Unearthing an Unpleasant Past: Exploring the Psychological Trauma of Journalists Reporting on the Gukurahundi Genocide
摘要
Gukurahundi remains a dark past in Zimbabwean history, which still anchors tribal and ethnic hatred between the Shona and Ndebele ethnic groups. While mediated traumatic memories and testimonies of this genocide have been interrogated by media scholars, there is still no study that focuses on the trauma faced by journalists reporting on these testimonies and memories. Against this milieu, drawing its theoretical toolkit from trauma theory, this chapter investigates how journalists from the Centre for Innovation and Technology (CITE) in Bulawayo are psychologically affected in gathering and publishing Gukurahundi documentaries on YouTube. The precise objectives of this chapter are to explore how traumatic memories and testimonies psychologically affect the journalists and how this impacts their journalistic cultures and practices. To achieve its objectives, this purely qualitative study makes use of in-depth interviews with purposively sampled journalists from CITE’s views and perspectives. The study fleshes out that exposure to a traumatic past affects journalists mentally, emotionally, and socially. This in turn alters how they perceive news and also what they feel is newsworthy.