The issue of trauma in journalism has never been more urgent. As conflicts intensify and the risks to reporters grow, newsrooms and training institutions are increasingly recognizing the need for trauma-informed reporting — not only to better center victims and survivors, but also to protect journalists themselves.
This has been the deadliest year for journalists since the Committee to Protect Journalists began tracking fatalities. In response, more reporters are receiving preparation in covering war and human suffering with care, as well as access to trauma support when the work takes its toll. Organizations like the Journalist Trauma Support Network are part of a growing effort to ensure journalists are not left to carry these burdens alone.
Against that backdrop, I was interviewed for this piece — a conversation that begins with an unexpected introduction through the work of a French student, and opens onto a larger discussion about reporting, responsibility, and resilience in an increasingly perilous profession.
This following story focuses on journalist trauma. If you or someone you know is looking for support, please visit jtsn.org.
–Storer Rowley
by Violette Bardouil, 31 Oct 2025
Storer Rowley, former foreign correspondent and professor at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, has spent decades reporting from some of the world’s most dangerous conflict zones. From Central America to the besieged streets of Sarajevo and the volatile Middle East, he has witnessed history unfold under fire.
©Storer Rowley on Marshall Tito Street in war-torn Sarajevo covering the bloody, brutal war in Bosnia as the former Yugoslavia disintegrated, 1992.
Covering wars, he explains, has always depended as much on the experience of others as on courage itself. “The main way you cover a war is to go and talk to the reporters who have been there before you,” he said. In the past, few journalists received formal safety training. Real preparation came through camaraderie, swapping tips with returning correspondents, learning which areas were safe and understanding how to move through danger. Those lessons often meant the difference between life and death.
Telling Stories That Matter
For Rowley, taking risks was never the goal but an unavoidable part of telling the truth. “The only protection you have is this : I’m here to tell your story,” he explains, a conviction that guided him through more than a dozen wars. During the siege of Sarajevo in the 1990s, he and a colleague faced daily shelling and chaos in a city under siege. If journalists hadn’t been there, Rowley believes, “those people would’ve died in darkness and that’s why it matters.”
Empathy lies at the center of good reporting. “Your generation of journalists is more attuned to empathy, it’s how you get people to trust you, to tell you what matters.” Yet, Rowley knows empathy brings its own dilemmas. Reporting on a mother in Gaza who had just lost her sons, he asked himself, “Was I exploiting her ? Maybe. But if we don’t tell their stories, who will ?” Such moments define the emotional cost of war journalism, the tension between witnessing suffering and respecting it.
Integrity and accuracy, he insists, are equally vital. “You have to tell the truth, do evidence-based reporting. If one side is lying, you call it out. That comes with a cost. But it’s the only way to be an honest reporter with integrity.” To him, courage means more than surviving danger, it’s about maintaining fairness and discipline even when truth is inconvenient or risky.
A Changing Landscape
The profession itself, however, is changing. “Something like 40% of young Americans get their news from TikTok and YouTube,” Rowley observes. Today’s journalists must adapt to a digital audience, learning not only to report accurately but also to understand how people consume stories online. Mastery of social media, video storytelling and personal branding now complements traditional skills like interviewing and fact-checking. “The goal for a young journalist,” he explains, “is to figure out where the audience is, how you like to tell stories and how your audience wants to receive them.” Adaptability, once a tool for survival in war zones, has become essential in the new media landscape.
War reporting, Rowley reminds, is not for everyone.
It is terrifying, heartbreaking, and sometimes deadly. “The skin would peel from my palms on the plane over because I was so terrified,” he recalled. “But the only thing I feared more than dying was not having what it took to do my job.” For those willing to face this, foreign correspondence offers a rare privilege : to witness events that matter, tell the stories that might otherwise remain untold and give voice to people living in darkness.
Even as the tools of journalism evolve, Rowley believes the principles remain unchanged : integrity, empathy, and courage. “War is the most important story in some ways, it tells us about ourselves,” he concludes. “But you can also make a difference. Get out there and tell the stories that show the best values of people.”