Dr. Pradeep Mahapatra
Journalists confront moral injury due to various reasons. Moral injury among journalists is defined as the suffering that results out of failure to satisfy one’s own deeply held moral beliefs and values on journalism. Though ethics in journalism are determined at different platforms, every journalist construct its own ethical frame-work basing upon his or her perspective, ability, training, ideal and environmental compulsions. It differs from person to person. However, search for truth to disseminate, writing for public good and endeavour to secure the status of journalism are some of the universally accepted journalistic approaches every one adheres to. Research findings denote that when the journalists move away from self-acclaimed ethical values due to circumstantial compulsions, they face moral injury which adversely affect their body and mind.
Ethics in journalism is a rarely discussed subject in mass communication landscape. Since a major portion of journalists do not receive remuneration for their work from the publishers of news platforms in our country and otherwise utilise the status of their position to earn livelihood through non-journalistic activities, it is natural for the media owners not to exhibit sensivity to moral conduct of their affiliated journalists. Weak infrastructural facilities available with journalists professional organisations fail to substantially contribute for the welfare of their members. Journalists consider all the adverse impacts arising out of work as usual professional hazards. As a result, journalists fail to recognize the cause of certain abnormalities in their personal life due to moral injury in course of their work.
General examples of moral injury in journalism refers to firstly, situations where journalists witness the ground realities during accidents, conflicts and repressions in course of reporting, come across the sufferings, but fail to help the people in their personal level. Secondly, some times when a news report turns to be a mostly read item, the journalists may confront a sinking feeling that he or she has benefited from the suffering of others. Thirdly, journalists feel bad when after repeated publication on certain problems related to their communities the enforcement agencies fail to take action. Lack of impact push the journalist into uncomfortable situation.
Apart, the journalists are forced to attend to agenda-driven journalism by the publishers and editors of news platforms due to corporate or government pressure. Since journalism thrives upon idealism, journalists get perplexed with such compulsions. Globalization, liberalization and unprecedented progress in information technology was expected to strengthen democracy. However, due to rise of autocratic rule worldwide, freedom of press became the worst sufferer . In onehand, while the journalists struggle to digest the pangs of practice of bad journalism under compulsion, on the otherhand the media consumers accuse the journalists for their partisan approach. As a result, journalists face moral injury.
Journalism is essential for establishment and management of democracy. Delivery of qualitative journalism depends upon journalists. Thus, protection of interests of journalists claim importance. Research findings in the developed nations reveal that moral injury among journalists lead them to depression, substance abuse or burnout. Other hallmarks include anger, shame and cynicism. Problems faced by journalists in the developing nations is more poignant in comparision to developed nations. But lack of research in the developing societies keep psychological status of local newsworkers in dark.
Dr Anthony Feinstein, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Toronto and neuropsychiatrist is a leading researcher on moral injury among journalists. He studied psychological condition of frontline journalists who reported wars in Iraq, Kenya and Syria. His subjects also included reporters who covered 9/11 attack in New York and drug cartels in Mexico. His book Moral Courage : 19 Profiles of Investigative Journalists was published in 2023.
To quantify moral injury among journalists, Feinstein and his team used a scale developed by one of his doctoral students. Military authorities take help of scales to access the psychological condition of solders to suitably deploy them in the war field. Feinstein’s team considered the military scale to built a journalism-specific measurement methodology called the ‘Toronto Moral Injury Scale’. International News Safety Institute organised a major study to judge moral conflict among journalists covering big influx of refugees into Europe during 2016, mostly in Italy and Greece.
Experts in the field describe that firstly, it is difficult to notice moral injury among journalists. People witness morally egregious behaviour in general life and consider moral injury among journalists to be common occurrences. Secondly, journalists are hesitant to openly discuss their mental health challenges. They consider it to be usual professional hazard. Further the fear of being levelled as incompetent or weak-willed in disclosure persist. Thirdly, the effects of moral injury does not limit at the frontline reporters level, but spread to all the newsworkers dealing with reportage such as editing, production and circulation. Fourthly, moral injury among journalists does not result in an uniform pattern. Every person handles trauma differently. Fifthly, moral injury has a cumulative effect. Experts mention that the impact of moral injury in a given situation may depend upon what else they have already endured.
Consultation of psychiatrists is essential for treatment of moral injury among journalists though it is not classified as a mental illness. Generally the counsellors advice that journalism is an act of gathering, writing and circulation of information. When a journalist witnesses sufferings of people due to a calamity, journalist’s job is not to help them physically or materially, but to draw the attention of the community and the society at-large to make real arrangements for their relief.
Understanding moral injury, both by the journalists and the society is the first step toward dealing with it. Professional journalists organisations hold meetings periodically. They can invite a psychiatrist or media expert on the subject to address one of the sessions advising how to keep equilibrium between work and life. Further, higher education institutions engaged in regional journalism can initiate efforts to measure status of moral injury among local journalists. Nature of moral injury among journalists is always questionable as every individual process trauma differently.
(English translation of the original Odia newsletter by the author circulated on March 29, 2024. https://pmjournalism.substack.com/p/11e It is an open-access content, free for translation and reproduction)
Dr. Pradeep Mahapatra is a retired faculty of Journalism, Berhampur University, Odisha.https://about.me/pradeepmahapatra
Reference:
Benkelman, Susan. How moral injury is impacting the news industry and what you can do about it. americanpressinstitute.org/ March 21, 2024