ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the “theory of balance” to ensure journalists maintain equilibrium, aims to understand how newsrooms operate and why news is changing, and presents case studies of best and worst practice. Journalists are at risk of traumatic stress or post-traumatic stress disorder because they are on the “front-line” just like police or fire-fighters, yet they are seldom debriefed or offered counselling. Trauma reporting can affect a number of people within a society. Journalists have to learn how to attain balance when dealing with trauma. Three sub-categories have emerged as the necessary steps to attaining balance: being “professional”, confronting emotions and learning the rules of the newsroom. Newsroom culture is “enforced” by norms, rules, routines, and shared values of journalists and editors. Norms, rules, routines, and values repeated over time constitute a group’s ideology. Journalists’ professional discourse drives the discussion of everyday work and experiences, which creates and maintains their “community”.
