Abstract:
Journalists are on the frontline for reporting on their communities, serving as both first
responders and eyewitnesses to violent news events. These events can have a lasting effect on the
reporter long after their stories are filed, and they have returned to their newsrooms. Reporting
on traumatic events can have a wide range of mental health effects on reporters that newsrooms
have not been able to adequately address due to a multitude of reasons. This qualitative study
used a series of in-depth interviews with fourteen journalists across the country (n = 14) to
increase the narrative around journalists’ relationship with trauma and identify what resources
they feel would help address the problem of traumatic stress.