Don't neglect your desks

From this month's Common Sense Journalism column:

You can't help but stand in awe of the dedication and Herculean efforts that newsrooms across the Gulf Coast have put forth amid the devastation of Hurricane Katrina and the onrushing Hurricane Rita.

Yet even if your newsroom is in Boise, not Biloxi, or New Hampshire, not New Orleans, the stress and emotional distress can be just as telling, especially among those on your photo and copy desks dealing with the thousands of words and photos detailing the horrors and the hopes.

"You need to be taking steps to help people and not wait for that moment when someone goes, 'Oh my god, it's too much,'" said Ray Cox, director of editing and presentation at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Roger Simpson, executive director of the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma at the University of Washington, calls it "the most neglected part of caring for news staffs, either the people who are looking at the pictures or all the copy."

Read more ...