Features Uncategorized. Uncategorized Equipping Journalists With Tools for Emotional Balance A former reporter uses Eastern concepts to prepare future journalists to cope with the stresses of their jobs. June 15, Share this article. The Energy Beat: Complex and Compelling. To some degree this approach is changing as better-trained journalists pursue stories about energy and keep watchful eyes on a wider range of critical energy issues.
The first war for me was India-Pakistan, in the battle for Bangladesh. Mercifully that conflict ended in just two weeks. There I had to contend with terrorist attacks and Israeli reprisals. The conflicts were infrequent, but bloody. A vest-pocket sized battlefield, roughly half the size of Manhattan, Beirut provided more bang-bang per square mile than any war in recent memory. A journalist could interview combatants from both sides of the conflict and file by dinnertime.
I withdrew voluntarily from that most exclusive of news media clubsβthe dogs of war. Those experiences stayed with me, as did the battleground images that haunted my dreams. There is no doubt that day-to-day encounters with trauma and lossβthe bread and butter of war journalismβ take a heavy toll.
But so does working the police beat in any major city. More people die in homicides or traffic accidents in the United States than die in Iraq on any given day. In fact, my first encounter with mangled bodies was when I covered an airplane crash in the San Fernando Valley.
In addition, the industry is changing. Technology now puts reporters under relentless pressure to be more productive. Also the news industry is much more volatile and jobs are less secure than ever before. With constant pressures from deadlines and daily competition, stress has always been intrinsic to the practice of journalism. But in recent years it has grown so intense it has become a serious occupational hazard in covering the news, whether from the cop beat in Fresno, California, to the political beat in Annapolis, Maryland, to the Shiite neighborhoods of Baghdad.
