Beyond the Lens: The Price of Bearing Witness

In 1993, South African photojournalist Kevin Carter was in Sudan, reporting on its devastating famine. During his assignment, he captured what would become one of modern photojournalism’s most haunting images: an emaciated, exhausted child, face down, a vulture waiting nearby. After taking the shot, Carter sat under a nearby tree and wept.

The resulting photo, featured in The New York Times and other publications, earned Carter the Pulitzer Prize. At age 33, he had achieved journalism’s highest honor. Three months later, haunted by the images he had witnessed, Carter committed suicide.

Since then, the struggles that journalists like Carter face in documenting some of the world’s most complex and traumatic news stories have only intensified. Today, they work in a rapacious ecosystem of 24-hour digital news feeds, with live-streaming from bomb shelters, polarizing AI-generated disinformation, and unprecedented threats to both their profession and their lives. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, a nonprofit founded nearly a half-century ago to promote freedom of the press, 1,660 journalists have been killed worldwide since 1992. Countless other journalists struggle with post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, and anxiety.

In the face of these challenges, Columbia Global has created a series of events and initiatives in support of journalists throughout the world, such as last April’s three-day Journalism + Crisis series in New York, organized by the Columbia Global Paris Center. “Journalists are at the forefront of documenting humanity's most pressing crises, often at great personal risk,” says Wafaa El-Sadr, executive vice president of Columbia Global. “Columbia Global is dedicated to creating a support network that recognizes their sacrifices and equips them with the tools needed to navigate the complexities they face.” That network includes Columbia World Projects; our Global Centers in Amman, Istanbul, and Paris; and partnerships with our centers such as with Columbia’s Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma.

In February 2024, Columbia Global and the Dart Center hosted a panel “Reporting on the Aftermath of Conflict,” as part of a three-part series, “After War: Learning from Past Conflicts,” organized by Columbia Global Center in Amman in collaboration with the American University of Beirut. During the discussion, Janine di Giovanni, founder of The Reckoning Project and a veteran war correspondent (she has covered 18 wars and three genocides), spoke to the stress that journalists face: “War tears away at your psyche — at your soul — because you have seen man at his absolute darkest and what human beings can do to each other.” When asked about her time in the Siege of Sarajevo, di Giovanni said: “I almost had a breakdown because I began to see my job as trying to save people. And I could not save everyone. So my guilt was enormous.”

But journalists persist because they understand the important role their stories and the accountability they bring. Nora Boustany, an award-winning correspondent based in Lebanon, said, “I had a sense of mission. Journalists are first responders. We document the details of what has happened before the arrival of relief workers or doctors. We acknowledge their pain and start the healing.”

At the same event, Dr. Elana Newman, Research Director at the Dart Center, emphasized the importance of supporting journalists who bear such heavy burdens. “Surviving war as a journalist is miraculous, but the psychological scars are real,” she noted. “We need to address journalists’ mental health without stigma, recognizing that resilience isn’t about being unbreakable — it’s about finding ways to recover.”

Thirty years after Kevin Carter set down his camera and sat beneath a tree in Sudan, his story reminds us that while bearing witness is essential, we must also protect those who do so. For Columbia Global and our partners, this is the only way to ensure journalists are able to bring critical stories to light while preserving both their humanity and our own.

Journalism Events in 2025

Faultlines and Deadlines: Rebuilding Trust in Journalism in the Age of Misinformation -- January 13, 2025

The twenty-first century media landscape has been defined by a series of overlapping economic, technological and social challenges. This talk will explore the roots of those disruptions, their implications for contemporary journalism and explore the roads we may take to a more sustainable future for the field. (Presented by Columbia Global Centers in Amman)

In April, 2025, the Columbia Global Paris Center will host a three-day training with the Dart Center for Journalism and Training focused on ethical reporting on children in conflict zones.

On April 7, 2025, the Columbia Global Paris Center will host Journalism and Crisis: Journalists in Exile.

In addition, journalists who have been forced to leave their home countries due to extreme circumstances, such as war, natural disaster and political oppression, can now apply for a 2025-2026 Reid Hall Displaced Artist Residency at Columbia Global Center Paris. Applications are due April 30, 2025.