Ep. 027: Gimme Shelter: Questions about Vicarious Trauma from News Consumption

The Dissidents

In this week's podcast, Mike and Elizabeth discuss an article about the responsibility of journalists in reporting, specifically reports about the war in Ukraine. The authors suggest that consumers of the news may be traumatized by seeing 24/7 coverage, perhaps even more traumatized and demoralized than those who are living in a war zone. The description of potential harm and the fragility of readers or viewers is reminiscent of that which is leveraged by some social justice advocates, and the authors narrowly escape a call for censorship.

Podcast notes:

Su, Z., McDonnell, D., Cheshmehzangi, A., Bentley, B. L., Ahmad, J., Šegalo, S., da Veiga, C. P., & Xiang, Y.-T. (2023). Media-induced war trauma amid conflicts in Ukraine. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 18(4), 908–911.

Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics: spj.org/ethicscode.asp

⁠Institute for Liberal Values⁠