalists documenting events and listening to testimony.
Common side-effects from vicarious trauma exposure, such as feeling a loss of agency, irritability, and concentration difficulties, can in themselves obscure our ability to see how we can best manage them. This is why empowerment through knowledge sharing is so important: the more we and our colleagues understand our reactions, the better equipped we are to manage them.
The resources in this section, explore:
- How a more nuanced understanding of what trauma responses are (and aren’t) can give us a greater sense of control over them.
- Why effective boundaries matter both for personal self-care and for working compassionately with vulnerable contributors and communities.
- Practical strategies that help journalists and filmmakers to look after themselves and also to make more effective editorial choices when working with graphic imagery or harrowing witness testimony.
- Ideas for self-care strategies which are both informed by science and which also match the real, everyday demands of the work itself. (And why social support is such a key ingredient in that.)
- How to recognise warning signs and what kinds of additional support might be helpful.
See resources related to this topic
Self-care on war crimes investigations
How to maintain resilience when working with distressing material.
HANDLING TRAUMATIC IMAGERY: DEVELOPING A STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURE
Practical steps to protect yourself when exposed to upsetting images, photos and video.
Promoting psychological safety in the newsroom
Newsrooms play a powerful role in sustaining resilience, both for their staff and the communities they serve.
Exposure to trauma and violence has a well-documented tendency to corrode social connection and meaning—two factors that science shows are vital for journalists’ well-being. In times of strain, feeling alone in all the difficulties the work generates deepens them.
Trauma-aware leadership is more than common sense: it is about following specific strategies that push back against the corrosive by-products covering trauma and tragedy generate.
In the resources below, find out more about:
- Simple workflows which boost psychological safety in the newsroom and help retain staff.
- What to do when colleagues are struggling (and why external mental health support is not always the most effective answer).
- Why training and creating space for discussing moral and ethical dilemmas are crucial for tackling stigma and burnout.
See resources related to this topic
Planning for Difficult Stories
Advice for managers on how to protect staff when planning for stories that involve suffering.
LEADING RESILIENCE: A GUIDE FOR EDITORS AND NEWS MANAGERS
A manual created in collaboration with the ACOS alliance adapted for Ukrainian news organisations.
