Content warning: This story contains a discussion of suicide and student death. If you or someone you know is going through a crisis, you can contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988 or +1 (800) 273-TALK (8255).
Princeton University was the site of multiple tragedies last year, as three students and one staff member died separately on campus. At the end of the spring 2022 semester, two students died by suicide within a week of each other, recalls Katherine Dailey, a junior and an editor for the university’s newspaper, The Daily Princetonian. In September, a staff member died by suicide in an academic building. About a month later, during Princeton’s fall break, a fourth student was reported missing, and the death was also ruled a suicide after the body was found.
These deaths received national attention, including reporting from the New York Times and NBC News. But much of the daily coverage came from actual students at Princeton. Dailey tells Teen Vogue that she and her colleagues reported on the deaths for two months.
“That reporting, combined with dealing with my own emotions on the subject, was one of the most emotionally taxing situations I’ve had to deal with in my college experience,” says Dailey. “I remember telling my therapist that I could barely make it through class without breaking down crying. Even now, it’s difficult to report on or even just think about. When we got the final autopsy report just before New Year's, I spent a long time texting with friends on the paper about trying to wrap my head around the information we were just learning.”
Dailey’s experience is both devastating and all too common. When traumatic events occur on campus, such as school shootings, suicide, or episodes of bigotry, it is often up to student journalists to report on these situations even as they directly impact their own mental health or sense of physical safety.
For example, as campuses shut down in 2020, high school and college journalists reported from the front lines on how the pandemic was affecting their schools. In recent months, student journalists at the University of Virginia and the University of Idaho reported on violent deaths that occurred near campus and involved students.
Journalists are often taught or encouraged to remain “objective” while reporting, to try to remove their own feelings about a situation from their work. This framework can be especially difficult for student journalists who often know their sources personally and feel directly impacted by campus news on which they report.
“The expectation that you can hear traumatic stories over and over again without being affected by them is not fair or even possible,” Jessi Gold, MD, MS, a psychiatrist at Washington University in St. Louis who specializes in the mental health of college students, women, and health care workers, tells Teen Vogue. “It is incredibly hard to disconnect yourself from a situation in your community and just put your head down and do your job. Even for the most traumatic stories, you might be able to separate yourself and just report — and probably have the skills to do so — but if you are also a member of the community, experiencing a lot of the same reactions and feelings, it's different. The added layer makes you resonate more with your sources. You might even know a lot of the people you interview and who are in pain. It is harder to stay neutral in those situations.”
This was the case for Northeastern University student Pratika Katiyar. In 2020, while still a student journalist for her high school paper, Katiyar had to write the obituary for a fellow staff member who passed away by suicide. “Though I had done reporting on mental health and students before, it was a difficult and sobering experience to write about my own classmate passing away,” says Katiyar. “It was only a 300-word story, yet I still remember it as one of the hardest stories I have ever had to write.”
Sometimes student journalists provide coverage of campus events and also engage in service journalism about how the community can stay safe. Solen Aref, a student at Washington State University, tells Teen Vogue that, earlier this year, she created two video packages in response to the murder of four students in Idaho, near the University of Idaho campus, less than a 15-minute drive from WSU’s own campus. The first video, before a suspect had been arrested, instructed students on how to stay safe; the second video reported on student reactions to the suspect’s arrest. Given that the students were killed not far from WSU, Aref felt these stories were important.
“For my video, I went to the house where the murders occurred, and it was really hard to stomach being so close to where something tragic happened,” Aref recalls. “I tried to distance myself from the grueling details of the case by compartmentalizing what I had seen and read in doing research on this case, but I'm realizing I'm not skilled enough to do that. I care too much because it hits so close to home. So it's been hard to stomach being 100% plugged into the details of this case when I wish I could take a break from it sometimes for my mental health.”
The student journalists who speak with Teen Vogue say that reporting on tragedy that occurs on their campus is like a double-edged sword: having a personal stake in journalism makes the work feel more important, but it's more emotionally devastating too. If you are feeling stressed or sad while reporting, Dr. Gold recommends turning to various personal and communal releases such as exercise, carrying stress balls, mindfulness practices, breaks from journalism, peer support, and therapy.
“Use what works for you — and what you will actually do — because that's what will help you," says Dr. Gold. "In the moment, it can also help to incorporate breaks or rituals to transition to being home after the day or between interviews. They don't have to be long or big, just something that centers you and reminds you to focus on yourself too.”
“To be honest, I have no experience reporting on trauma that isn’t within a campus where I also live and study,” says Dailey. “I think having the personal stake often makes the reporting more empathetic and better situated in the broader context of the school; but I also think it forces student reporters to handle the most sensitive stories anyone can have to write at the same time as so much personal grief, fear, and confusion. It’s a nearly impossible balance to strike," she continues, "yet so many student journalists have to strike it. It’s a rush to get the story out as fast as you can, and once you hit the publish button, you’re able to start processing things.”
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