Roger Simpson was the founding director of the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma at the University of Washington and is on the faculty of the Department of Communication, where he is the Dart Professor of Journalism and Trauma.  He has co-authored two books on Pacific Northwest social and labor history, and has been a reporter for The Wall Street Journal and The Detroit Free Press.

William Coté is emeritus professor of journalism at Michigan State University, where he was the coordinator of the Victims and the Media Program.  For almost twenty years he was a professional journalist at the Ypsilanti Press and Booth Newspapers State Capitol Bureau.

“We had been newspaper reporters and had covered a wide range of news events, but we matured as journalists without knowing much about what the victims in our stories truly experienced,” Roger Simpson and William Coté write in the preface to the second edition of this comprehensive guide to how to cover violence, report on victims with respect, and recognize the effects of emotional injury on both journalists and those they cover.

The new edition reflects on the events that have commanded media attention in recent years, the Columbine High School shootings, the 2004 tsunami, Gulf hurricanes, 9-11, and the Iraq war while keeping a sharp focus on the forms of violence that journalists in any community must face regularly -- interpersonal cruelty, traffic deaths and injuries, and natural disasters.

The book includes special profiles of nine journalists and examples of their reporting or photography. The profiles, written by Migael Scherer, a Seattle educator, and John Harris, a journalism professor at Western Washington University, include Sonia Nazario, a Pulitzer-winning reporter for the Los Angeles Times; Fletcher Johnson, photographer for ABC News; Jane Hansen, an Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporter specializing in children’s issues; Marley Shebala, reporter for the Navajo Times; Anh Do, a journalist with the Orange County Register; Sharon Schmickle, who reported from Iraq for the Minneapolis Star-Tribune; New York Daily News photographer David Handschuh; Debra McKinney, a social-concerns reporter for the Anchorage Daily News, and Scott North, a courts reporter for The Herald in Everett, Washington.

The book presents innovative ways of interviewing and photographing survivors of violence and helps journalists understand the effects of frequent exposure to traumatic events on their own lives.  The authors relate journalistic practices to the rapidly expanding body of literature on trauma, and draw on the insights of clinical experts.

A new chapter of Guidelines for Journalists Who Cover Violence and suggestions for training news staffs or journalism students give the book value in newsrooms and college classrooms.

“Since 9-11, write Simpson and Coté, we have witnessed a renewed commitment to sensitive, insightful reporting about trauma.  We want to see more news that conveys in ethical words and images the experience of people who suffer harm.  We have been moved to write these chapters because so many journalists we know express the same hope.”

The Journalists

The new Second Edition of Covering Violence adds profiles of seven new photojournalists and reporters, and samples of their work, to the profiles of reporters Scott North and Debra McKinney retained from the First Edition. The profiles were written by Migael Scherer, a Seattle educator, and John Harris, a professor of journalism at Western Washington University in Bellingham..

Sharon Schmickle

"Sharon Schmickle wasn't sure what she would write about when she arrived in Kuwait in February 2003. She was there as a war correspondent for the Minneapolis Star Tribune, but she'd never covered a war."

David Handschuh

David Handschuh "was headed to New York University that morning to teach a photojournalism class and, as always, had the police and fire radios chattering away in his car. He spotted smoke billowing into the blue sky above Lower Manhattan, and a moment later a fire dispatcher yelled for all available apparatus to head downtown."

Marley Shebala

"Marley Shebala's Navajo Times colleague showed her a photograph he had taken of a blood-soaked mop at the scene of a domestic dispute. A man had beaten his wife and then ordered their teen-age son to mop up the blood."

Anh Do

"A video-store owner displayed a communist flag and a portrait of Ho Chi Minh in his shop in Orange County, California's 'Little Saigon' in 1999. Intended as a gesture of support for better relations with the Vietnamese government, the display sparked daily demonstrations by hundreds of Vietnamese Americans, and the shop owner was hospitalized after protesters attacked him. The scope and fury of the response surprised many in Orange County, but Anh Do, a reporter for the Orange County Register, understood what lay behind it."

Sonia Nazario

"'One of the things I do as a reporter is emphathize,' explains Sonia Nazario of the Los Angeles Times. 'It helps me to get inside their heads.' For her Pulitzer Prize series, 'Enrique's Journey,' her empathy went beyond sensitive questions, careful listening, and sharing control. In order to write about the dangerous journey made by thousands of Central American children desperate to enter the United States in order to reunite with their mothers, she joined them."

Fletcher Johnson

"Fletcher Johnson has seen his share of violence and trauma in twenty years as a news photographer for ABC News. He covered the second intifada in the Middle East, the war in Kosovo, and the war in Iraq. He points to two assignments early in his career that left an indelible impression on him and helped prepare him for the stories he later would cover."

Jane O. Hansen

"In January 2001 readers of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution opened their Sunday paper to the front-page story written by Jane O. Hansen, "Selling Atlanta's Children." As the deck bluntly explained, 'Runaway girls lured into the sex trade are being jailed for crimes while their adult pimps go free.' The photo, placed prominently above the fold, was stunning and unforgettable: the shackled ankles of a ten-year-old girl."

Debra McKinney

"Getting on with their lives. Putting the pieces back together again. With 'Malignant Memories,' Anchorage Daily News reporter Debra McKinney transcends these clichés to give readers an honest look at recovery from childhood sexual abuse."

Scott North

"'A murder is an important part of a community's history,' says Scott North of the Herald in Everett, Washington. 'Putting it and the life that was taken into context requires time.'"