Journalists who cover traumatic events such as violent crimes, horrific accidents, natural disasters and other situations involving human pain and suffering are often required to approach and interview trauma victims or their family members. However, the skills needed to interact with trauma victims do not always come naturally.
This self-directed course will teach you how traumatic stress affects victims and how to interview trauma victims with compassion and respect.
And, this life-and-death pain and suffering doesn’t affect only the victims; it can affect you, too. This course teaches you how to take care of your own health after covering a traumatic event.
Without knowledge about traumatic stress and proper training in how to interact with potentially traumatized people, journalists may find their interviews to be awkward and uncomfortable. Interviewing and writing about traumatized people professionally and accurately requires a degree of skill and insight. In this course you’ll learn about traumatic stress, explore why journalists should know about its effects, and examine how covering traumatic events affects journalists.
Questions?
We’d love to hear from you. Email us at info@poynter.org.