When Hurricane Dorian made landfall in the Bahamas on September 1, 2019, as a Category 5 storm, it did more than devastate two islands over three days—it transformed how journalists understood their calling. The hurricane left thousands homeless, more than 70 dead, and forced Bahamian reporters like Kyle Walkine to confront a question that no journalism school had quite prepared them for: What do you do when the story is destroying your own home?
Walkine, now an instructor at the University of Miami School of Communication, was covering Dorian for The Nassau Guardian/Our News when the storm hit. He wasn't alone in feeling overwhelmed. Many of his colleagues witnessed scenes of such overwhelming human suffering that it reshaped their understanding of what journalism could and should be. In partnership with Sallie Hughes, chair of the University of Miami's Department of Journalism and Media Management, Walkine spent years examining how 11 Bahamian journalists in the hardest-hit areas of Grand Bahama and Great Abaco Island negotiated their professional responsibilities during the crisis. Their findings, published in the peer-reviewed journal Journalism, reveal a profession in flux—adapting in real time, sometimes abandoning traditional reporting altogether.
A reporter on Grand Bahama described how she shifted from routine news gathering to coordinating rescue operations through social media. Using Facebook Live, she collected messages from stranded residents and relayed them directly to national defense units conducting rescues. "We ended up becoming a help center," she reflected. "At that point, we were all in survival mode. More than journalists, we just wanted to save lives. That was our home." Her experience was not unique. Across the islands, journalists made split-second decisions that prioritized lives over bylines, a departure from conventional journalism that the study documents as both necessary and ethically profound.
What emerged from these traumatic days was something unexpected: a reckoning with how journalism treats human suffering. One television reporter on Great Abaco later said, "I'm more sensitive to the facts of the situation … these are real people, not objects of a story. Now I understand they are human beings going through real situations." Another journalist on the same island made the conscious choice to reject suffering as a news value itself, declining to report certain moments of devastation out of respect for people in their most vulnerable circumstances. Without formal training in trauma-informed reporting, she had invented it in the field.
Yet this awakening came at a steep cost. The disaster took a significant mental health toll on the journalists who covered it, many of whom were simultaneously worried about their own families. One journalist described the moment he finally broke down at his family home in Nassau, screaming and crying after days of emotional suppression. Another young reporter was asked to go live on air before she had any information about her mother, who was in a high-risk area. She did it, but it was harrowing.
Walkine and Hughes argue that their findings reveal a critical gap: journalism schools and media organizations remain unprepared to support reporters working through disasters, particularly when those disasters strike their own communities. The study shows journalists adapting their practices on their own, developing trauma-sensitive approaches through necessity rather than training. As Hughes put it, "Journalists—like other responders—need preparation but often do not receive it." Dorian may have changed how Bahamian journalists see their role, but their story also poses a challenge to the broader profession: how will the industry equip its people for the next crisis?