ABSTRACT
Compassion fatigue can occur after a brief period of reporting or after an extended period. Compassion fatigue is typically triggered by audiences' belief that they themselves are helpless in the face of the trauma described trauma often graphically depicted via photographs and videos. Compassion fatigue does not describe what is happening when audiences turn away from explicit images out of revulsion for the horror shown. Compassion fatigue occurs when a reader's or viewer's emotions are deeply engaged by a tragedy, but there appears to be no easy or meaningful contribution that the individual can make in response to the news of tragedy no five dollar contribution, no vote, no online petition will fix the problem. Compassion fatigue is essentially a response to emotions on "overload." People respond to that overload by shutting down all that troublesome input, by turning away from the news.
