Covering Violence: A Guide to Ethical Reporting About Victims & Trauma

Reporting on violence is one of the most problematic features of journalistic practice-the area most frequently criticized by the public and those on the receiving end of that coverage. Now in its second edition, Covering Violence remains a crucial guide for becoming a sensitive and responsible reporter. Discussing such topics as rape and the ethics of interviewing children, the book gives students and journalists a detailed understanding of what is happening "on the scene" of a violent event, including where a reporter can go safely and legally, how to obtain the most useful information, and how best to interview and photograph victims and witnesses. This second edition takes our turbulent postmillennium history into account and emphasizes the consequences of frequent exposure to traumatic events. It offers new chapters on 9/11 and terrorism, the Columbine school shootings, and the photographing of violent events, as well as additional profiles of Vietnamese American, Native American, and African American journalists.

More essential than ever, Covering Violence connects journalistic practices to the rapidly expanding body of literature on trauma, post-traumatic stress disorder, and secondary traumatic stress, and pays close attention to current medical and political debates concerning victims' rights.

Roger Simpson has been a reporter for The Wall Street Journal and the Detroit Free Press and was the founding director of the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma at the University of Washington. He is the coauthor of Unionism or Hearst: The Seattle Post-Intelligencer Strike of 1936 and An Evening at The Garden of Allah: A Gay Cabaret in Seattle (Columbia).William Coté is emeritus professor of journalism at Michigan State University and the coordinator of the Victims and Media Program. For almost twenty years he was a professional journalist at the Ypsilanti Press and Booth Newspapers State Capitol Bureau. He is the author of numerous scholarly articles and has conducted several seminars on victims and the media as well as traumatic stress.