Self-Care While Covering the Death of Tyre Nichols and Future Cases
Tyre Nichols was murdered by Memphis police on January 7, 2023 about 80 yards from his mother’s house after being pulled over for a routine traffic stop. Nichols’ death was caught on officer body cams and released to the general public just a few days ago, and the brutality he endured has once again sparked nationwide conversations about racial justice and police brutality. Journalists also felt a sense of dread at the release of the video, knowing both that in order to accurately report on it they would need to watch it over and over again, and that their accuracy and tenacity of reporting would not be met kindly—especially by police nationwide, who remain frustrated with scrutiny of the American justice system after the death of George Floyd in 2020.
Self-care during the journalistic process is important. Journalists are called to war zones, to report on major natural disasters that leave hundreds (or even thousands) dead, or to report on acts of domestic terrorism that seem endless in the United States. Brutal acts against other humans are traumatizing to watch and if journalists have to engage with the same topic and watch these acts of violence over and over again, they are endangering their own mental health by doing so.
“After the Jan. 6 insurrection, a video editor told [my wife–a psychotherapist] and me that hours upon hours of editing video of an angry mob left those images burned into his mind,” wrote Al Tompkins for Poynter. “He said he was not sleeping and felt constantly edgy and angry, which was totally out of character for him. We have heard similar stories from producers, photo editors and online editors who watch and edit graphic images over and over, sometimes for days or longer.” Tompkins refers to this as “repetitious injury,” or else, a continuous reopening of emotional scars and wounds left over from the first viewing of the traumatic material.
Tompkins also points to another common journalist plight, this one dubbed “moral Injury.” “Sidney and I often hear journalists who feel a sense of guilt that they are covering people in pain but they, themselves, feel that they are somehow benefitting from the tragedy. They make a living covering tragedy,” he wrote. After the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary in 2012, journalists covering the incident reportedly felt the weight of the events daily, further complicated by the ongoing trauma of the community. It took the entire community working together and finding some sort of guiding light in the grief, according to journalist Mark Herz, for the trauma, guilt and sheer overwhelm that the community felt at suddenly being in the spotlight to begin to heal.
The toll that this story has taken on Black journalists also cannot be understated. “[Tyre Nichols’ video] will be painful not just for all those watching… but also for the Black reporters, editors, producers, photographers, videographers, community managers, etc., covering the story,” wrote Kanya Stewart, the director of communications for the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) in a post on the organization’s website. “They will have to deal with being triggered by past traumatic experiences and stories about police violence while balancing their calling to seek the truth and report it. All while knowing that Tyre could have been their spouse/partner, sibling, child, cousin, or best friend. They will have to stand tall and hold back tears and frustrations in a moment when the world is depending on them to help them understand how these senseless acts of violence continue to happen between police and Black citizens.”
“We implore newsroom leaders to recognize that their Black staff members are more than just journalists and creators in this moment,” Stewart added. “Give them space to grieve, breathe and express themselves during such a devastating time.”
The most important piece of the puzzle is for journalists, individually, to develop an awareness of their thresholds for reporting on things of this nature and take frequent moments to consider what they need in order to feel better. Tompkins recommends completely disengaging from the material for a while: “You must unplug. When you are off work, be off. Take your vacation time. Bosses, stop sending late-night emails unless they are truly urgent.” Over-traumatized and burned out journalists can be of no help to anybody: no help to the community, no help to their newsrooms, and most importantly, no help to themselves.
