Covering The Horror; Recovering From The Trauma

Israeli journalists were not immune from the devastating effects of Hamas barbarism on October 7.

Absorbing the pain: Scene of the Nova Music Festival, where more than 360 Israelis were brutally murdered and hundreds more were wounded on October 7.

‘I live in the Gaza perimeter region and I have been a journalist for over 30 years. The brutal images from the beginning of the war are traumatizing.’

– An Israeli reporter

Journalists have a reputation for being tough, cynical and lacking in empathy.

And Israeli journalists are seen as the toughest of all.

So it may come as a surprise – and a particularly poignant one – to learn that thanks to a special emergency fund, more than 150 Israeli journalists and support professionals – photographers, television crew members, sound engineers, etc. – who covered the October 7 attacks, applied for and received grants to provide psychological and emotional support for the trauma they experienced.

In all, 157 grants of NIS 8,000 ($2,200) each were distributed from the $400,000 raised by the Emergency Resilience Fund.

The fund is a project of Shomrim – The Center for Media and Democracy, an Israeli non-profit investigative news organization that models itself on America’s ProPublica, shedding light on abuses of power too often in the shadows. Launched in December 2019, Shomrim (Hebrew for guardians) has made a significant impact on Israeli media with a staff that includes eight full-time investigative journalists and two freelancers. It is supported by a generous amount of funding from donors committed to unbiased reporting, led by Silicon Valley-based philanthropists Laura and Gary Lauder.

Alona Vinograd, CEO of Shomrim, said it became clear soon after October 7 that a number of Israelis reporting from the south, where the barbaric Hamas attacks took place, were profoundly impacted by what they had witnessed. After deciding to take action, Shomrim chose three officials, including Vinograd, to serve as an ad hoc committee in seeking “quick, efficient and confidential ways” to determine the scope of the needs, raise the funds and offer modest grants to be used by individuals for emotional support.

 “At first they (the journalists) didn’t trust us,” Vinograd said, noting that some in the media assumed there must be some hidden agenda involved in offering them funds. 

The committee members thought they would need to raise about $200,000 to provide 80-100 grants, and were concerned that many journalists would see requesting funds as a sign of weakness. But more than 200 people applied, and in the end, $400,000 was raised to meet the demands.

To be eligible for a grant, journalists were asked to write in their own words why they were requesting funds and how they would spend the money. Vinograd said many of the letters the committee received were quite moving, acknowledging the depth of suffering professionals continued to endure after October 7.

She shared excerpts – no names – from several requests, including one that read: “I photographed the October 7 massacre. From that day on, the sights and smells have stayed with me.” Another wrote: “The feeling of helplessness was the greatest I’ve ever known. These scenes have stayed with me since that horrible day.” And another: “Some of my fellow journalists and I didn’t think that this emergency fund was real. We didn’t believe that someone saw us. We are usually the ones reporting the story, not part of it.”

The funds were distributed quickly, and several weeks ago, the recipients were asked how they spent their grants. “Almost everyone responded,” Vinograd said, expressing deep gratitude. Some recipients said they were aided by professional therapists and about 10 required additional psychological support.

Journalists are not the only professionals who have suffered from the trauma of being near the scene of the Hamas attack. For example, Shomrim posted a special report February 1 on how medical teams serving in frontline hospitals and other medical facilities have suffered physically, emotionally and psychologically from the number and severity of wounds they have had to deal with over the last four months. 

The report was headlined ‘One Day We’ll All Break Down. Now Is Not The Time.’ It included interviews with doctors shocked to see the kind of horrific  injuries they had never witnessed before, and it noted that “even the team offering psychological help is also suffering because of the high demand.”

Shomrim officials said the Emergency Resilience Fund for journalists was consistent with the organization’s mission to “strengthen the flow of trustworthy, fact-based and data-driven information to the public, and safeguard Israel’s democracy.”

‘We Need To Make An Impact’

Investigative journalism has become all too rare, even in Western nations that pride themselves in freedom of the press. It is expensive, often requiring painstaking research on stories that may not even pan out in the end. And with shrinking resources, media companies often opt for click-bait stories that attract more eyes than brains.

In many ways, Israel is ideally suited for high-quality investigative reporting, which has been sorely lacking. Even when not at war, the tiny country no doubt has more newsworthy daily events happening per square mile than any other country, and it has more than its share of newspapers and media companies in a highly competitive race for scoops. That means reporters have little time to dig deep into issues that merit serious attention.

Before October 7, the future of Israeli democracy became a huge issue, with society deeply divided over the Netanyahu government’s proposed judicial reforms. It’s an issue that will return when the current war ends, and Shomrim is committed to strengthening democracy through journalism, according to Vinograd. 

“We need to make an impact with stories that will effect change,” she asserted,  and she feels blessed to be part of an organization that has the resources and talent to accomplish that goal.

Shomrim posts about two stories a week on its Hebrew and English sites, and it has a number of media partners in Israel and around the world that publish – and sometimes work together on – its stories. Virtually every Israeli media company has used Shomrim material. “They trust us now,” Vinograd said. “If the story is good, they take it.”

A few samples of the group’s impact reporting:

. A Shomrim report last week found that Israel’s National Security Mission plans to stop funding a program that provides protection for victims of domestic violence at a time when such violence is up 20 percent during the current war. 

. Last month a report by Shomrim, CNN and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) resulted in the European Union sanctioning a Sudanese financier found to be involved in funding Hamas. 

. And a report last year by Shomrim and the Associated Press found that an extreme right-wing Israeli group was raising tax-exempt U.S. dollars to provide aid to jailed criminals including Yigal Amir, who assassinated Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995, and an ultra-Orthodox man who fatally stabbed a 15-year-old Israeli girl in 2015 at a gay pride parade in Jerusalem.

Vinograd is particularly proud of Shomrim’s contribution to the Pandora Papers, a global effort in 2021 that, based on millions of pages of leaked documents,  published a number of major investigative pieces through the ICIJ. The project exposed the secret offshore accounts of three dozen world leaders, including Knesset member Nir Barkat and former Israeli Justice Minister Haim Ramon.

Shomrim today is seeking to report on – and hire – journalists from under-represented communities, including charedim, Ethiopian Jews, Bedouins, Druze and Israeli Arabs. “It’s a challenge,” Vinograd acknowledges, “but we have to show our own democratic values in covering all of Israeli society.”

Of course the major thrust of Shomrim reporting now is on the war, the hostages, and plans for “the day after.” Investigative journalism no doubt will play an even more important role when it comes time to explore how and why the government, army and security services were completely unprepared for October 7. 

Shomrim’s support for robust, non-partisan investigative reporting helps fill a critical niche in Israeli journalism, and is a sign of a truly free society – one where the press’s highest priority is service to the public, holding the powerful accountable for their actions and effecting change in the name of freedom and fairness.