Post-Traumatic Stress: The Frontline Club, a supporting community to help journalism
- Lison FERNANDES
- 13 mars 2020
- 4 min de lecture
Dernière mise à jour : 12 avr. 2020
Afghanistan, Iraq, Kosovo, Syria, … Like the military, war photo reporter, journalists and also technicians who witness one or several scenes of violence are subject to the risks of a traumatic event. Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is said to affect one in three reporters who covered war atrocities, epidemics or natural disasters.
Silenced for a long time, the state of post-traumatic stress a psychiatric illness, can appear and affect someone at different levels and needs to be taken into account. However, if a prevention policy has been implemented within the armed forces, this is not really the case yet regarding to the press.
Source: Dart Center for Journalism & Trauma - A project of Columbia Journalism School Covering Trauma: Impact on Journalists
It is six in the afternoon when Vaughan Smith enters the Frontline club. As he pushes the heavy black door and climbs the stairs, we follow him upstairs. On the first floor, he enters - on the right - what looks like a large common room where there is an old solid wood bar on the left, as well as several tables and sofas. He sits, back to the cabinet where the memories of fallen war journalists are exposed, facing us. During the 1990s, Vaughan Smith worked as an independent cameraman and video journalist covering wars and conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan, Chechnya, Kosovo and more. As he is sharing some memories, he smiles and explains that he filmed the only uncontrolled footage of the 1991 Gulf War after succeeded to infilter an active-duty unit by disguising himself into a British officer. Although this anecdote if funny, witnessing the conflicts and losing some of his friends led Smith to create what he thinks never existed in London before. “Something that would work for journalists who go abroad”. Indeed, used to cover conflicts he created strong friendships and did not see his friends for a long time. He then realised that when coming back home, there was a problem and something was missing: “A community, a meeting place that would allow us to help each other a little bit more and importantly help journalism,” as he said.
According to him, some governments treated reporters as part of their propaganda which is something “that always happens”. However, it highly participated in creating this insecurity facing their government felt by journalists. “I remember going to Afghanistan with the British Army and to the American Army and the British Army have a tent for the media. They call it “media operations” and what that means to me as I walk in the tent as a journalist is that they’re having an operation where I’m the subject of it. An operation against me, against the Press. It is about using us.”
From a generation of journalists becoming much more aware of the mental stress added to the physical one and out of anger seeing more and more journalists get killed, reports being more and more dangerous - such as his experience in Bosnia - he decided to create a place where everyone could be felt at ease and find some support. Indeed, he strongly believes that “Post-traumatic stress is an interesting thing to understand but if you catch it early you can do a lot to help by associating yourself in a social environment, maybe over a drink, with somebody who understands.”
Photo credit: https://www.frontlineclub.com/
This is how the Frontline Club was founded, in London in 2003. As an independent institution, “The Frontline Club aims and exists to support journalism but has a particular focus for freelance journalism.” Vaughan Smith insists on the fact that the Frontline club wants to defend and protect independent journalism and to promote a better understanding of international news and their coverage.
“To support the journalism that we believe in, journalism of standard, journalism that support the values and the traditions.”
The way he tells his experience sounds as a lesson of life that could captivate your attention for hours. We also can notice that sharing and helping others are aspects of his personality as he continues. Smith strongly thinks that a community of people who do the same thing can be self-supporting in a selfish field. In fact, they were frightened for journalism but have good hopes for freelancing as “journalists are inclined to team up with friends and are supported through friends”. His main goal was to support freelancers particularly with the merging of new media and “to do something to help the upon coming freelance community as it meets the old mainstream industry and merges. I want to ease that transition”. He believes that through collaboration and mutual help, journalism would be less at risk. He wants “to make it easier for freelancers to become the mainstream” and strongly encourages young journalists and freelancers to work and stick together to go further. However, he wants to achieve this goal in a one objective way: “to support the journalism that we believe in, journalism of standard, journalism that support the values and the traditions.”
By listening to him, and seeing the number of people present in the club every day, as well as the comments the Frontline Club receives, we can say it was needed. And Vaughan Smith confirms it once again at the end of our interview: “I’m not a qualified therapist. However, I have been told by qualified mental therapists and individuals that the Frontline Club has been something that has very much helped them and I expect that. That’s what we hope to achieve.”
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