Most Journalists Don't Die Doing Their Jobs

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Most Journalists Don't Die Doing Their Job,

Yet They Frequently Suffer Dozens of Deaths

By Dean Rotbart

They taught me many fine things at the two journalism schools I attended, Northwestern University and Columbia University. But back then, there was not and probably still isn't any major journalism school that offers a course in grief. There should be.

The life of a journalist, much like firefighters, police officers, paramedics, surgeons and soldiers is one that is often touched by the suffering and passing of others. Sometimes, the pain hits particularly close to home, as it has recently with the kidnapping and brutal murder of The Wall Street Journal's Danny Pearl.

More often, journalists are faced with the losses and grieving of complete strangers, yet the images and impact can endure a lifetime.

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I reported on my first suicide as a junior in college. One frosty Chicago evening, a coed who lived in my dormitory asphyxiated herself in the parking lot outside our quad, leaving a tear-soaked goodbye note to her parents who struggled to make a living in one of the city's blue collar neighborhoods.

Jane was scarcely 20 years old when she snuffed out her own life. She also changed my life, forever.

I was an A student at the Medill School of Journalism. I was aching to be a broadcast journalist and in Jane's death I saw the seeds of a good story.

Even before she plugged her exhaust pipe so that the fumes of her station wagon would fill her car, and eventually her lungs, I had contacted the PBS affiliate in Chicago, WTTW-TV, with a proposal for a documentary on college suicides.

While Jane was the first student at Northwestern who I personally knew who killed herself, I was aware of several others who had also tried or succeeded. The university, when it could, labeled these sudden departures, "accidents."

On the night of Jane's death, as her body still steamed in the driver's seat, I phoned the producer at WTTW and told him to rush a camera crew to the scene. It arrived on time to capture the tow truck carting away Jane's four-wheeled tomb.

At this point, I was still chasing a good story. The human toll hadn't sunk in.

That didn't happen until the next day when we arrived at Jane's modest brick home to interview her broken parents. We genuinely believed that our documentary, which would eventually air on PBS in 1978 as "College Can Be Killing," would save other young lives. So, perhaps, we can be forgiven for our callousness in thrusting our way into the bruised world of Jane's family.

In my mind's eye, I can still picture Jane's father and mother, looking so small and hurt sitting on their living room sofa, as we invaded their modest home. In those days, documentaries were still shot on 16mm film. We came calling with a crew of five people: the producer, a photographer, a sound person, a lights person and me.

We schlepped in film cartridges, tripods, light umbrellas, microphones, chords, batteries, masking tape, and even a storyboard.

"College suicide, take one" CLACK.

Jane's soft-spoken mom had just touchingly recalled the life of her daughter and Jane's love for the piano when the soundman asked her to repeat herself because the audio had been scratchy. Jane's mom did. It was then and there that I made the lifelong decision to switch from broadcasting to print as my journalism major. I would not ever again put a grieving family through that kind of assault by technology.

Almost 25 years later, I still grieve for Jane and her family.

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Journalists, as a whole, don't know how to cope with grief. We are taught, on the job, to detach from our feelings in pursuit of the story and objectivity.

Many of the journalists I've spoken with since Danny Pearl's death in Pakistan have tired to "shake off" the execution. How? By thrusting themselves ever deeper into their work. By reminding themselves that they are professionals and it is unseemly for professionals to let the death of a colleague break their stride for very long.

I've also watched as the remaining U.S. journalists in Pakistan and Afghanistan carry on as they are expected to do. They expect themselves to do it.

The adrenaline rush of breaking news, much like that of a paramedic who comes upon a bloody car accident, allows journalists to write about kidnapped little girls and falling interest rates with much the same professional detachment. It allows them to go on camera and speak about their memories of Danny Pearl as if they were talking about the passing of a CEO they once interviewed.

But grief is a tricky emotion. It can be submerged for months or even years, only to splash to the surface quite a distance and time later when it is least expected.

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Russell Friedman knows the impact that grief can have on professionals. He is one of the cofounders and principals of The Grief Recovery Institute in Sherman Oaks, California. In his books and seminars, Russell notes that unresolved grief is cumulative and cumulatively negative.

Cops, firefighters, paramedics and other such professionals who must face life's harshest elements wind up suffering the highest rates of divorce, spousal abuse and suicide among all professionals. In other words, Grief can be killing.

I phoned Russell shortly after Danny Pearl's death was revealed to ask him how journalists should best cope with their grief and how non-journalists, such as PR people, can and should share their own sense of loss.

"Journalists are just people who happen to have a pen," Russell says, explaining that their professional choice doesn't protect them from the same emotions and behaviors that all grieving people experience.

Much of what Russell and his colleagues John W. James and Eric Cline recommend, is that grieving people find a comfortable way to express their emotions, be it with a group of similarly grieving people or simply with trusted family members and friends.

I wouldn't deign in a brief column like this to try and teach what they have collectively spent more than half a century studying and applying when it comes to grief. Those who want some really great advice should visit their web site at www.grief-recovery.com and order a copy of their book, The Grief Recovery Handbook.

I asked Russell what I might say to a colleague or friend of Danny Pearl's to help bridge that awkward moment of running into someone who was close to Danny.

"Tell the truth about yourself all the time," Russell advised. He suggests a simple but honest, "I can't imagine what this has been like for you," delivered in the tone of a question.

What about PR people and others who regularly pitch journalists? How can they extend their condolences without seeming saccharine in their remarks? "If I were the publicist, I would say, 'I just wanted to personally say my heart goes out to you and the family."

I suggested to Russell that he consider writing a short handbook for journalists on not only coping with their own grief, but better understanding the grief of those who they cover week in and week out. Within days, Russell sent me a draft introduction for just such a workbook.

When it's done, I hope he titles it, "Everything They Should Have Taught You in Journalism School about Grief and the Coverage of It, But Didn't."

Russell, by the way, plans to dedicate the handbook to the memory of Danny Pearl. A most fitting tribute.

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On April 20, 1999, two heavily armed students assaulted their classmates and teachers at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado in the deadliest school-shooting incidence ever in the United States. The bodies of dead, dying and bloodied children were captured by local news crews who rushed to the scene.

I spent thirteen-plus hours in the newsroom of KCNC-TV in Denver, reporting for the Columbia Journalism Review on how the CBS-owned television station reported on the Columbine massacre. Talk about grief.

These were dead kids, neighbors' kids, kids just like those of the news reporters and editors and anchors. The drama I saw unfold was that of a large group of dedicated journalism professionals trying to keep their exploding emotions in check long enough to report the story.

Somehow, these journalists believed, and I think most reporters do, that their efforts could provide some, atomic-size aide to the victims and those who grieved for them. These journalists couldn't make bullets melt or wound heal, but they could do what they knew best, and that was report.

The most touching moment of the entire ordeal came shortly after the station's main 10:00 p.m. evening newscast was underway. Jacque Murphy, the 32-year-old managing editor, had put in a day that could only be described as heroic. Jacque made most of the moment-to-moment calls of what would and would not be covered during the station's uninterrupted news coverage that stretched from early afternoon until late at night. Jacque was one of those in the newsroom who viewed video of the Columbine victims that she and others deemed too gruesome to air, and it never did.

After more than 10 hours at her post, during which I can't recall if Jacque ever did take a bathroom break, the young editor found a moment for a personal phone call. As the horrific scenes of Columbine continued to flash across the TV monitors in front of her, Jacque phoned home to check on her baby sitter and her own children, ages 4 and 2.

Which Colorado parent that night didn't say a prayer of gratitude that their children were safely in bed?

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To contact The Grief Recovery Institute phone 818.907.9600 or visit its web site at www.grief-recovery.com.

March 4, 2002