Psychological Safety in Wartime: A Journalist's Reckoning - Jordan News

Jordan News

2 days ago

It might seem nearly impossible to lie down and close your eyes in hopes of escaping the brutal psychological impact of war—a war that crushes lives through starvation and relentless dehumanization. اضافة اعلان I teach journalism students in both Amman and Gaza, guiding them on how to protect their mental well‑being while covering conflict. I share a personal story with them, hoping to spare them a similar emotional descent. One day in 2005, my father and I arrived at the ticket window of a cinema in the Al-Seef complex in Bahrain. We quickly scanned the movie posters, and he pointed to Munich, saying, 'That German city is charming—let's watch that.' A handful of viewers gathered in the theater, including a few Arabs who left as soon as they realized the film's theme. In the opening minutes, Palestinian characters in Munich infiltrated the dormitory of the Israeli Olympic team, demanding the release of Palestinian prisoners. In retaliation, Israeli forces hunted and assassinated members of the Palestine Liberation Organization across various capitals—accusing them of planning the Munich attack, a claim never substantiated, even by Israeli admissions. After watching Munich, my entire focus changed. I met relatives of those Palestinian figures who had been assassinated, documenting their stories as much as I could. I dove into research on key figures in the Palestinian resistance, aided by the late, great Therese Helse. I compiled numerous reports on the Nakba and the Naksa, conducting interviews with Palestinian politicians, artists, and intellectuals. In that immersion, no one told me about "psychological safety for journalists"—the idea that a reporter must create an invisible barrier to prevent the tragedy they cover from seeping into their heart. Techniques include training yourself to avoid emotional contagion, preserving distance between you and your subjects, refraining from building personal relationships with them after reporting, not exchanging personal contact information, and avoiding any promises of help. In essence, you do your work like a surgeon performing an operation: you care for the patient without diving into their personal grief, and you don't promise to fix every problem from their heart condition to their daughter's failed marriage. These guidelines may sound rigid, but they're crucial for a journalist's longevity and emotional survival. I often tell students about the first time I realized I had crossed an emotional boundary—around 2008. That was three years after watching Munich, and after diving deeply into reporting about the Palestinian cause. I was then a journalist at Al-Ghad newspaper, preparing a series of reports on the 60th anniversary of the Nakba that spanned two months. The most harrowing episode was interviewing survivors of the Deir Yassin massacre, published on May 15, Nakba Day. Every day for two months, I received the survivors' testimonies from various Palestinian villages. I interviewed leaders from the Holy Jihad movement, including the late Bahjat Abu Ghraibeh, spending long hours in their presence. Yet somehow, I didn't realize the emotional toll—until the day Deir Yassin's episode published. I broke into sobbing, as though Palestine had just fallen again. I'm not sure how much psychological safety one can truly build—particularly for an Arab, in Palestine or beyond—amid a tragedy that seems endless. Sometimes instructors give guidance they themselves struggle to follow. And yet a maternal instinct compels me to protect younger students from the emotional pitfalls I experienced.
My students are perceptive—I saw it in their eyes the morning I eulogized journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, soon after her assassination. I cried while speaking about her. In their silence, I sensed their unasked question: 'What about the journalist's psychological safety?' But my dear students, I still don't know how to adequately answer that.