"TRAUMA JOURNALISM" (Part Ten)

"Those people you’ve helped along the way. That’s worth everything.” (Joe Hight)

Mar 11

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)

“TRAUMA JOURNALISM” (Part Ten)

“Those people you’ve helped along the way. That’s worth everything.”

The Last Meeting

At 3:30 p.m. on November 10, 2007, Hight looked calm and presidential in his dark suit, white shirt, and red and white striped tie. As he awaited the arrival of committee members at the 80-year-old Hotel Tabard Inn on quiet, tree-lined N Street NW, Washington, D.C., he spoke eagerly of his successful presentation to the “Active Minds” group at Georgetown University earlier that afternoon. He discussed trauma and mental health issues and talked about the death of his brother Paul. Afterward, he met a colleague of the late Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reporter Daniel Pearl. The woman was touched by Hight’s remarks and interested in learning more about his advocacy.

The Dart Center’s Executive Committee meeting is in room 26 at the top of the Tabard’s Inn sagging, creaking stairs (lined by portraits of George Washington and former Soviet premiere Mikhail Gorbachev). This quaint historic (some would just say “old”) hotel is located in a nineteenth-century row house. Room 26 is suitably Victorian with its cranberry-colored walls, eggshell blue ceiling, accentuated by white wooden cross beams, a wide mantle and large ornate mirror, antique loveseat, three multicolored oriental rugs, and an upright piano in one corner. Dinner will be served at 7 p.m. at the long dark wooden table where the dozen executive committee members and staff now gather.

Before the meeting begins at 4:30 p.m., there is laughter, chatter, and hugs all around. A spirit of bonhomie warms the drafty high-ceiling room on this mid-November eve. Yes, there are serious matters to attend to tonight but also several people to honor. Four committee members are leaving the board: Joe Hight, Elana Newman, Penny Cockerell (who is unable to attend the event), and Mark Brayne, the former British journalist-turned-therapist who had headed the Dart Center’s European operations for several years.

“Tomorrow, you’ll be in charge, and I’ll be relieved,” Hight says at one end of the table to incoming president Deb Nelson, who sits to his immediate left. If Hight reflects a corporate style of dress and demeanor, Nelson resembles an academic, at home in Cambridge, Evanston, or Berkeley.

After the tributes, Hight says he is honored by the words and gifts, including two black cast-iron typewriter bookend/paperweights. Hight sits ramrod straight, his hands clasped in his lap as Frank Ochberg announces there is one more presentation for the evening. The doors to room 26 again open. In strides a smiling Dr. Terry Clark from the University of Central Oklahoma (UCO).

Hight is momentarily surprised by the unexpected appearance of his old friend Professor Clark. He jumps up, and the two men embrace as laughter and applause fill the room. Terry Clark announces that the Dart Center has established a $10,000 endowment in Hight’s name at UCO. The Joe Hight Award will be given each year to a junior or first-semester senior student showing outstanding promise in ethical journalism. Applicants will come from two journalism classes: “Media Ethics” and the “Victims and the Media” course. Hight listens, remaining dry-eyed at attention in his chair. He will later say how surprised and honored he was with the UCO endowment. Eldest daughter and Georgetown freshman, Elena, who attended the November 10 ceremony, will call home and tell mother, Nan, and younger sister, Elyse, about the honors bestowed on her father this evening.

Coming to Terms at Starbucks

The next morning, the Dart Center executive committee meeting continues in a conference room at the more modern and stylish Topaz Hotel two doorsdown from the Tabard Inn. Hight attends most of the 3-hour meeting as a courtesy, but he leaves at 12:30 p.m.

“I had to get out of there,” he says, rushing out to the sidewalk, “before it got too emotional. I didn’t want to be in the room when the meeting adjourned.” With Elena by his side, Hight walks briskly up N Street toward Connecticut Avenue. On this sunny but cool Sunday afternoon, a nearby Starbucks looks inviting. Elena orders hot chocolate; her father gets hot cider without whipped cream.

Hight begins by summarizing some of the actions at the morning meeting. He is very complimentary of Deb Nelson’s first steps as president, citing her “terrific job today.” He then relives some of the events of previous night. After four years as president of the Dart Center, he seems a bit uncertain of his future role. “What do I do if someone contacts me because they still see my name as president on the website?” he asks, unable to answer his own question. He says that Ochberg and Shapiro are encouraging him to lead the Center’s twenty-five-member advisory council of representatives from journalism and trauma fields. But Hight isn’t making any commitments just yet. He has more pressing matters to attend to.

Elena quietly sips her hot chocolate, studying her father as his voice drops and his pale eyes glisten.

“It cost me,” Joe Hight says, referring to his years as president of the Dart Center. “But there’s always a price to pay.” He seems unaware that he is channeling the words of his late father, Wilber.

Hight explains he has recently learned he will be changing jobs at the Oklahoman. As of November 19, he will no longer be a managing editor, a title he has held since 1999. Now, he will have the twenty-first-century moniker: director of information and development. Hight says that because of his significant time commitment with Dart Center-related activities (on average, about 20 hours a week over the past four years), he admits he wasn’t able to have the “vision” regarding emerging developments at the Oklahoman. Because he was so tied up with his trauma journalism advocacy, he never told his superiors about his interest in pursuing the executive editor position at the newspaper. (Now a moot point because the position has been eliminated in the 2007 management reorganization.) For the first time in decades, Hight won’t report to Ed Kelley, and he acknowledges he has had no recent conversations with Kelley about the job change.

“You have to be adaptable in this business,” Hight says a month later as he is packing up his two-room office and moving to a smaller ninth-floor location on the northeast corner of “the tower.”

Ironically for Hight, the more he advocated for a “higher sense of what journalists should be,” the more distanced he became from certain members of the Oklahoman’s (now) 200-person newsroom. Some would say they were unaware of his international media leadership. Even longtime friend and admirer Charlotte Lankard had confided in summer 2007 that she believed Joe Hight and Ed Kelley were striving to effect change, to raise standards, and to enlighten attitudes and behavior at the Oklahoman. “But they may not be doing as well as they think they are,” she said.

However, a legacy is unpredictable. For example, 20,000 copies of the 40-page Dart Center booklet Tragedies & Journalists that Hight coauthored in 2004 with Frank Smyth, freelancer and Washington (DC) representative of the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), have been distributed worldwide. Reporters speak of carrying the booklet to war zones in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Perhaps the best evidence of a cause well lived lies in the testimony of friends and colleagues. Upon Joe Hight’s retirement as president of the Dart Center for Journalism & Trauma in November 2007, remarks arrived via e-mail before and after the annual meeting in Washington, DC.

Bruce Shapiro wrote about “how much I will miss you as a leader and collaborator.” He added that Hight’s friendship had sustained and inspired him. “I treasure your integrity, your wisdom and deep commitments.”

Penny Cockerell said she was looking back on her work with the Dart Center as one of the “greatest experiences of my career—and you play no small part in that. Over the years, I’ve watched you put Dart and the Oklahoman on the map in a most meaningful way and I am extremely proud to be associated with this profound and growing movement. I hope you feel a tremendous sense of accomplishment—you should. You have my applause.”

Joe Hight’s favorite scene in the film Castaway is not when Tom Hanks is rescued, or when he reunites with his former girlfriend. Hight prefers the image of Hanks at the end of the movie, standing literally and figuratively at the crossroads of life. After some thirty years, the one-time hustling reporter finds himself at that place—in transition.

He admits that as a younger (“hot-headed”) man, he may have reacted differently to his job change. But now his first concern isn’t about himself or his career; it’s about those he loves. “How does it affect my family?” he asks. That’s how he makes his decisions these days. He’s also pragmatic: “I’m at a latter part of my career but not the latter part of my life.” Hight says now that his service to the Dart Center has ended, he can begin thinking about other plans he has had to postpone for years, such as writing a book about his brother Paul and crafting short stories.

Just days before Christmas 2007, Joe Hight sounds upbeat, “relieved that I have this new initiative.” He’s having fun as director of information and development, something he hadn’t expected. But toward the end of the phone call, his tone shifts as he reflects on all the years dealing with tragedy and trauma. “I saw a lot of pain, and it really wears on you. These sad stories are never ending.” A few moments pass before Hight perks up once more. He is gracious and grateful for his opportunities to make a difference. “The amazing thing is the connections, those people you’ve helped along the way. That’s worth everything.”

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