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Compassion and a sympathetic ear are the cornerstones of a professional journalist. When dealing with traumatic events, interviewing techniques need to be tweaked from the norm, in order to fit into the situation. The victim needs to be considered first and foremost, and they are far more important than the story itself.

Before interviewing a victim of a traumatic event, you must first turn the tables, and walk a mile in their shoes. If you were flush in the middle of a major event, would you want a microphone thrust into your face and to be asked inane, mindless questions to be aired on the evening news? Of course not, so therefore we should consider the victim prior to questioning.

By putting the victim first, a journalist is better able to focus on what is really important, and that is securing the story, but telling it in a manner that the victim would want it told.

During an interview, in order to be compassionate, non-verbal commmunication and body language play a pivotal role. A victim of trauma will be anxious and jumpy, and therefore, the interviewer should be relaxed, calm, non-invasive, and approachable.

Traumas fill the nightly newscasts and the morning headlines. They are as perennial as the seasons. These stories need to be told, but an intricate amount of tact and compassion must accompany their creation. Journalists tread fine lines at times, and while amassing their research they are bound to encounter difficult interviews. A journalist is forced to master the art of compassionately interviewing victims of traumatic events.

When a journalist arrives on the scene of a brutal murder, a horrific car crash, or the victim of domestic abuse, the story is usually told through the eyes of victims or their immediate family members. These are the situations in which a journalist has to muster up the requisite moxie to interview, and to do so in a humane and compassionate manner.

Journalists cover stories, and they do so with an unbiased eye, and a dogged pursuit of the truth, leaving no stone unturned in their research. They have to get the story, no matter how heinous or tragic, but they must contemplate at what cost. To interview a victim of a traumatic event, or the family of a victim, the journalist must heed close watch to the manner in which they question. Every story comes with a price, and the journalist must carefully determine the cost of their line of questioning.

A grizzled veteran will know how to handle trauma victims, and will

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