Trauma and Journalism with Cait McMahon

Trauma and journalism live side-by-side.Journalists often find themselves having to interview people who have been through a traumatic experience because traumatizing events are often matters of serious public interest.That’s because they raise questions of public safety and, sometimes, questions about causation and about the adequacy of the official response.The people who lived through these experiences are important witnesses because they can give first-hand accounts of what happened.How media crews treat these people can affect the traumatized person’s psychological welfare.But exposure to traumatized people and to the events that caused their trauma can also have a psychological effect on the journalists, camera crew and photographers who cover these stories.So there are two sides to this issue:How media crews treat the traumatized people they cover, and how covering these events affects the media crews.Dr Cait McMahon, OAM, is a psychologist who was the founding managing director of the Dart Center for Trauma and Journalism, Asia-Pacific, from its inception in 2003 until her retirement in 2021.In 2016 she was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia for her work with journalists and trauma.This special episode is the first of a new series of Deep-Dive conversations, released alongside the weekly Truth, Lies and Media Podcast episodes. Join us each Wednesday for chats with Nicole and Denis, and keep an eye on this RSS feed for future deep dive episodes. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.