Moral Fatigue: Wars In, Wears Out

Abstract

Moral fatigue occurs when one is exhausted of caring or of keep doing the ‘right thing’ after a very long battle against others who are considered to be doing the ‘wrong thing.’ But right and wrong are amorphous concepts when we think about the various world beliefs. What is right for one might be wrong for another.

This paper examine the dilemmas that media actors experience in the field, the moral fatigue that they endure after many years of “right or wrong” dilemmas reporting on conflicts in different countries, how they cope with it and what keeps them going. Examples of media actors (either with moral fatigue or with spirits to move on) are chosen from the ones standing out in various references given in the course of Journalism and International Conflicts, also class assignments and independent seminars outside campus. Media actors undergoing moral fatigue are defined by combining further readings on each actor’s life story, interviews, and the theory of moral fatigue. Analysis is conducted based on the theory of the concept of self and others that leads to the investigation of the contradiction and dilemmas in war issues. Conclusion is derived from the course of action that most of media actors chose to move on, which one of them is using the social media.

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Introduction

From a medical perspective, moral fatigue:

… would be labeled, described, and applied to nurses, whose working environment has more than its share of moral conflicts. When professionals’ duties to patients and their families — duties that are caught up in uncertainty and fast-paced institutional and cultural change — are made to seem irrelevant to the patients’ real needs, the resulting discomfort of professionals is generally called moral distress. (Taylor, 2002: 1)

Furthermore, taking from Nietzsche, Lyons (2008: 7) believes there is a state where the outcome of nihilism (…) is characterized by moral fatigue or apathy, the inability to strive, leading to the characteristic that (…) all goals are equally meaningless (because there is no standard for evaluation that can be used to guide the decision-making process) (ibid. emphasis from the original).

In covering news from the front line of a conflict, many journalists experience mental stress such as the moral fatigue mentioned above. For instance, Don McCullin, a war photographer who covered conflicts in Cyprus, Beirut and Vietnam, became depressed after years of reporting from war zones (Lisle, 2009: 151). He couldn’t stop wondering about the morally ambiguous position of the war photographer. According to Lisle (ibid), McCullin found himself asking, “If you are a witness to such suffering, shouldn’t you try and help instead of standing back and taking pictures?”

McCullin is not alone. Kevin Carter, another photojournalist, took a photo of a starving and dehydrated little girl in Sudan.[1] The photo earned him a 1994 Pulitzer Prize, but McCullin couldn’t cope with criticism and questions about what happened to the girl because he didn’t know.

Definitely, there are many media personnel who experience and ponder the same thing. Is it morally correct to just “shoot first and help later” as journalism teaches?

Martin Luther King gave interesting advice on this subject to a photographer from Life Magazine who stopped taking photos in order to help children being shoved by policemen during a civil rights march in Selma, Alabama. King said, “The world doesn’t know this happened, because you didn’t photograph it. I’m not being cold-blooded about it, but it is so much more important for you to take a picture of us getting beaten up than for you to be another person joining in the fray.” (Smith: 2008).

King’s statement might be debated. But if he is right, then war journalists will, at some point, have to undergo moral fatigue, as it is very likely that they will face conflicting issues in the field where conflicts occur, mostly understood to be based on the opposition between self and others.

Self vs Others

Aggestan & Björkdahl (2009: 26) see that many contemporary armed conflicts are actually identity based and particularly difficult to resolve via negotiation:

… parties may use a peace and negotiation process primarily as a way to gain legitimacy and recognition. Compromise and reaching an agreement may thus be secondary for the disputants. … Negotiations are framed as a zero-sum game and as a major risk-taking since compromises involve existential questions and concerns of group survival. (ibid)

Moreover, Aggestan & Björkdahl believe that the process of negotiation challenges the disputants’ sense of the self and the other that relates intimately to conflict (ibid). Correspondingly, this relates to what Said (1978) believes that we all define ourselves in opposition to others. With this in mind, it is understood that it is not only that the encounter with others is a process of recognition and identification,[2] but also that self exists by opposing others.

Another view, according to Laing (1990), the concept of the self and the other comes out when the environmental conditions and patterns of communication engender a person’s inner turmoil and confusion. In a ‘normal’ situation, one has shared assumptions about ‘reality’ that define the perspective of a particular group. These assumptions are not necessarily shared by outsiders and may not tally with the facts. The concept of self and others is therefore addressing a behavior that is alienated apperception of social and an interpersonal process. Social events and environments create differences between the self and the others.

In the context of this paper, the concept of the self and the other will be examined by combining both understanding as existence (Said) and behavior (Laing). These concepts can be applied to at least two different actors involved in wars: the disputant parties and the war-journalist, who that in turn, at one point, develop moral fatigue. For its own purpose, this paper will only focus on the latter actor.

Undoubtedly, there are journalists who do not seem to bother considerably with what they see in the field. On the contrary, the war, somehow, excites them. Hedges (2003: 3) says:

I learned early on that war forms its own culture. The rush of battle is a potent and often lethal addiction, for war is a drug, one I ingested for many years. It is peddled by mythmakers — historians, war correspondents, filmmakers, novelists, and the state — all of whom endow it with qualities it often does possess: excitement, exoticism, power, chances to rise above our small stations in life, and a bizarre and fantastic universe that has a grotesque ad dark beauty.

Furthermore, he recalls his own feeling (ibid: 5):

When we ingest the anodyne of war we feel what those we strive to destroy feel, including the Islamic fundamentalists who are painted as alien, barbaric, and uncivilized. It is the same narcotic. I partook of it for many years. And like every recovering addict there is a part of me that remains nostalgic for war’s simplicity and high, even as I cope with the scars it has left behind, mourn the deaths of those I worked with, and struggle with the bestiality I would have been better off not witnessing. There is a part of me — maybe it is a part of many of us — that decided at certain moments that I would rather die like this than go back to the routine of life. The chance to exist for an intense and overpowering moment, even if it meant certain oblivion, seemed worth it in the midst of war — and very stupid once the war ended.

As much as its attractive concern, this paper, unfortunately, has to disregard this point of view and allow the focus more on the issues that touch moral fatigue of media actors.

Dilemmas

The concept of the self and the other produces differences and contradictions that, in extreme conditions, become huge, uncontrollable dilemmas. The fatigue that war-journalists experience mostly comes from the contradictions between what they think is right (concept of the self) and the actual events occurred in the field that they see as wrong (concept of the other). Furthermore, the concept of the self and the other includes the concept of negation of others, as one usually think that the way one lives is better than the way the others live, that others are subordinates and do not fit into one’s society and therefore should be ‘fixed.’ A power that one might have could be forced to be used as a general standard for a bigger society that one thinks is good, in one’s perspective. In Hedges’ (2003: 9) understanding: “Once we sign on for war’s crusade, once we see ourselves on the side of the angels, once we embrace a theological or ideological belief system that defines itself as the embodiment of goodness and light, it is only a matter of how we will carry out murder.”

Contradiction on legal context

One example comes from United Nation Security Council (UNSC) who, as the one with power on organizing all countries in the world, adopted Resolution 1325 on women, peace, and security. The resolution reaffirms “the important role of women in the prevention and resolution of conflicts, peace negotiations, peace-building, peacekeeping, humanitarian response and in post-conflict reconstruction and stresses the importance of their equal participation and full involvement in all efforts for the maintenance and promotion of peace and security.” [3]

The statement hardly applies in conflict areas, as sometimes it contradicted with the local culture. In post-conflict reconstruction in Aceh, Indonesia, for example, the men in power created regulations that seemed to push women away from the political domain. Feminists believed that such regulations were created to counter the Acehnese matrilineal custom that is seen by men to limit their authority (Schulze, 2007). In addition, University of Hebron in Palestine notes that the number of female students is five times higher than the male ones. But everybody sees that outside the university, women have many restrictions of movement. Women’s voice should not be publicly conveyed. [4]

The contradiction such as the above, where the world that one lives in is collided with the ‘other’ world one is ‘visiting’ establishes frustration to many involving parties, as they are unable to do much about the problems it creates. This dissatisfaction is also experienced by media actors that in its turn, after enduring it for some time, establishing a moral fatigue.

Contradiction on news making

Furthermore, in war journalism, contradiction also comes up at work. While the journalists would like to reveal all the information impartially, it can hardly apply in the field. They have to submit to, at least, two facts. First, the war situation is too dangerous for them to go out alone and they therefore (most of the time) need to get protection from a party. In this case, Shinar believes that negative coverage where (embedded) journalists have to convey only messages from one side of the parties in a conflict, poses a “professional dilemma vis-à-vis the professional normative demand for impartiality”(2013: 5).

Second, as much as the journalists prefer to write full coverage of the issues at hand, they have limitation on time and space. Shinar notes the limitations on the space provided by the media to publish or broadcast massive narratives and their contexts as another dilemma for journalists (ibid). Journalists are therefore unable to give complete picture of the coverage.

Issues of embedding and space limitation create a sense of propaganda, as the information released to public sounds like promoting just one side of the parties in conflict. Journalists might then experience dilemmas about such propaganda that, according to Shinar (2013: 5–6), is filled with “incompleteness, inaccuracy, surrender to “seductions of convenience” and ethical shortcomings.”

Contradiction on social context

Another dilemma comes from public pressures on morality. Näslund [5] shared his knowledge saying that many (Western) journalists see themselves as part of the problems: being white and middle-class Westerners, touring in a conflict area in a ‘poor’ country. In this case, the dichotomy of self and others are indeed viewed by identifying others as victims and self as not having the moral to help the victims but just ‘touring around’ instead.

Furthermore, Martin Luther King might insist the importance of journalists taking pictures of victims of conflicts and share it to the world, because the world should see. But Kevin Carter then felt the need to take drugs to ease his mind. As mentioned before, he couldn’t manage, not only the violence he witnessed in the field but also public questions and opinions on the subject of his photo that granted him the Pulitzer. He did shoo away the hooded vulture afterwards but he was told not to touch the starving and dehydrated girl due to transmitting disease in the region and the girl might have it. [6]

Coping with Moral Fatigue

Dilemmas such as the above are examples of the environment that is described on the first pages of this paper as the phenomena that creates moral fatigue. Experienced journalists or people who have long dealt with war issues have different ways of coping the fatigue they endure. Elizabeth Löfgren, who has been working for Amnesty International (Swedish Chapter) since 1987 keeps on working, “As long as it hurts.” [7] She seems to have understood that when she reaches a point where she becomes indifferent to the suffering of others, it is time to take a break.

OSCE[8] Representative on Freedom of the Media, Dunja Mijatovic, conducts her life and works in a very realistic and positive manner.[9] She has faith in one good cause and in the good results of a naming and shaming campaign. The strong belief that she’s doing the right thing keeps her going.

A Swedish freelance journalist who had been captured for 438 days in Ethiopia, Martin Schibbye, managed to keep his hope alive when he saw that among all of the drugs, alcohol, and other stuff that had been banned in the prison, the prison officials still considered books to be the most powerful tool for the ‘terrorists’ to strive.[10] For Schibbye, this means hope and this is one of the many other things that keeps him going.

A Dutch TV journalist, Saskia Dekkers, [11] interviews victims and common people involved in conflicts in order to create 6–8 minute programs for Nieuwsuur. When she experiences a heavy heart, she keeps telling herself that somebody has to tell the story. She also considers the comments that the audience sends to her Twitter account. She believes that Twitter, as a means of social media, helps her to reflect and to continue doing her work.

Basir Seerat has the heaviest experiences of the other four journalists above. As an Afghan photojournalist, born in Malistan district of Ghazni province in Afghanistan and fled to Sweden in 2012, up to now, he has a constant and intense dream of the Taliban chasing and killing his family. However, instead of putting up common war photos on his online photoblog, he uploads pictures of the beauty of Afghanistan or the works that the Afghans do for the development of Afghanistan. Seerat choose to see and to show Afghanistan in its positive path. “Where there is love, there is peace,” he often said. [12]

Social Media as Support

Social media sites and technology have proved influential in many actual events in life. Lim (2012: 232) sees the power of social media as political: many techno-utopians view the Internet’s expansion of access to information and to the exchange of ideas as enhancing political participation, civil society, and democracy, while techno-dystopians see the Internet as posing a threat to democracy.

Alternatively, Ghannam believes that social media such as Facebook and YouTube are just tools and, “… tools alone cannot bring about the changes the world has witnessed…” (2011:1). In a wider context, Lim proposes that social media represent tools and spaces in which various communication networks that make up a social movement emerge, connect, collapse, and expand (ibid: 234) (emphasize in original). The role of social media is therefore not merely technological but also sociopolitical. In addition, as this paper contends, social media can also be used as a tool to support and improve personal moral issues.

Saskia Dekkers, [13] for instance, a journalist covering conflict issues, uses social media to get feedback from her audience and to reflect on her own life as a human being. The comments she receives on her Twitter account reassure her that the moral burden of what she is doing is worth bearing. Similar things happen in other parts of the world. According to the Afghan journalist in Sweden, Basir Seerat, [14] citizens of Afghanistan use social media, among others, to tell the world about the actual occurrences of war.

There are indeed different ways to use, and different purposes for using, social media. Apart from those mentioned above, social media could also be used to combat moral fatigue. Personal blogging sites, for example, might be a good solution to the limitations on space that journalists have to deal with in the traditional media such as TV and newspapers. They can therefore also provide balanced accounts of the complete story without any third-party editing.[15] Furthermore, personal blogging sites, Twitter or other types of social media can serve as a medium through which journalists can express their personal opinions about the conflicts they have covered.

Conclusion: Choices of the Right or Wrong

Social media might alleviate the moral fatigue journalists have experienced, but each person has their own way to manage their private issues. Research by Kvinna till Kvinna (2013) indicates that, “… the choice journalists make when they are reporting about conflicts affects not only our understanding of the conflict — but also what we perceive to be the solution.” This theory seems to work also for the discussed concepts of right and wrong, and self and others. The choice taken by the media actors revealed in this paper to struggle through their moral fatigue affect the continuation of their life. Don McCullin, the photojournalist mentioned at the beginning of this paper, prefers to rest for some years before coming back as a travel photographer, taking pictures of peaceful scenic views. The other five media actors (Löfgren, Dekkers, Schibbye, Mijatovic, and Seerat) choose to keep on fighting with the determination to do the positive things that fit their own personality. In the opposite, Kevin Carter took the more tragic[16] route of suicide.

As mentioned previously, right and wrong are amorphous concepts as what right for one doesn’t always mean right for others. This difference is enhanced by the concept of self that, in conflict, views the concept of others as negative. And in the end, as these two pairs of concepts will always remain and cannot be obliterated, one has to pick up the path that is appropriate for oneself.

[1] From The Death of Kevin Carter: Casualty of the Bang Bang Club (1996), an American documentary movie directed by Dan Krauss, picturing the suicide of South African photojournalist Kevin Carter

[2] Näslund, Leif. SVT journalist and classmate in Journalism and International Conflicts. Private email on feedback for final paper. 6 December 2013

[3] OSAGI. UN Office of the Special Adviser on Gender Issues and Advancement of Women http://www.un.org/womenwatch/osagi/wps/ 27 Nov. 2013

[4] Personal observation. Hebron, Palestine. 2013

[5] Näslund, Leif. SVT journalist and classmate in Journalism and International Conflicts. Private email on feedback for final paper. 6 December 2013.

[6] From The Death of Kevin Carter: Casualty of the Bang Bang Club (1996), an American documentary movie directed by Dan Krauss, picturing the suicide of South African photojournalist Kevin Carter.

[7] Asssigment group interview, with Nina van Hattum and Iris Kienböck. Stockholm. 13 Nov. 2013.

[8] OSCE: United Nation Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe.

[9] Speaking about ”Security and Freedom of Expression: Two Sides of the Same Coin” in one day seminar Press Freedom and Transparency: A Method of Peace Support, organized by OSCE Sweden. ABF House, Stockholm. 18 Nov. 2013.

[10] Speaking about ”The Importance of Open Reporting from Conflict Areas” in one day seminar Press Freedom and Transparency: A Method of Peace Support. organized by OSCE Sweden. ABF House, Stockholm. 18 Nov. 2013.

[11] Asssigment group interview on Skype, with Nina van Hattum and Iris Kienböck. Stockholm. 13 Nov. 2013.

[12] Asssigment group interview (with Nina van Hattum and Iris Kienböck) and two other personal meetings. Stockholm. 13 Nov., 29 Nov., and 03 Dec. 2013

[13] Asssigment group interview on Skype, with Nina van Hattum and Iris Kienböck. Stockholm. 13 Nov. 2013

[14] Asssigment group interview (with Nina van Hattum and Iris Kienböck) and two other personal meetings. Stockholm. 13 Nov., 29 Nov., and 03 Dec. 2013

[15] This can be argued on some other issues such as self-editing for further moral responsibilities to readers, journalistic ethic code on journalists still working under media companies, etc.

[16] The word ’tragic’ derives another point of view of right or wrong. We might see that suicide is tragic but Kevin Carter’s daughter, Megan prefers it that way, thinking that drugs might lead his father’s life to a worse situation should he lived longer.