Posted on: Wednesday, October 30, Freelance journalist Tania Rashid says covering human tragedies can take a psychological toll on reporters who face human misery day-after-day. She says it is immensely distressing to see people suffering, through no fault of their own, simply because of their race or ethnicity. Her reporting of the trials, tribulations and turmoils of the refugees has led to stories about terrible living conditions, lack of food, rape, abuse and sex trafficking.
She even went undercover to report how Rohingya young girls are recruited to work in brothels. Rashid says that witnessing such immense human tragedy forces her, as a reporter, to sometimes reach out with help for the subjects of her stories.
She cannot just remain a passive observer. She also says that covering these types of stories of human carnage and degradation forces her constantly to examine her journalistic ethics. She is acutely aware sometimes of protecting the identity of her sources to prevent them from suffering further abuse because of talking with a reporter.
Rashid becomes infuriated with journalism colleagues who do not protect victims that they report about and sometimes cavalierly disclose names and faces of those who may suffer more abuse for telling their stories.
