"TRANSFORMER" (Part Seven)

"Many individuals flourish under stress." (Jim Willis)

Mar 1

I am pleased to introduce a new series on the Massé Musings Substack platform: EXTRAORDINARY LIVES. Some of these individuals are famous, but most are not. Their lives are extraordinary because of the challenges they have faced, the impact they have had, and the special qualities they possess.

On the 10^th anniversary of receiving the American Psychoanalytic Association’s Award for Excellence in Journalism for “Transformer,” a chapter from my 2011 book, Trauma Journalism: On Deadline in Harm’s Way*, I begin this new Substack series with extended profiles of a remarkable group of men and women—frontline reporters who cover conflicts, crimes, disasters and tragedies with courage and commitment.

*Trauma Journalism: On Deadline in Harm’s Way features in-depth reporter profiles and analysis of traumatic news coverage worldwide. © 2011, Mark H. Massé (Continuum International Publishing Group now Bloomsbury)

Trauma Journalism: On Deadline in Harm’s Way (Paperback)

Trauma Journalism: On Deadline in Harm’s Way (Kindle)

“TRANSFORMER” (Part Seven)

“Many individuals flourish under stress.” (Jim Willis)

More Mourning

A month after Joe’s brother Paul died, Hight and others at the Oklahoman mourned again when, on January 27, 2001, a plane carrying the OSU basketball team and university officials crashed, killing all aboard. According to sportswriter Berry Tramel, the OSU plane crash affected him more emotionally than any other newsroom tragedy he had covered. He had written in-depth stories of firefighters during April 1995 in Oklahoma City. He had covered the deadly 1999 tornadoes. But the OSU plane crash struck him the hardest because of the personal connection he had with players, coaches, and others on that plane.

“That story wiped me out physically and emotionally,” says Tramel. Joe Hight considers Tramel one of his newsroom “champions,” a reporter who is both popular and respected. He is someone Joe relies on to talk to fellow reporters about the value of debriefing or crisis counseling, if the situation warrants such action. Tramel, himself, had talked with Charlotte Lankard to sort out his emotions after covering the tragic 1995 bombing.

The Oklahoman’s experiences with community-based trauma would be shared with newsrooms on the East Coast after September 11, 2001. Nine days following the destruction of the World Trade Center’s twin towers, 20 miles due south of White Plains, New York, Henry Freeman, editor and vice president/news of the Journal News newspaper, spoke with Ed Kelley, Joe Hight and other editors. Freeman was concerned about the impact of stress on his newsroom.

“The call to the Oklahoman was invaluable,” Freeman says, sharing how he was advised to consider his news coverage as a marathon not a sprint, despite the frantic pace of reporting in the aftermath of the tragedy. In the days and weeks to come, the newspaper would cover more than 200 funerals, and reporters and photographers would speak of “fatigue factor” and “heartbreaking memories.” Freeman had learned of the role counseling played at the Oklahoman. Within days, group-debriefing sessions were held at the Journal News. Perhaps more importantly, Henry Freeman used self-disclosure to connect with his newsroom, sending out e-mails in which he talked about his own emotions and the effect of the tragedy on the southern Westchester County community. He urged reporters to treat victims’ families with dignity, and he encouraged his staff to take care of themselves.

Elaine Silvestrini, who had received a 2000 Dart Center Ochberg (trauma journalism) Fellowship (along with Penny Cockerell of the Oklahoman), was working as a reporter at the Asbury Park Press (New Jersey) on 9/11. She was also an internal ombudsman at the paper, conveying concerns and requests from staff to management. One of her first tasks was to secure pizza for those who were working long hours after the terrorist attacks. A simple enough request, it seems. But Silvestrini remembers that some in upper management groused about spending money for newsroom meals. She said that less than a week after September 11, one editor commented: I think people should be back to normal by now.

Silvestrini, who later worked at the Tampa Tribune, knew better. She had been sensitized through her interactions with the Dart Center to realize the “cumulative effects of covering sad stories.” She e-mailed Joe Hight for his advice on validating the emotions of fellow stressed-out staffers.

“He was extremely helpful,” Silvestrini says about Hight. “It was like talking with a minister. He ‘walks the walk.’”

The unparalleled events of 9/11 raised awareness of traumatic news issues among media advocates and researchers. Three days after the collapse of the World Trade Center towers, Al Tompkins of the Poynter Institute for Media Studies, posted the following statement on the Poynter online website:

Journalists’ symptoms of traumatic stress are remarkably similar to those of police officers and firefighters who work in the immediate aftermath of tragedy, yet journalists typically receive little support after they file their stories. While public-safety workers are offered debriefings and counseling after a trauma, journalists are merely assigned another story.

Canadian psychiatrist Anthony Feinstein observed: “Domestic journalists of all types post-September 11 had significantly more PTSD symptoms than domestic journalists pre-September 11.” The levels of PTSD among these journalists now approached those of war correspondents.

Author Jim Willis, who had covered the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, acknowledges the psychological effects of traumatic news coverage. He references researchers like Feinstein and others who have studied PTSD. But he also refers to the personal growth that is possible during trying times. In other words, not everyone who is engaged in dangerous or stressful newsgathering is negatively affected. The vast majority of individuals recover from exposure to trauma, and journalists are arguably sturdier emotionally than others. As Willis wrote in The Human Journalist, citing an earlier study of American newspaper editors: “Many individuals flourish under stress, and if they have control, they are highly productive and enjoy the challenge.”

In December 2006, Joe Hight and former Dart Center vice president, Barb Monseu, co-directed a seminar in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, with area media who had covered the shooting of ten girls in a one-room school house in the Amish community of Nickel Mines. The day-long session (“Trauma: Covering and Recovering. How to Report on Tragedy and Stay Healthy in the Process”) was held December 9, in the cozy downtown Lancaster Pressroom restaurant, framed by lit Christmas wreaths and garlands and dozens of poinsettias. In addition to the approximately fifty local and regional journalists, two Pennsylvania state troopers and two Amish couples were in attendance, including the grandparents of one of the five murdered Amish girls.

The Amish (“these gentle people”) told those listening aptly in the room that they were “… weary of the media and don’t want to answer questions anymore. It’s time to move on and leave the families alone. Give them time to grieve.”

Joe Hight would later write in an online story (“Local Tragedy, National Spotlight”), posted December 26, 2006, on the Dart Center website, that the Amish community and the local journalists were upset by the actions of the national media who descended on their community, disrupting long-honored customs and displaying the type of rude, insulting, and insensitive behavior that angers and disgusts the general public.

In his remarks at the seminar, the dark-suited Hight was equal parts preacher and professor as he spoke for some 90 minutes without notes. He moved about the cluster of round tables, telling the gathered journalists to empathize with victims, that it’s OK to say they’re sorry, and to follow the Golden Rule (e.g., NEVER ask: How do you feel?). At times, Hight’s voice cracked as he shared poignant accounts of loss from Oklahoma City and from his own life—when his brother Paul was killed. But Hight also injected doses of levity and self-deprecating wit, such as his failed “Okie” attempts to correctly pronounce “Lan-CAS-ter.”

Linda Espenshade, a reporter with Lancaster Newspapers, and co- coordinator of the seminar, had introduced Joe Hight as a “man with a passion.” In contrast, she admitted she had been surprised that many of her fellow reporters who covered the Amish school shootings said the story didn’t really affect them. For them, these accounts had no more emotional impact than any other story. But Espenshade noted that these “unaffected” reporters were typically young and had no children. That wasn’t the case with Espenshade, a parent who, after spending hours in the Amish community following the crime, returned home with “a sickening sense of having been way too close to tragedy. Way too close to the reality that I don’t know if I will be alive tomorrow, or if I will see my children again when they go off to school. I came away with an overwhelming sense of how fragile our lives are.”

That crisp December evening after the seminar, Joe Hight returned to his Lancaster hotel room. He called home and spoke to his wife, Nan, and his two spirited auburn-haired teenage daughters, Elena and Elyse. They were squabbling over something silly. Joe had to play peacemaker. At the end of the call, he was tired but glad everyone back in Oklahoma was safe and sound.

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