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Emotions and Journalism Conference 17th January |
Emotions and Journalism Conference
A conference on Emotions and Journalism was held by Bournemouth University in collaboration with the Dart Centre for Journalism and Trauma, on the 10th of January, at City University in London.
With a focus on training journalists and programme makers to work effectively in emotionally challenging situations, the conference was the culmination of a 15-month joint research project between Bournemouth University and the Dart Centre. The project investigated how journalists and filmmakers in the UK are, and should be, trained to deal with sensitive and potentially traumatic material. Bringing together leading journalists, educators and psychology professionals, key presentations considered how journalists and programme makers might be trained to handle the reporting and portrayal of trauma and other emotionally involving situations:
"As journalists we tend to become so focused on the questions we are asking that we often forget to listen properly," said Gavin Rees of Bournemouth University, who has been involved with the research. "Often we miss the subtext what people are really telling us. When working with interviewees who have been affected by trauma that kind of emotionally unaware approach breaks down quickly. People can sense that they are not being listened to, get angry and clam up. The exercises we have been doing with students put them in a situation where they clearly see why they need to up their skills."
Speakers at the conference included Allan Little, Special Correspondent for BBC News, Derek Draper, psychotherapist and former Labour advisor, Edward Stourton, Presenter on BBC News, Barry Richards, Deputy Dean for Research and Enterprise for The Media School at Bournemouth University and Jean Seaton, Professor of Communications and Media History, Westminster University, among many others.
Following a series of panels on emotions in particular contexts (war reporting, interviewing and online journalism), delegates returned to the project aim of identifying how to take an emotional literacy agenda forward in training and support for journalists. The discussions will feed into the reports being prepared by the research team.
"It was an exciting event, which succeeded in bringing together an array of informed perspectives on a shared set of issues. The ensuing discussion was lively and perceptive, and certain to facilitate further initiatives in the worlds of journalism and journalism research alike," said Stuart Allan, who spoke at the conference.
"This is hugely valuable research and establishes the Media School at the forefront of modern thinking about how journalists should go about covering a world in which disaster and trauma seem to be increasingly the order of the day," said Stephen Jukes, Dean of The Media School at Bournemouth University.
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