Events

What shape does journalism take in the aftermath of conflict?

After the day-to-day reporting on war is over, new challenges and grave responsibilities emerge, from relaying the steps of postwar accountability and peace processes to unveiling the realities of social trauma and recovery.

Please join us for a moderated panel on the complex landscape of post-conflict reporting, addressing critical issues faced by journalists in these circumstances where issues of reconciliation, rebuilding, and the enduring impact on communities require careful and ethical reporting.

This is the first in the four-part series, After War: Learning from Past Conflicts. 

Moderated by Bruce Shapiro, executive director of the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma, a project of Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism encouraging innovative reporting on violence, conflict and tragedy worldwide. An award-winning reporter on human rights, criminal justice and politics, Shapiro is a contributing editor at The Nation and U.S. correspondent for Late Night Live on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s Radio National. He is Adjunct Professor and Senior Advisor for Academic Affairs at Columbia, where he teaches journalism ethics. His books include Shaking the Foundations: 200 Years of Investigative Journalism in America and Legal Lynching: The Death Penalty and America's Future. Shapiro is recipient of the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies Public Advocacy Award for "outstanding and fundamental contributions to the social understanding of trauma." He is a founding board member of the Global Investigative Journalism Network.

Panelists:

Nora Boustany is an award-winning correspondent and news columnist who has covered Lebanon’s war, Desert Storm, the upheavals in Gaza and Algeria among many others. She brings to life the lesson she has learned from the stories of others and the strength of human nature. She teaches journalism at the Department of Sociology, Anthropology and Media Studies at the American University of Beirut. A triple nominee for the Pulitzer Prize and a one-time finalist for her coverage of the Lebanon war, she worked for The Washington Post for 30 years. Her special focus on the suffering of civilians in conflict, the disintegration of communities and the plight of refugees has won her several awards including the George Polk Award for foreign reporting, the Society of Professional Journalists Sigma Delta Chi Award and Bronze Medal for foreign correspondence.

Janine Di Giovanni is the CEO/executive director, The Reckoning Project. She has worked for over 30 years as a human rights reporter and investigator in conflict zones in the Balkans, Africa, and the Middle East. She is the recipient of nearly a dozen journalistic awards, including two Amnesty International Awards and the National Magazine Award, and in 2020, The American Academy of Arts and Letters awarded her their highest prize for non-fiction, the Blake Dodd, for her lifetime body of work. Di Giovanni is a Andi and Tom Bernstein Human Rights Fellow at Yale Law School Schell Center for Human Rights. She was previously a Visiting Fellow at the SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University, a Senior Fellow at the Yale Jackson School for Global Affairs, and a 2019 Guggenheim Fellow in Non-Fiction.

Dr. Elana Newman is McFarlin Professor of Psychology at the University of Tulsa, and research director of the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma. Her research examines the occupational health of journalists who cover trauma, and the effects of journalistic practices upon consumers and sources. She provides training to journalists and documentary film makers about trauma science, interviewing survivors, self-care, resilience, interpersonal violence, disaster mental health, and trauma-related newsroom practices.  Newman co-directed the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma’s first satellite office in NYC after 9-11. She often consults to journalists who are struggling with trauma-related ethical issues in news coverage. Newman has overseen the development of a bibliographic database about journalism and trauma to aid teachers and scholars in identifying information about trauma and journalism. In her role as Research Director and one of the co-founders of the Dart Center, Newman provides trauma expertise and intellectual guidance to various projects in the Center. Newman is a past president of the International Society of Traumatic Stress Studies.

This discussion is co-sponsored by the Dart Center and Columbia Global Centers | Amman, in partnership with the American University of Beirut | Global Engagement Initiative. This event is the first of a four-part series called “After War: Learning from Past Conflicts” that will take place from February to June 2024 both in-person and online.