TY  - JOUR
PY  - 2015//
TI  - Ethical dilemmas, work-related guilt, and posttraumatic stress reactions of news journalists covering the terror attack in Norway in 2011
JO  - Journal of Traumatic Stress
A1  - Backholm, Klas
A1  - Idås, Trond
SP  - 142
EP  - 148
VL  - 28
IS  - 2
N2  - News journalists working on crisis-related assignments may experience dilemmas with regard to how to conduct their work without causing additional harm to first-hand victims. In this study, we investigated how exposure to journalistic ethical dilemmas during the Oslo/Utøya terror attack in 2011 and subsequent work-related guilt were related to the development of posttraumatic stress (PTS) reactions. Norwegian journalists (N = 371) covering the terror attack participated in a web-based survey 8-9 months after the incident. We found that females reported more ethical dilemmas during the assignment than males (n = 356, d = 0.51). We also found that being on the scene was not related to more exposure to dilemmas (n = 311, d = 0.01). Moreover, we discovered that work-related guilt had a significant indirect effect on the relationship between exposure to ethical dilemmas and severity of PTS reactions (n = 344, completely standardized indirect effect size =.11, 95% CI [.04,.19]. The results showed that exposure to ethical dilemmas may affect the development of long-term psychological impairment. We concluded that media organizations can prevent postcrisis impairment by preparing employees for possible exposure to dilemmas during crisis-related assignments.<p />  <p>Language: en</p>
LA  - en
SN  - 0894-9867
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/jts.22001
ID  - ref1
ER  -