by Bobby Coles

Created on: May 07, 2009   Last Updated: March 27, 2010

Interviews are a delicate dance between two parties that are trying to wrest control from the other. When the interview involves someone that has been the victim of a traumatic event, compassion must take over as the motivating factor. The key to exercising compassion is to put yourself into the skin of the other person and try to walk around for a moment. When a person sees their life is in a period of upheaval, it takes a delicate balance of compassion and understanding for an interviewer to gain the requisite trust factor.

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. Sometimes a journalist must let the person being interviewed dictate the pace of the story.

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. People should always come first, even in the event of a major news story that the general public is dying to hear about.

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. A great deal of understanding goes into retelling a story of a major traumatic event.

During an interview, in order to be compassionate, non-verbal communication 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

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