Reporting on death and suffering has damaged the health and careers of a number of veteran journalists.
This is the fourth story in this series. Read the first here, the second here, and the third here.
Sally Sara (ABC): Sara covered suicide bombings, terrorist attacks and hospitals full to overflowing during her time in Afghanistan. She did most of it on her own, handling the filming, sound recording and interviewing — usually a job for three people.
Philip Williams (ABC): Williams says he was badly affected by the 2004 Beslan school siege in Russia, in which 300 people, mostly children, were brutally murdered by Chechen separatists. “I did have a form of PTSD, which my family recognised more than I did,” he wrote. “I was isolating myself and short-tempered and it took me a couple of years to get through it.”
Read more about the Australian journalists who have suffered PTSD…
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