“Trauma-informed journalism means understanding trauma, understanding what a trauma survivor is experiencing before you show up at their door, and understanding how your actions [as a journalist] will impact them after you pack up and leave. It’s also about creating safe and predictable spaces. It’s about forgetting all the rules that we usually abide by… and recognizing that when it comes to trauma, we need to be treating our interview subjects differently.” – Author, consultant, and former crime reporter Tamara Cherry
**Content advisory of workplace stress and trauma, as well as violence and tragedy.
Explore the profound impact of trauma-informed journalism -- an innovative approach to news reporting and media interviews. From rewriting narratives to creating safe spaces, we discuss strategies and tactics that redefine the way we approach storytelling. Discover how trauma-informed approaches, backed by the latest scientific evidence, not only builds transformational resilience but can also lead to more accurate stories while safeguarding survivors from retraumatization. Join us on a journey that fundamentally shifts the paradigm from viewing 'victims' to 'survivors,' emphasizing empathy, transparency, and choice at every stage of the process.
Our guest Tamara Cherry is an award-winning journalist, trauma researcher, and communications consultant who spent nearly 15 years of her career as a crime reporter for the Toronto Star, Toronto Sun, and CTV News Toronto. Tamara’s latest book, The Trauma Beat: A Case for Re-Thinking the Business of Bad News, was described in a Quill & Quire starred review as “a stunning work that should be required reading for journalism students, news reporters, true crime junkies, and anyone who wants to write narratives that heal, instead of harm.”
Highly regarded in the survivor support community, Tamara assisted in developing the Victimology program at Durham College, east of Toronto, where she created and taught the Victims and the Impact of the Media course for several years. She has routinely aided in the media training of police officers across Ontario and has been called upon as an expert presenter on the topic of human trafficking for police officers, Crown attorneys, and front-line service providers. Members of the media frequently turn to Tamara to comment on stories involving trauma, and she is a regular commentator and host across the iHeartRadio Talk Network.
#TransformTrauma is a Campaign for Trauma-Informed Policy and Practice (CTIPP) podcast. Through coalition-building, advocacy, and policymaking, we’re building a national movement that integrates community-led, trauma-informed, resilience-focused, and healing-centered prevention and intervention across all sectors and generations. Learn more at CTIPP.org.