Profile: News Bureau Chief

Amanda Meade

As a journalist, Mike Walter was in the right place at the right time.

On September 11, 2001, he was driving to the Washington bureau of USA Today, where he was a senior correspondent, when he saw an American Airlines jet fly into the Pentagon.

As a person, it was the wrong place to be. What he witnessed was to leave him emotionally scarred and suffering from depression, nightmares and post-traumatic stress disorder.

“I was on my way into work and running late and listening to the radio about what had happened in New York,” says Mr Walter in Melbourne, where he is a guest of the Dart Centre for Journalism and Trauma Australasia.

“I was really frustrated because I knew I’d be on the way to New York, but I knew I was late and someone else might get the assignment.

“When I wound down the window I heard the jet and looked up and saw the jet as it dived right into the Pentagon. I kept saying `I can’t believe this’, `I can’t believe this’.”

Mr Walter was no novice. He had won four Emmy awards and had covered many difficult stories, including relief missions in Somalia and Russia, the execution of Oklahoma bomber Timothy McVeigh, and the Northridge earthquake in southern California.

“After it happened I went into reporter mode and pulled over and waited for a photo journalist to show up. A couple of times that day I broke down into tears, and I was surprised by my reaction.”

Eventually, Walter was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder but it wasn’t until he became aware of the Dart Centre for Journalism and Trauma that he found he wasn’t alone.

Walter applied for and was awarded an Ochberg Dart Fellowship in 2005 -a program for journalists interested in improving coverage of violent events.

Australian journalists Garry Tippett from The Age and Lisa Millar and Phil Williams from the ABC have also been Ochberg Dart fellows.

“It was very very helpful to meet like-minded journalists who’d had their own struggles and learn how resilient we were,” Walter says.

“Journalists can be objective, but that doesn’t mean we don’t have feelings and that we can’t be impacted by the stories that we cover.”

Mr Walter met Mr Tippett while he was working on a 2007 Dart project called Target: New Orleans that sent reporters to the Gulf Coast to help with the post-Hurricane Katrina reconstruction.

“I had gone to New Orleans to help on the Target: New Orleans program and I thought it would make a good documentary,” Mr Walter says.

Continuing to work as an anchor and broadcaster during the week, Walter made the film over two years on weekends and holidays.

The documentary, called Breaking News Breaking Down, is about journalists covering trauma.

The 36-minute film, which features three Australian journalists -Tippett, Williams and Nine’s Ian Munro -will be screened on Friday at a free event put on by the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance in collaboration with the Dart Centre at RMIT University in Melbourne.

The screening will be followed by a panel discussion on the media’s role in community recovery following the bushfires.

Mr Walter will be joined on the panel by Nine journalist Brett McLeod and Rob Gordon, a trauma psychologist.

“Often we’re seen as vultures,” he says. “People don’t realise what a toll reporting can take on us.”

For information on the free screening or the Dart Centre call Cait McMahon on 041 913 1947, www.dartcentre.org

For more on the documentary, go to www.breakingnewsbreakingdown.com