News Team Boulder

Issue date: 2/12/08 Section: News

Media Credit: Megan Rose

The University of Colorado is trying a new workshop to give journalism students experience in traumatic events. Journalists who cover tragedies often experience personal dilemmas when interviewing victims and families, who often respond with pure emotion. CU's one-credit class offers students an opportunity to practice difficult interviews with student actors.

Shannon Preston, a CU journalism student, learned a better way to get information from tough interviews during the workshop. "It's hard, it's hard to deal with all these different emotions and still compose yourself as a journalist," said Preston. "The people who were over the top emotional were hard not to reach out to and be their friend."

Amy Herdy, a former investigative reporter at 9news in Denver, is now a teacher at the CU school of journalism. She came up with the idea for a workshop that uses actors to simulate what it's like to interview trauma victims.

This is CU's first time using theater students to give journalism majors great hands-on experience. Yesterday, the theater group acted out the aftermath of an apartment fire. The student journalists went to different characters to practice their interviewing skills. Some of the acting was quite convincing, giving a real sense of loss and pain.

"[The journalists] did an amazing job I felt and I think this is a really good tool they can use in actually going out in certain situations, even ones like this," said Eme Ikwuakar, a senior theater student.

The workshop aims to prepare future journalists to approach any situation ethically and compassionately. It may be impossible to be prepared to cover tragedies such as Columbine and Virginia Tech, but said that this class was a huge step toward learning how to be more compassionate.

Watch the Video

Page 1 of 1

Article Tools