Daring To Feel: Violence, The News Media, And Their Emotions

Daring to Feel Daring to Feel Violence, the News Media, and Their Emotions Jody Santos Lexington Books A division of ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD PUBLISHERS, INC. Lanham • Boulder • New York • Toronto • Plymouth, UK Published by Lexington Books A division of Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. A wholly owned subsidiary of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706 www.lexingtonbooks.com Estover Road, Plymouth PL6 7PY, United Kingdom Copyright © 2009 by Lexington Books First paperback edition 2010 The author and publisher gratefully acknowledge permission for use of the following sources: Extracts from Emotionally Involved: The Impact of Researching Rape by Rebecca Campbell, published in 2002 by Routledge, reprinted with permission. Extracts from Dangerous Lives: War and the Men and Women Who Report It by Anthony Feinstein, published in 2003 by Thomas Allen Publishers, reprinted with permission. The poems “Lens” and “Widow and Child” by Beth Murphy, reprinted with permission. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data The hardback edition of this book was previously catalogued by the Library of Congress as follows: Santos, Jody, 1966Daring to feel : violence, the news media, and their emotions / Jody Santos. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Violence—Press coverage. 2. Violence in mass media. 3. Journalism—Objectivity. 4. Journalists—Mental health. 5. Journalism—Psychological aspects. I. Title. PN4784.V56S26 2009 070.4’493036—dc22 2009034701 ISBN 978-0-7391-2529-8 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN 978-0-7391-2530-4(pbk. : alk. paper) ™ The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992. Printed in the United States of America. For August n Contents Acknowledgments ix Preface xi 1 Stuck in Neutral: Violence and the News Media’s Objective Mandate 1 2 Getting Engaged: The History of Emotional Reporting 15 3 From the Heart: The Benefits of Being Emotionally Invested 33 4 It’s Personal: Gender, Medium, and More 47 5 Feeling the Pain: The Emotional Risks of Covering Violence 59 6 Road to Recovery: Finding New Ways to Talk About—and Heal from—Violence 71 Bibliography 83 Index 87 About the Author 91 vii n Acknowledgments T his book has been so many years in the making that I have changed careers, had a child (my true labor of love), and moved twice since I first had the idea to explore the issue of emotions in journalism. I have many people to thank for giving me hope and confidence when I had neither and for letting me know that I was saying something when all I saw was a jumble of words on the page. Without their feedback and faith in my talents, I certainly would have given up long ago. They made me feel less alone in what, at times, was a very lonely process. First, thanks to Deb Cohan, whose course on interpersonal violence at Northeastern University gave me the inspiration for this book. To Jim Ross and Alan Schroeder, two of my journalism professors at Northeastern, I owe a special thanks. They read very early drafts of this manuscript a