Empathy - How to define your career in journalism

When I added digital communication as my second specialisation I met with one of my teachers to see how I could best combine it with journalism. As the teacher spoke about all the new opportunities in the media, he mentioned two words from his own experience that have stayed with me more than anything else we spoke about; the 'death knock'. This is where journalists visit families of the recently deceased in order to write about them. Though it can be part of a reporter’s role, those two words shocked me so much that it shaped my approach to journalism and what I wanted to do with it.

Empathy had changed my mind about journalism.

Working as a reporter in delicate situations requires a great deal of empathy on both professional and personal levels. There is pressure to get a story, but being a good person should always be the first priority. As the Society of Professional Journalists lists in their code of ethics; “Be sensitive when seeking or using interviews or photographs of those affected by tragedy or grief” (2011).

Although working in this area of reporting is not the path I wish to follow in journalism, a similar set of circumstances arose when I was studying in the United States. Throughout the semester, the investigative journalism class I was in would investigate and report on the suicide of 15-year-old Phoebe Prince from the neighbouring town of South Hadley. The case had made national news, and with the media saturation of the story, people were reluctant to talk about such a distressing topic to the press. They were silenced out of grief, as well as fear of having their words distorted. As a group we had to look at things from their perspective, and use compassion and empathy as a skill so that the people who opened up were willing to share their story. I learned a lot from this class, even if the most important aspect was what I don’t like about journalism.

The structure of the class allowed for the students to have work published on a professional news website, and for me personally, this coupled with the challenging nature of the topic has given me some valuable journalism experience. However, Dan Gilmour puts forward an interesting idea on improving journalist empathy – have journalism done to them (2006). He adds that reverse empathy has other advantages, “If it's useful for journalists to have been covered, it might be equally beneficial if the people we cover understood more about the journalism process” (2006). Had this been the used during my time in the United States, the relationship between the people involved in the story and the journalists would have been a great deal smoother.

While I found it difficult to report on such sensitive topics, the field of journalism I wish to pursue is in many ways the embodiment of empathy. 'Gonzo’ journalism is where the writer is embedded within the story – taking empathy to the next level and reporting from a perspective that is at the centre of the topic. By looking at the world through someone else’s perspective, empathy has defined what kind of journalist I want to be, and just as importantly, the one I don’t.

Gillmor, D. 2006, Reverse empathy is a valuable lesson for journalists, bloggers, Haymarket Business Publications Ltd, United Kingdom, New York.

Society of Professional Journalists, 2011, SPJ Code of Ethics, accessed 22/9/2011, http://www.spj.org/ethicscode.asp