What about us?

We should be protected, too. We, as journalists, should be taught how to emotionally protect ourselves from our sources. It´s all about how do we, journalists, protect them, sources, from emotional damage. Well, who takes care of us? We make sure they understand that we are not their friends, even though we would go to jail in order to keep their off-the-record confidences. We are also all about making sure our intervention in their lives does not impact them too deeply. We make sure our presence doesn´t reshape any previously built relationships they may have. We even “prepare” them for the moment in which we will be gone. That´s all fine and good but who, please who! protects us from the emotional damage that they may cause in us? and from getting too involved? We help them to digest the experience of being featured; who protects us from the impact of their stories? What about their presence in our lives and the impact of that presence?

Who protects me when I´m trying to go back home and tears won´t let me drive safely?

War reporters get help, but war is not the only place where stories can be too much to handle and people too hard to leave behind.