Chang's level of dedication was well known. Lesser known was the degree to which her research wounded her to the core, first exacerbating what was later revealed to be a bipolar disorder that, in tandem with severe hormonal fluctuations related to infertility treatments and miscarriages, eventually spun into a paranoiac psychosis.Investigative reporters are often caught up in stories that affect human lives. Chang absorbed herself in stories of the victims of the Sino-Japanese War. It was only natural for her to feel anger, sadness and a sense of not being able to understand. She heard stories that no one can imagine.
Most of us will never understand what she felt. The closest we can get to her experience was what took place on September 11th. Many had mixed emotions about that day and every time we see the planes crashing into the buildings it takes us back to the exact place we were when it happened.
In Chang's book, Rape of Nanking, she described the stories of the victims of the war. These stories stayed in her mind and how can one forget such gruesome acts.
Chang's writing was filled with her outrage as the stories of Japanese soldiers grinning widely while holding up decapitated heads, throwing babies in the air only to skewer them on their bayonets and photographing Chinese women in obscene, pornographic poses of sexual humiliation prior to killing them.Chang dealt with a lot of emotions. They affected her beyond what we can understand. It takes a lot to be an investigative journalist. Time, emotions and a balance between work and a personal life can cause people to become overwhelmed. People say journalists should put their feelings to the side but it is not natural to sit there and feel nothing. There is definitely more to journalism than we think.
4 comments:
This is some interesting information. It made me think about the nature of journalists and how prone they are to getting emotionally invovled with a story or subject. Sometimes, its hard not to. But it also made me wonder how close is too close? On top of the problems she already had, she was engrossed in her work. Investigative journalism often calls for a higher degree of care and attention, but its sad that it affected he rlife in this way.
I just left a blog on Andy's blog. Then, I read your blog, and I think that being a journalist also can have the opposite effect and make you a cynic.
I think you can be exposed to too much and just not care or not balieve anything. But investigative journalism, I think is different. I think for so long you live and breath one topic...It must be hard, and I'm sorry for her and her family. But I hope that her story, will help other budding journalists realize that work cannot come home with them.
As soon as I read this, it made me think of what psychologists and psychiatrists must go through. They hear terrible things daily, and I've heard that the suicide risk for them is higher than that of a lot of other occupations.
At least now more people will know how in-depth journalism can really be. Some stories are very hard to cover, and Chang's coverage of the rape in Nanking must have been the worst of the worst. It's sad that she couldn't recover from what she experienced.
I don't think journalists need to distance themselves completely from their pieces. Showing some emotion in the right places is what makes us human.
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