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The Dart Centre for Journalism
and Trauma is a global network of journalists,
journalism educators and health professionals dedicated to improving
media coverage of trauma, conflict and tragedy. The Centre also addresses
the consequences of such coverage for those working in journalism.
Its mission is to:
- Advocate ethical and thorough reporting of trauma;
sensitive, professional treatment of victims and survivors
by journalists, and greater
awareness by media organizations of the impact of trauma
coverage on both news professionals
and news consumers.
- Educate working journalists about the
science and psychology of trauma and the implications for
news coverage through this website, academic
research, seminars, workshops and training.
- Serve as a forum for print,
broadcast and Internet journalists to analyse issues, exchange
ideas and advance strategies related to
reporting on violence and catastrophic stress. We also create and sustain
partnerships among
media
professionals, therapists and others concerned with trauma,
and
nurture peer-support among working journalists.
Key figures in the Centre are:
- Professor Frank Ochberg, a senior psychiatrist
with a long interest in journalism and the impact of violence
and trauma, who helped
establish the
Dart Centre. His CV reveals a long and interesting career. Read A Kurdish Afternoon - an article written about the Kurdish living in Istanbul.
- Bruce Shapiro, the Centre’s executive director,
a journalist and academic who has written about his
own experiences as the victim of a
random stabbing
(and is also a regular guest of Phillip Adams on Radio National).
- Cait McMahon, the director of the Australasian
arm of Dart. A psychologist who has previously worked as
a counsellor at The Age, she is
researching the impact of work-related trauma upon journalists, including whether
it can precipitate personal growth.
Each year, the Dart Centre funds a fellowship scheme to bring
together journalists from around the world to examine media coverage
of
violence and
trauma. It was largely my work on Inside Madness which inspired
my application for the
Dart
Centre
Ochberg
Fellowship.
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