Full Comment - Crime reporting today is making things worse

00:00:00.000 the trauma of bad news of horrific incidents being in the news we've been hearing a lot

00:00:12.360 about that this summer with paul bernardo back in the news unfortunately but there is the trauma

00:00:18.720 that families feel when horrific incidents happen there's the trauma that neighbors that police feel

00:00:23.960 that others involved feel rarely do we talk about the trauma that journalists deal with that is

00:00:30.100 something that our next guest has looked into deeply but before we get to her i want to remind

00:00:34.820 you uh please hit subscribe button on whatever device or app or you know however you're listening

00:00:40.680 to us hit subscribe so that you don't miss a single episode of the full comment podcast oh

00:00:44.840 and by the way this is the full comment podcast i'm brian lily your host early in my career i spent

00:00:50.740 a lot of time covering murders court cases some things that i still have never really told people

00:00:57.340 about you get to hear things and see things that are under publication bans and even though you don't

00:01:03.280 tell the public you don't unsee what was there you don't unhear what was there that's part of what

00:01:10.900 drove tamara cherry to write her book the trauma beat a case for rethinking the business of bad news

00:01:17.840 tamara spent years as one of the top probably the top crime reporter in toronto she'd worked for the

00:01:24.940 toronto star got recruited by the toronto sun she was so good at what she did and then

00:01:28.980 recruited yet again by ctv to become their crime specialist because she was good at telling these

00:01:35.580 stories but being good at telling those stories took a toll tamara cherry joins me now she has

00:01:41.140 left the news business but it has not left her due to what she spent years covering tamara

00:01:47.560 thanks for the time thanks for having me brian do i sum it up fairly well in in terms of

00:01:54.280 you have you spent so long dealing with this and honestly we we're in the same business work for some

00:02:02.000 of the same places but we haven't met but i've seen your work you were very good at what you did

00:02:06.900 um in telling the stories that that really gripped people but um it took a toll on you

00:02:14.300 yeah it did and it's interesting because i know that that is that's what you've used to set up the

00:02:20.820 book but that's not originally what i started researching this project actually began with me

00:02:27.360 looking at the impact of the media on trauma survivors because the company that i created

00:02:32.520 the public relations firm that i created after i left journalism was set up to support trauma survivors

00:02:38.480 and now it's trauma survivors and the stakeholders who surround them including journalists um but i set

00:02:44.200 out to to look into the impact of the media on trauma survivors and it sort of became inescapable

00:02:50.040 the idea of looking at the impact of trauma on members of the media because as i began speaking with

00:02:57.100 and surveying journalists from across canada and the united states who cover trauma um over and over

00:03:03.580 again i was hearing that this job has a negative impact on them um you know from people suffering

00:03:10.620 from ptsd uh burnout to you know one one memorable response i got from a journalist in the united states

00:03:19.960 when i asked you know um what impact has covering these traumatic events had on you personally

00:03:26.340 their response was honestly don't want to think about this and then when i asked um what are your

00:03:33.460 strategies for for coping with this stuff um their response was drink and that was certainly

00:03:39.160 something that i had seen amongst many of my own colleagues and friends in the field over my many

00:03:45.300 years reporting on crime in the field so um it's interesting because like the book is still very

00:03:52.820 much like it is still mostly about the impact of the media on trauma survivors and i do want to talk about

00:03:57.220 that yeah yeah no but i'm just saying that like as i was doing this research not only was i

00:04:03.220 realizing all the suffering from journalists around me but i was having to come face to face with

00:04:07.620 my own suffering which i'm more comfortable talking about now because for many years like many of my

00:04:13.860 colleagues who i've talked to about this if i was ever feeling off or really impacted by this

00:04:21.180 i would be thinking well who am i to suffer my family wasn't killed my husband's still alive i don't live

00:04:29.020 in this unsafe neighborhood i have a steady income like who am i to suffer i'm driving away from this

00:04:34.260 police tape where children are are running you know kicking the the or throwing the basketball around

00:04:40.120 outside police tape passing body bags on their way to school um but it was taking a toll and what i've

00:04:45.840 come to realize is that my suffering does not take away from the very different suffering of the

00:04:51.680 people that i was reporting on and that's something i try to tell journalists but something else i've also

00:04:56.020 realized is you know in addition to that vicarious trauma which is absorbing other people's trauma

00:05:01.780 whether you are you know watching it unfold in front of you as somebody arrives at at the scene where

00:05:07.700 their loved one was was murdered or killed in a traffic fatality and you you watch them as they get

00:05:13.660 the news that their loved one is the one who didn't make it um or you're watching somebody in court

00:05:20.640 flinching every time they're watching they watch this silent surveillance video of their son being

00:05:27.240 executed with a gun over and over again um that's vicarious trauma that you're absorbing but there's

00:05:34.900 also this thing called moral injury which i hadn't heard about until i began this project i haven't heard

00:05:41.240 of it either what is that oh my gosh it's a term that honestly brian it's been totally life-changing

00:05:47.580 for me because it's made me understand so much of what i felt over the years and it is either it

00:05:53.600 either comes from you know witnessing things that you find morally reprehensible which i did all the

00:05:59.060 time but also participating in things that you might find morally reprehensible so as journalists

00:06:04.980 we're often going and knocking on the doors of the bereaved in the immediate aftermath of their traumatic

00:06:10.860 loss and that is i mean most journalists would say it's the worst part of their job

00:06:16.800 um one of the survey respondents in my research says the worst part of my job and the thing i like

00:06:21.440 least about my profession and that was a very common sentiment amongst journalists and yet most

00:06:26.180 journalists that i spoke with and and surveyed said that they would contact trauma survivors

00:06:31.080 in within 24 hours of the traumatic event or as soon as they had the information to do so

00:06:37.280 so in my case sometimes that was 24 hours after sometimes that was 48 hours after sometimes that was

00:06:43.360 24 minutes after sometimes that was as something is unfolding and somebody's arriving at the scene

00:06:49.440 and as a journalist you are trained to gather as much information as possible as quickly as possible

00:06:54.160 so as to tell as comprehensive of a story as possible but you feel like crap going and knocking

00:07:01.140 on that door or approaching that person who's just come to place flowers at the scene and is sort of

00:07:07.400 shooing you off but you know your bosses are maybe telling you well just try one more time i know they

00:07:12.640 said no this morning but maybe they've changed their mind by the afternoon or i know they told you no but i

00:07:18.460 see that they've spoken with that other media outlet so can you just go knock on the door again or give

00:07:22.520 them another call and every time you do that it chips away at your soul a little bit and um i gotta say

00:07:29.600 i've spent a lot of money on therapy dealing with vicarious trauma suffered from the job but i probably spent

00:07:35.600 more on moral injury suffered from the job and so i always tell journalists you cannot adequately take

00:07:41.740 care of yourself unless you're taking care of the people you're reporting on i don't remember the first

00:07:47.060 time i had to knock on the door after a tragedy but i remember the last time i did it and i never wanted

00:07:53.720 to do it again so i started out as a general assignment reporter and people often say well why do you cover

00:07:59.800 politics and i you know i always have glib jokes about how well fewer people die or things like but

00:08:05.400 that that is accurate my last year in montreal uh there were 60 murders or just over 60 murders and i

00:08:12.840 was at most the scene of most of them and some of them were absolutely horrific and you you end up

00:08:20.040 carrying that with you the things that you see the things that you hear and and those times that you

00:08:25.820 have to ask people those horrible questions and and i just want to point out because you've mentioned

00:08:31.080 this a couple of times you're referring to early in your career when you're a general assignment

00:08:35.180 reporter most journalists early in their career are doing these door knocks are calling down these

00:08:41.320 phone lists one of one of my first reporting gigs at at a newspaper i'll never forget um i think i was

00:08:48.060 an intern at the time and there was another intern sitting next to me we had side-by-side desks

00:08:53.100 and i just remember her having she had a printout of the phone book like a photocopy of the phone book

00:08:58.400 or a printout of canada 411 all the same last name a list of all the same last names she had to call

00:09:03.200 down this list looking for the next of kin of whatever latest tragedy in the city and i just

00:09:09.640 remember her staring down at that list this young woman with tears streaming down her cheeks and by that

00:09:16.420 time it's like i didn't enjoy doing that but my bosses respected the fact that i could like okay i

00:09:23.400 must be doing something right so i actually said to her like do you want me to do it because by that

00:09:27.620 time i had learned to just bottle it all up and you know you just put it there and then eventually

00:09:34.380 it'll dissolve well it doesn't ever dissolve it's all there you're parking it all somewhere and as as one

00:09:39.860 of my former camera guy colleagues who's who's in my book and who suffered from ptsd for many years

00:09:44.940 put it he his his therapist told him you can only park those memories in the boonies for so long at

00:09:50.680 the back of your brain eventually they're going to come flooding out and and for me that would happen

00:09:55.640 whenever i would step away from the job you know if you asked me when i was on the job how are you

00:10:00.460 doing i'd say fine like this is a really sad story it's awful i would cry for these people on my

00:10:04.740 drives home but overall i wasn't drinking or using drugs i was in a healthy relationship i wasn't

00:10:11.500 showing any of the classic signs that things were not okay but when i'd step away from the job you

00:10:15.880 know sometimes to go on vacation or when i would be on maternity leave or when i finally left in late

00:10:21.420 2019 that's when the world would start crashing down and i would find myself like watching a news story

00:10:27.620 about something that i had reported on millions of times before and i would be sobbing uncontrollably

00:10:32.940 or you know watching a commercial i could start sobbing um and it is it's interesting you know

00:10:38.680 like there were all these other signs that things were not okay you know snapping on my kids um suddenly

00:10:43.700 like very little things really like seeming like the biggest deal in the world just like

00:10:49.320 being filled with rage over things that i should not have been upset by you know and i came to realize

00:10:57.980 that this this was the impact of of my job and of not dealing with it over so many years so i still

00:11:04.080 believe it's a very important job i think it needs to be done in a very different way but i often tell

00:11:09.480 journalists you know at whatever stage of their career whether they're journalism students or you

00:11:14.460 know seasoned journalists like talk to somebody not your partner your sister your whatever you know like

00:11:20.600 talk to a professional who can help you actually create a narrative in your mind of all these things that

00:11:25.840 you are you are seeing and and hearing as you said um and witnessing so that it doesn't just all get

00:11:33.020 bungled up in there and then come and surprise you during what should be happy moments in your life

00:11:38.240 yes um you know talking to you a little while ago i spoke to um

00:11:44.980 an advocate for uh canadian armed forces veterans uh dealing with ptsd recently i was speaking

00:11:54.600 with the wife of a toronto police officer who's long-time veteran the conversation sounds similar

00:12:01.720 and the these are all jobs that a little while ago we didn't think about um the impact of the job on

00:12:11.900 them and you know there's going to be a certain segment of the population will say oh boohoo journalists

00:12:16.820 who cares and i was you know i remember being told in j school the audience doesn't care the audience

00:12:23.480 doesn't care what uh how tough your job is the audience doesn't care what it does to you but

00:12:27.800 you know whether we're talking about police officers soldiers anybody experiencing or dealing with

00:12:34.440 some of the most horrific parts of life you're going to have to um deal with that trauma at some point

00:12:41.800 and we used to tell soldiers to suck it up we used to tell cops to suck it up we're slowly coming

00:12:47.800 around to the idea that um you know let's talk as bell media likes to say at least um yes that's

00:12:57.140 another conversation for us to have um but we are at least acknowledging that there is an impact um

00:13:05.440 i went to one therapy session very strange therapist and perhaps i should have gone back for more

00:13:11.960 perhaps you know that that would have been healthier for me instead i just walked away from from dealing

00:13:18.600 with that um because i knew that it was taking me to a dark place when was it only after you left the

00:13:26.620 job that you had this realization because as you say you started the book the the purpose of the book

00:13:32.500 was taught to talk about trauma survivors and then you realized i am one yeah it's yeah i still i still

00:13:41.160 struggle with that um label but so actually the first time i saw a therapist was when i was on

00:13:48.140 maternity leave with my second child it would have been uh in early 2017 and i remember i was having a

00:13:55.960 lot of like really intrusive thoughts i was showing all these classic signs of after googling you know

00:14:01.660 visiting dr google and punching in my experiences and everything i came to realize was vicarious trauma

00:14:07.280 and i remember reaching out to the office of a psychologist in my area out just outside of

00:14:15.720 toronto who specialized in working with first responders like police fire ambulance you know

00:14:22.320 veterans that sort of thing and um specialized in ptsd vicarious trauma all this stuff and i reached

00:14:28.780 out and i heard back from their receptionist said sorry they only see first responders so i'm like well

00:14:35.340 i'm just gonna i'm gonna just throw a throw a dart at the board and see who i find and i found

00:14:40.360 this woman who took evening or took took um clients at nighttime which could mean which would mean that

00:14:47.280 i wouldn't have to take my baby and toddler in tow with me while my husband was at work and i went and i'll

00:14:55.420 never forget the very first session you know she said well why are you here and i said i think i'm

00:15:00.140 suffering from vicarious trauma or i was you know i've been a crime reporter for many years i think i'm

00:15:04.540 suffering from vicarious trauma and she raised her eyebrows kind of looked down on her notes and i

00:15:10.860 don't remember i don't know for sure if she actually said this but this is how i remember it

00:15:15.240 um but basically she said something along the lines of well that's new and she lost me at that point

00:15:22.220 like totally not validated i lasted three section sessions i left i was you know like who am again who

00:15:29.260 am i to suffer huh you know but then when i was doing my research i was really deep into it and

00:15:36.020 you know i i surveyed or interviewed more than 100 trauma survivors from homicides to traffic fatality

00:15:41.500 sexual violence to mass violence in addition to more than two dozen journalists um about how they cover

00:15:47.420 things and the trauma that they've experienced from the job and as i was like researching these cases

00:15:53.360 you know each of these trauma survivors they filled out a survey i and if they said you know they were

00:15:58.640 describing the media coverage of their case or lack thereof i was going through that the media archives

00:16:03.360 and researching every single case and everything like it just at one point i was i was watching

00:16:11.440 streaming some show with my husband on the couch and it was a you know a fictional program and somebody

00:16:17.680 died violently in it in a traffic fatality and the camera went up close to this again it's an actor i

00:16:24.560 know it's not real but the scene was so similar to a scene that was described in media coverage of a

00:16:32.100 homicide that was part of my research that i just i was instant like i i've never before been so

00:16:38.340 physically repulsed by something on tv i i've been physically repulsed by things i've seen in court you

00:16:45.740 know certain exhibits autopsy photos descriptions of things but this was like i was just like i i just

00:16:51.180 remember putting my hand out like i can't i can't look at this i can't and i'd never had that before

00:16:55.400 and since then i've not been able to watch anything that depicts like realistic violence or things that

00:17:02.400 remind me of the plethora of of things that i covered over the years whether it's single homicides

00:17:08.160 traffic fatalities human trafficking you know somebody sent me a message the other day human trafficking was

00:17:13.000 something that i covered quite heavily especially during my years at the toronto sun wrote a book

00:17:18.180 about it and somebody sent me a message saying oh have you seen this movie whatever it is the new

00:17:22.980 movie on human trafficking and i said no heard about it have no interest in it i've had my fill

00:17:28.320 yeah i know the time and i can't i have no appetite for it i i i i've heard that it's an important movie

00:17:34.840 that tells an important story but i won't be able to watch it for similar reasons um some of the

00:17:41.620 court cases that i covered and it is um it's it eats at you and now i'm you know dealing with stuff

00:17:51.640 that i thought i'd put behind me it's one of the things that you just said tamara is that

00:17:57.000 you spoke to trauma survivors about the media coverage or the lack thereof and

00:18:04.620 how what did trauma survivors tell you because sometimes yes you hear um that people are very

00:18:14.360 upset that you've got folks like you and me shoving a microphone or a camera in their face

00:18:19.460 but other times you get people reaching out and saying no one will tell the story of what happened

00:18:26.120 to me or no one will tell the story of what happened to my loved one so

00:18:30.340 is it just an individual situation um do people want their story to be told but they want it to

00:18:40.760 be told in a certain way what did you learn from trauma survivors on that because we're we're not

00:18:47.080 going to stop with um a news industry that does tell you that somebody was murdered on your street

00:18:54.120 because we all want to know somebody was murdered on my street who why what i think the bigger problem

00:19:03.020 for many people is that like there are there are some survivors who would rather their case just not

00:19:08.920 be in the media at all ever don't release the name of my loved one we see that sometimes actually and

00:19:13.680 the media gets quite upset when say toronto police says we're not releasing the name of this homicide

00:19:18.500 victim at the request of the family but now i i get it in a way that i never did as a journalist

00:19:23.760 that some people are just very very private but quite often with the people that suffer under a

00:19:29.920 crush of media attention it's not necessarily that it is in the news they understand that this is news

00:19:36.440 that people want to hear about it it is the feeling of being harassed stalked hunted was one of the

00:19:43.120 words that i heard by the media and not having anybody there to support them through that you know

00:19:50.160 it's like they've just experienced the worst thing imaginable um most of the survivors that i

00:19:57.440 interviewed or surveyed had no prior experience with the media and yet most of them were contacted by

00:20:03.060 members members of the media in the immediate aftermath of their traumatic event whether it

00:20:08.220 whether they were a mass violence survivor who had just witnessed their friends being murdered

00:20:14.760 or just you know hidden for hours on end thinking they're about to die or whether they were you know

00:20:20.080 the mother the father of a of a homicide victim who is just in this cloud of shock and feeling so

00:20:26.000 vulnerable they were having reporters reaching out to them on social media on the phone coming to

00:20:31.280 their door coming to the funeral home approaching them at the crime scene all of these things all these

00:20:35.760 places where they felt like they should be safe suddenly they felt like um you know they were being

00:20:41.740 attacked badgered um so many words used to describe this stuff and so that was the big thing so i agree

00:20:48.500 brian we're not going to stop covering these things but can we stop doing those door knocks those phone

00:20:55.480 calls you know i know that some people do want to talk but one of the things i'm calling for it's not

00:21:00.940 just journalism that needs to change it's the whole system that needs to change we need to be all working

00:21:07.140 more collaboratively journalists homicide investigators you know traffic fatality investigators

00:21:12.360 victim service providers peoples whose job it is to support survivors often are you know they don't

00:21:21.260 deal with the media at all i was just i was just in touch recently with you know a journalist reached

00:21:26.760 out to me and was really trying to do the right thing like deal deal with something in a trauma-informed

00:21:32.360 way and she wanted to get a hold of this survivor and she knew how to get a hold of her she could

00:21:37.920 have just called she could have knocked on the door but she said i think that me you know there's a

00:21:42.240 little bit more to this story but basically she was saying i think that my presence at the survivor's door

00:21:46.780 unannounced would cause more harm than good so i'm looking for like an intermediary because i think

00:21:53.340 this person would actually want to talk to me but i just i need a barrier in between us so that they can

00:21:58.360 make the decision without me sitting in front of them and so i was trying to help her with this and

00:22:04.020 i contacted somebody that i knew who worked for the local victim services agency and they said you know

00:22:10.560 we can't do that because of privacy reasons and the homicide investigator doesn't feel comfortable

00:22:15.900 doing it and he said this is a flaw in the system this is a journalist who is trying to do right by

00:22:23.400 the survivor to tell their story in a trauma-informed way to extend the opportunity to speak and i do

00:22:29.780 think that the survivor would want to talk under these circumstances but i don't think they would

00:22:34.660 if that journalist just knocked on their door to begin with and this is a system that is basically

00:22:39.080 giving this journalist no choice but to potentially cause that further harm by showing up at their door

00:22:45.660 or calling out of the blue you know because it's not set up in a collaborative way we work in silos

00:22:51.400 you know as a journalist there was never a number for me to call or rarely was there a number for me

00:22:57.040 to call to say is this person person talking you know it was calling through the phone book it was

00:23:01.500 going on facebook it was you know all these things unless i knew the officer in charge say the

00:23:06.780 homicide investigator well you know sometimes i would call and say would you mind asking the family

00:23:11.780 if they want to talk or do you know if they want to talk and sometimes they would know no they

00:23:15.020 absolutely don't want to talk you know but even then when it's not coming in an official way

00:23:19.420 in an official system that is set up where these people it's their job to part of their job is to

00:23:25.060 talk to them about the media inform them of the media what their rights are you know what the

00:23:29.260 process is you know even if i went back to my bosses and said no the investigator says they're not

00:23:34.360 talking they might still say well just like go knock on the door anyway and just check you know like

00:23:39.960 the whole system needs to be we need to be thinking of it differently we need to be thinking of it in a way

00:23:45.200 that is you know we are not journalists we are human beings we cannot be objective flies on the

00:23:51.560 wall when it comes to trauma so this idea of us just well we just have to gather as much information

00:23:56.860 as possible and you know we didn't fire the gun that killed her son we didn't drive drunk in the car

00:24:02.660 that that killed the these kids um so we're not the ones causing harm like we need to realize yes we

00:24:08.420 actually are causing harm we're harming the people that we're reporting on we're harming ourselves and we

00:24:13.420 haven't even talked about the harm that we're causing to news consumers through the ways that we

00:24:17.760 we uh tell some of these stories but we need to recognize that you know we do need to do things in

00:24:23.160 a different way we're starting to talk about the fact that it's okay for indigenous reporters and it's

00:24:28.440 actually good for indigenous reporters to report on indigenous communities for black reporters to

00:24:33.080 report on black communities that there are benefits that can come from these things i think now is the

00:24:37.320 time that we recognize that there is um a lot of good that can come from changing the way

00:24:43.280 we tell these stories doing them in a more trauma-informed way because we'll not only be

00:24:46.940 taking care of the people we're reporting on we're not only going to be telling these very

00:24:51.420 important stories better but we'll also be taking care of ourselves which is something that the news

00:24:56.060 industry is beginning to care about let's talk about that when we come back we'll take a quick

00:25:00.260 break then back with more from tamara cherry and her book including on the impact on survivors

00:25:07.060 tamara your book is called uh trauma beat a case for rethinking the business of bad news

00:25:14.140 how can we change the business of bad news as we discussed earlier we're not going to stop talking

00:25:21.100 about bad news we're not going to um cease reporting on horrible things that happen because it's just human

00:25:27.940 nature we want to know but you've said that there's an impact on journalists and being journalists we

00:25:34.820 talk a lot about ourselves and we've discussed that but there's an impact on the consumer of that news

00:25:41.340 in your research for this book what did you find was the impact and is it on casual users the impact or is

00:25:50.300 is it just on people that watch 24 7 what what did you learn there's so um like when we think about

00:25:57.500 incidents of mass violence for example there's been research that shows that if you were a consumer of

00:26:02.920 this wall-to-wall media coverage in the aftermath of a mass incident of mass violence a school

00:26:08.460 shooting um you were at a higher risk of developing ptsd just by consuming this news you know you think

00:26:15.680 about the sorts of things that um are part of that news coverage there are the very dramatic cell phone

00:26:21.740 videos um where you can hear sound of gunshots there are the very dramatic shots of people coming from

00:26:28.000 the scene like out of the scene to safety with you know hysterical clips and scared looks on their

00:26:34.340 faces their hands above them um all of that stuff can have an impact on us and we're not just seeing

00:26:40.640 it once we're seeing it over and over and over again so there's an argument to be made for not

00:26:45.520 showing a lot of that stuff period but there's a much more obvious argument that if you're going to

00:26:51.300 show it don't show it over and over again because that's putting people at a heightened risk

00:26:54.940 something else i mean i actually i can i can point to um a conversation i had with a journalist just

00:27:00.580 this week who had reached out to me seeking guidance on how to how to cover an incident of

00:27:07.480 mass violence in a trauma-informed way and they were basically i don't want to give away any

00:27:14.740 identifying details because there's publication bans in effect for what i'm talking about but

00:27:18.780 essentially part of this case and i won't say if it's in canada or in the united states because i deal

00:27:23.960 with journalists all over the place but part of this case was um something that could essentially

00:27:30.700 you know potentially incite violence um from other people if if it's something that was talked about

00:27:37.740 publicly and the journalist's initial response was well we we have to be able to report this it's

00:27:43.560 important and i basically said we need to start thinking about these things differently because as

00:27:47.720 journalists we are inherently very entitled and usually that's a very good thing um you know

00:27:52.620 you mentioned off air off air brian dealing with politicians you might deal with politicians a

00:27:58.000 certain way but we need to deal with trauma survivors in a different way so as politicians

00:28:01.780 it's it's good that journalists are entitled because we're holding them to account but when it comes to

00:28:07.340 trauma we can't just be entitled to all getting all of the information and us being the the gatekeepers

00:28:14.520 of this information and deciding what is best for the public to see because by and large our industry

00:28:18.820 is not trauma informed yet so i think that we need to um be okay with having conversations with people

00:28:26.100 like lawyers and victim advocates and um you know all these people that surround trauma survivors and

00:28:33.420 are hopefully looking out for their best interests and be okay with not being able to report certain

00:28:38.600 things because there's something so i kind of got off track there but in incidents of mass violence

00:28:43.820 there's something called the media contagion effect so for example um superior court justice and malloy in

00:28:50.680 toronto when she was uh sentencing the the young man who was responsible for the toronto van attack who

00:28:58.160 i'm not going to name now and you'll understand in a minute she chose not to name him because she

00:29:04.420 pointed out that many perpetrators of these incidents of mass violence are seeking infamy they want to

00:29:10.480 become famous and indeed we knew in that case from evidence heard in court uh that was not disputed that

00:29:17.500 he had been his actions had been inspired by the actions of others at least two other mass mass mass

00:29:24.280 killers and the the media got their backs up and calling this this this superior court justice and

00:29:31.640 malloy saying that she was editorializing and this was none of her business because she encouraged the

00:29:36.460 media to not report the name well every major media outlet continued to report the name

00:29:40.380 and i wrote an op-ed in the toronto star at the time saying like no like this is we're right to

00:29:46.260 not report the name because really what what changes in the story by reporting the name we can report all

00:29:52.080 about this guy we can talk about his characteristics was he a loan loaner was this blah blah blah we can

00:29:57.640 glean these things but why do we need to see his face and show his name when research has actually shown

00:30:04.420 this thing called the media contagion effect and it's repeated itself over and over and over again and i

00:30:09.820 talked about this with examples in my op-ed where the actions of one mass killer then inspire the

00:30:17.820 actions of the next mass killer it happens research has shown it but we in the media we do so many

00:30:23.520 things in a particular way just because it's the way they've always been done we need to begin to get

00:30:28.680 uncomfortable with some of that and and be more open to changing the ways that we do things

00:30:34.280 well we've spent a lot of time this summer talking about paul bernardo and there's a case that is more

00:30:41.480 than 30 years old or about 30 years old and we're just talking about his transfer within the prison

00:30:49.620 and people keep saying well you know i want to acknowledge the impact this has on the family

00:30:55.260 i can't imagine the impact on the french and mahafi families or even the homoka family because

00:31:01.920 you know we too often forget that tammy uh carla homoka's sister was one of their victims um

00:31:10.940 i can't imagine what it's like for the family hearing his name over and over again but also how do you

00:31:18.520 how do you tell the story without using his name well thankfully for those families i mean i i struggle

00:31:28.760 to use word thankfully um in regards to anything that has to do with them but they have this wonderful

00:31:35.320 lawyer timothy danson who for decades has advocated on their behalf and i was actually just listening to

00:31:41.320 an interview this morning with john moore um and timothy danson and it was interesting because

00:31:47.760 john asked him i i think john said something along the lines of it can't be easy calling these families

00:31:53.900 whenever you hear about something and giving them the news that they're here here we go again and

00:31:59.320 timothy danson talked about basically he didn't use this term but he was talking about trauma responses

00:32:04.880 and you know hearing their breathing change and how these memories all come flooding back and it

00:32:12.060 brings it all back and i i was just thinking you know isn't that interesting because that like that

00:32:17.000 is what happens to trauma survivors all the time with the media when we bring things up unexpectedly

00:32:22.260 in this case i would argue that it is not unexpectedly that it is in the media in this case you know

00:32:29.520 i assume timothy danson would have um you know warned the families about they would

00:32:34.840 know by this point that it would be in the media but i still like i don't like talk i don't i don't

00:32:39.740 like mentioning his name i uh i remember being told by one newsroom boss like go see if you can get

00:32:47.460 an interview interview with bernardo there i just said it and like go get an interview like see if you

00:32:53.760 can get an interview everyone's tried nobody can get an interview and i just i said no why would i give

00:32:58.500 this guy a platform it's it's not about him let's let him rot let's just forget about him

00:33:04.700 you know there are certain times that we need to talk about things because in this case we're

00:33:08.800 talking about institutional change that may need to happen or should happen or shouldn't happen

00:33:13.840 whatever we're having thoughtful conversations about it um but it is harmful for the survivors it's

00:33:20.020 not easy survivors have told me over and over and over again you know that their trauma responses

00:33:25.460 are activated anytime their their case or similar cases are mentioned in the news to the point that

00:33:31.240 many survivors don't even consume the news anymore they don't read the newspaper they don't turn on

00:33:37.780 the tv to news channels they they're very limited in the news that they have um i i heard that a lot

00:33:44.400 especially in the mass violence community but even just with you know single traffic fatalities or

00:33:50.620 homicides that they just don't watch because they don't want to be brought back to that place there

00:33:55.500 was a homicide survivor north of toronto who told me that you know her sister had been

00:33:59.860 murdered in a murder suicide in march of of such and such year and the the homicide investigators

00:34:07.220 told her at the time told her family don't just don't watch the news and i i assume that it's

00:34:12.060 because they didn't you know they they knew it would be difficult for them and it would be harmful

00:34:15.980 and all that stuff but then you know because it was a murder suicide there was no trial process or

00:34:21.500 anything like that either it was in the media a lot for the first few weeks and then it just sort of

00:34:25.900 went away so she was caught off guard when later in the year in december she was sitting there

00:34:31.880 watching the news and on came the the roundup uh the crime roundup for the year you know the end of

00:34:38.000 year homicide roundup and suddenly she saw her sister's body being removed from this house in a body

00:34:44.120 bag and she'd never seen that image before and it all oh my goodness and she was so thankful that

00:34:49.140 her her parents didn't see it because you know they were also news consumers and uh yeah like it that

00:34:57.040 is just so so common like the the ways that we trigger these trauma responses that they we activate

00:35:05.700 them and and it's not just a matter of making them sad again it is their heart heart rates quickening

00:35:12.140 it is they um like tim danson said they're breathing changing though all those memories come flooding back

00:35:18.400 it can leave them in a depressed state an anxious state a fearful state for hours days weeks you know

00:35:25.900 and and our interactions as journalists with these survivors can do the same thing we're often going

00:35:30.960 and extracting their trauma from them take take taking and then tiptoeing away and going you know

00:35:35.700 rushing to file our story meanwhile we're leaving them in this heightened state of trauma

00:35:41.060 um and they're feeling afraid and anxious and you know untrusting of people and all of these things

00:35:48.500 that come with these trauma responses and you do that enough times and it can actually have long-term

00:35:52.980 physical impacts on these survivors you know and you look at the way that that survivors uh react

00:35:59.320 differently that the french and mahafi families have as you said mostly spoken through timothy danson

00:36:06.360 uh i think of um another murder of a young woman that happened around the same time nina devalier her

00:36:14.680 mother turned around and became an advocate she priscilla went on and became a politician um and

00:36:22.060 she used it or reacting in a very different way we have to try and find a way to be respectful

00:36:31.700 too often we're not you've used the term trauma-informed journalism several times what is that

00:36:39.220 i think um and i'm always sort of like changing my views because i'm still learning so much more about

00:36:46.360 this but i think the essence of trauma-informed journalism is understanding the impact that our

00:36:54.240 actions before we show up at that door while we're at that door and after we leave that door

00:36:58.980 have on that trauma survivor and adjusting our actions accordingly it is understanding that just

00:37:06.980 by virtue of showing up at that door unannounced without that barrier in between it's not trauma

00:37:15.140 informed it's understanding that in many cases we are causing more harm than good it is it is and i'm

00:37:23.520 right now i'm calling upon all of these things that if you go to my website brian i actually have

00:37:28.500 a series of videos from trauma survivors where i've edited edited together these compilations of

00:37:34.320 um basically these vignettes from trauma survivors talking about what is trauma-informed journalism for

00:37:39.340 them and it is centering the survivor's experience it is not thinking about what i need for my story

00:37:47.400 it is what do you want to get out of this process and how can we work together to tell this story

00:37:55.620 it is giving agency to that trauma survivor it's not saying here's here's my pen right write the

00:38:01.520 story and then file it off to my editor it is saying here's what i'm writing do you still feel

00:38:06.960 comfortable with it are you still comfortable with this you know if it's not an accountability

00:38:10.700 interview it is saying here's what i'm thinking of asking you before i turn on my recorder before

00:38:16.460 the camera guy even comes in here's what i'd like to talk to you about are you comfortable with this

00:38:20.900 is there anything that is going to bring you to an unsafe space are these all safe spaces is there

00:38:27.160 anything you'd like me to um reword are there any questions you'd like me to delete change or add

00:38:33.420 what do you want to get out of this and then i'm going to make sure that that is part of the story it

00:38:38.120 is centering the survivor's experience and we can still tell very good stories i would argue better

00:38:43.880 stories that way because something we haven't discussed um in this conversation brian is something that

00:38:49.020 i refer to as trauma brain brains on trauma do not act like brains not on trauma trauma can impact

00:38:55.080 different people's brains differently sometimes it impacts the way that they remember things and as

00:39:00.620 journalists our job is to regurgitate facts to the public to tell the public this is what happened

00:39:06.340 this is how it happened but quite often a trauma survivor especially in the immediate aftermath of a traumatic

00:39:12.300 event um they actually cannot process what has happened in a chronological way or even in an accurate way

00:39:20.400 i had i had a mass violence survivor tell me that two days after the the shooting at her high school

00:39:26.100 she told a journalist that she had seen a tank outside her school a military tank there was no tank

00:39:31.620 so it's a small detail that the reporter would be able to say well i'm looking back no there was no tank

00:39:36.780 but that could have been she could have said anything you know because her brain she was sure

00:39:41.480 she just her school was under attack she was hiding for hours fearing for her life she felt her she was

00:39:46.840 under attack it makes sense of course she would think that the military would respond to that that

00:39:51.540 there'd be a tank driving down her suburban street but there was no tank and so what else are we reporting

00:39:58.740 that is not accurate um trauma brains though we need to care for them differently we can't speak with

00:40:05.280 trauma survivors the way that we speak with politicians um and and i tell you you were

00:40:12.040 describing yeah um interviewing or how you think that we should interview uh people experiencing trauma

00:40:18.600 it and the way you're describing it is something i would never do with a politician are you comfortable

00:40:25.840 with what i'm saying are you comfortable with me asking these questions but they're two very different

00:40:31.420 um very very different stories and and there's nothing that you're describing that takes away from

00:40:37.760 telling that that trauma survivor story they experience something you want to make sure that

00:40:43.820 you're telling an accurate story but also one that isn't taking them back down a dark place uh that is

00:40:51.160 not what we do with politicians it's well you screwed up uh or we think you screwed up can't can you

00:40:58.160 answer for this the someone that's just experienced a loved one being killed doesn't have to account for

00:41:04.060 anything they don't they don't even need to speak to us if they don't want to yeah something that

00:41:09.820 journalists often fight with me over most most of the things i talk about journalists are just yeah

00:41:15.740 happy to hear like yes tell us more how can we do better because journalists most by and large they go

00:41:20.260 into this profession because they want to make a positive impact in this world but one of the things

00:41:24.440 that i often butt heads with people over is the idea of showing a trauma survivor your story

00:41:28.640 before it's shared with the rest of the world when when reasonable when possible you know deadlines make

00:41:34.040 can make that very difficult and it's simply to take away that element of surprise the element of of

00:41:40.360 something that so many survivors describe to me which is basically the media making them flinch

00:41:45.100 because they never know when's the story going to come out what's it going to look like what pictures are

00:41:50.220 they going to use um which clips are they going to use i talked to this reporter for an hour but the

00:41:55.200 story is only going to be two minutes are they only going to use the part of me breaking down you know

00:41:59.600 so the idea of showing a survivor their story so many journalists say to me but i can't like we we

00:42:05.160 can't do that we have policies against that we can't show stories and i just say why not why is that

00:42:10.500 think about why that policy is in place is there a legal reason for it is there you know think about all

00:42:16.720 these reasons and do they apply specifically to trauma survivors maybe some of them yes maybe some

00:42:22.020 trauma survivors do experience accountability interviews and rightfully so but the vast vast

00:42:26.680 majority we are only speaking to these people to extract their trauma to show the world what their

00:42:32.320 trauma is so why would we not at least afford to them the opportunity to just look at it as somebody

00:42:39.320 who's written a book on this and includes the stories of some 100 plus trauma survivors i followed up with

00:42:44.720 every single one of those survivors whose whose story is mentioned in my book whether it's in a

00:42:49.440 sentence or in a chapter or multiple chapters and i said here's everything i've written if you want to

00:42:54.700 look at it take a look at it and you know of those 100 or so trauma survivors that reviewed their

00:42:59.740 excerpts um i think there was like two that requested changes one of them was the mother of a homicide

00:43:08.920 a homicide victim who in her on in her brain on trauma had told me that her son had been stabbed

00:43:15.920 in the chest when he'd actually been stabbed in the back so that was a factual error she's like oh my gosh

00:43:20.560 i can't believe i said that can you change that um another one was somebody who who asked that i i say

00:43:26.360 that her husband was murdered instead of killed it was factually correct yeah absolutely that was

00:43:31.560 important to her and there was another who just said can you just get rid of just clean up some of my

00:43:35.820 my words i didn't realize i said like so many times yeah absolutely like it's your words you tell

00:43:41.140 me what you want to say but everybody else it was just taking away that that element of surprise

00:43:47.040 that's going to take away their breath when they read it yes why should why should they be reading my

00:43:53.660 book at the same time as you brian lily a journalist who's just reading it this is their story these are

00:43:59.800 their stories you know i consider them like almost co-authors of this book like it is it is their

00:44:05.780 stories and the after learning about trauma um the doing this research project and then writing the

00:44:11.560 book the hardest part of this process for me was circling back to those survivors and asking them

00:44:16.560 do you want to read this i was i was so hyper aware of the the very heavy burden i don't like to use

00:44:24.700 the word burden but just like this crushing responsibility to get it right for these survivors

00:44:29.040 and so aware of the the immense harm that i could cause by not getting it right um it was it was

00:44:36.160 crushing at at times and um that's a responsibility i never felt as a journalist because i always just

00:44:42.580 felt you know i was always focused on the greater good i think about interviews i did with human

00:44:47.140 trafficking survivors i was always focused on making sure that this didn't happen to somebody else

00:44:51.480 but i wasn't focused on how do i take care of this victim this survivor in front of me who has

00:44:56.540 actually experienced this these layers upon layers of trauma i was focused on how do we educate the

00:45:01.540 public how do we support other survivors but i wasn't focused on this survivor in particular so it's

00:45:06.340 just about changing the way that we um we think about things and do things have you had any

00:45:10.020 discussions with journalism schools since the book came out oh yeah i mean since i began this

00:45:16.160 research project a few years ago and started talking about it on social media i get requests all the

00:45:21.140 time from uh journalism professors from journalism students to talk to them about it and from working

00:45:27.220 journalists who just want to know how they can do better and now that the book is out um i hear from

00:45:34.820 some j school professors some journalists say so professors saying i'm gonna work this into the

00:45:40.540 curriculum somehow like this is something that every journalist should read and i agree that's one of

00:45:45.480 the reasons that i wrote it i feel very strongly about that but also working journalists who are telling me

00:45:50.300 like these are the tangible things that i'm doing differently now because i had no idea that the

00:45:54.420 way i was doing them before was causing harm so thank you so like i hope that these that this book will be

00:46:01.520 required reading for any journalism student and any victim service provider frankly homicide investigators

00:46:08.160 like there's stuff in this book that will just show you how us not working together is causing

00:46:13.180 further harm and that's nobody's intention that's not what anybody wants to get out of it

00:46:17.620 um but also i just i hope that newsrooms encourage their staff to read this um you know it's just i feel

00:46:24.980 so strongly about it not just so that other survivors don't suffer but so that journalists don't suffer

00:46:30.600 too because i suffered a lot by getting things wrong when i thought my good intentions were good enough

00:46:36.320 and they weren't tamara thanks for the time thanks for the book thank you brian i appreciate the platform

00:46:41.820 the tamara cherry is the woman the brains behind pickup communications she's also the author of

00:46:46.720 the trauma beat a case for rethinking the business of bad news my name is brian lily this has been the

00:46:51.840 full comment podcast a post media production this episode was produced by andre prue with theme music

00:46:57.880 by bryce hall kevin libin is the executive producer remember you can subscribe to full comment on apple

00:47:04.080 podcast google spotify or amazon music and you can help us out by giving us a rating leaving a review

00:47:09.680 and by telling your friends about us thanks for listening until next time i'm brian lily

Full Comment - August 07, 2023

Crime reporting today is making things worse

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