What I Do #6: Tamara Cherry, author of The Trauma Beat
Author, podcast host, and business founder Tamara Cherry tells us about what she does
I'm Aaron Jacklin, and this is Explaining Crime, an independent newsletter that helps you explain crime to your audience.
What I Do is a weekly Explaining Crime series that features a single person in the crime content space and their answers to a set series of questions about what they do. The “crime content space” includes crime news, narrative nonfiction, investigative journalism, academia, advocacy, and, of course, true crime. Accordingly, What I Do will feature a wide variety of people, including academics, journalists, podcasters, authors, advocates, YouTubers, and more.
This week, I’m featuring Tamara Cherry, author of The Trauma Beat and host of the podcast of the same name.
What I Do #6: Tamara Cherry
Where are you located?
Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada.
What do you do?
I am an author, trauma researcher, and founder of Pickup Communications, a public relations firm that supports trauma survivors and relevant stakeholders.
Who is your audience?
Trauma survivors, non-profits that support survivors, journalists who report on trauma, law enforcement agencies — essentially anyone who is either tasked with telling the traumatic stories of others, or who can potentially support a survivor in their interactions or lack thereof with the media.
What are the most useful tools in your work?
Because most of my work is done from home, I use Zoom a lot to connect with survivors and relevant stakeholders. In terms of more abstract tools, the most important one would be listening.
Who or what are the most useful sources of information in your work?
By far the most useful sources of information for my work are trauma survivors. After launching my company, I embarked on an expansive research project examining the impact of the media on trauma survivors (and later, the impact of trauma on members of the media). I wanted to create a body of work that was driven by the voices of survivors. Everything I do, from my book to my podcast to my training sessions, is driven by the voices of survivors.
What’s your process?
If I am supporting a survivor with the media — whether for a non-profit’s media campaign, or just a curious survivor who reaches out to me looking for information — my first step is to always to ask the survivor what they hope to gain from potentially engaging with the media or participating in a campaign. From there, I find ways for them to meet that goal based on whatever accommodations they may need. For example, perhaps a survivor wants their voice to be part of a campaign that is focussed on their loved one’s murder, but they don’t want to physically be there for the news conference or answer questions from reporters. In this case, I may, after a trauma-informed conversation, craft a statement on their behalf, which can then be disseminated to the media or read on their behalf, after their approval. A big part of my work is giving survivors the information and tools they need to make an informed decision as to whether they want to engage with the media and, if the answer is yes, to what extent they want to participate in the telling of their story. My work is very much about shifting the historical power imbalance that exists between survivors and storytellers back to the survivor. For this reason, my work with journalists is focussed on helping them tell their stories in a way that will be healing for the survivor, rather than harmful.
How do you distribute or otherwise share your work?
First and foremost, I do what I can to promote my book/audiobook, The Trauma Beat: A Case for Re-Thinking the Business of Bad News, which is driven by the voices of more than 100 trauma survivors, as well as my own experiences as a crime reporter who wrongly thought her very good intentions were good enough. I have also created a number of free resources for survivors, storytellers and support workers, which can be found on my website, including videos with the voices of survivors, tips for trauma-informed storytelling, frequently asked questions for survivors who may be faced with media attention, my research paper examining the impact of the media on trauma survivors and the impact of trauma on members of the media, and various other externally sourced resources. I utilize social media a lot to comment on various topics around trauma-informed (or uninformed) journalism. This is largely in an attempt to encourage a broader sector of the population to consider whether the true crime content they are consuming has been ethically sourced. And finally, I have The Trauma Beat podcast, which is of course free for anyone who wants to listen to deeper conversations with trauma survivors and relevant stakeholders on the topic of trauma and the media.
What’s something you wish people understood about crime, justice, or another related topic?
I wish people understood that we don’t have the right to a trauma survivor’s story. A traumatic experience wasn’t suffered for our entertainment. Trauma ripples through families, communities, and generations. And while our telling of that trauma, our consumption of that trauma, has the power to help that survivor heal, it has a greater likelihood of causing further harm. I wish people looked at the true-crime content they consumed — whether on the 6 o’clock news, a podcast, or a Netflix doc — through the lens of, ‘Where is the survivor’s voice in this?’ Far too often, their voice isn’t there, not out of respect, but by omission or by going against that survivor’s wishes and claiming their traumatic experience as our entertainment.
Why do you do this work?
Because I can’t not. As a journalist, if I stumbled across a great story, I wanted to shout it from the rooftops, share it with the world. After having my eyes open to the impact of the media on trauma survivors, I couldn’t not share it. I do this work because next to nobody else is. I do this work because I want to pave the way for systemic change, so that supporting trauma survivors with the media becomes the expectation, rather than the exception. I do this work because I believe in the power of storytelling, but recognize the responsibility that us storytellers have in ensuring, in the words of journalist Duncan McCue, being storytellers and not story takers. That we are telling stories that heal, instead of harm.
What was your path to doing this?
I went into journalism school thinking I’d write for a snowboarding magazine someday. That was the dream until my first internship at the Regina Leader-Post where, in my first week, I had a woman share a deeply intimate story with me about losing her father to Alzheimer’s disease. In that moment, I fell in love with telling stories that could make people feel something, that could make people care. Still, I never imagined I’d be a crime reporter. From the Leader-Post, I went to the Calgary Herald, where I had a bit more exposure to telling traumatic stories. But it wasn’t until I landed an internship at the Toronto Star — and more specifically, the Star’s “radio room” where my job was to monitor scanners, local news, and call through phone books looking for witnesses, victims and survivors — that I began reporting on crime and trauma full-time. From the Star, I went to the Toronto Sun, a paper that was known for its crime reporting. And from the Sun, I went to CTV News Toronto after the retirement of their legendary, veteran crime reporter Jim Junkin. I left CTV in late 2019 because (long story short), I wanted to do something that allowed me to be home for dinner with my kids. After many conversations with many stakeholders, my company Pickup Communications was born.
What advice would you give to someone just starting out who wants to do what you do?
Do it! I need more people doing my job so that this work becomes more normalized. But I wouldn’t suggest they follow my path. That is, I wouldn’t want them to learn the right way the wrong way, by causing harm to many survivors along the way. I would tell them to learn about trauma, to listen to survivors, and then think about how they can help. Is it in a media liaison role? A consulting role? A ghostwriting role? What are their strengths? What can they bring to the table? I would also tell them to find someone who will pay them for this work. That’s always been my biggest challenge. I believe in it so much, but I also do NOT believe that survivors should be paying for this work, so you need to convince people along the way that it is worth their investment to provide this service that they never knew they had a need for. I would also tell them to never lose their humility, to never think they know everything. Because the thing about trauma-informed storytelling is that the more you learn, the more you realize you have left to learn. It’s a commitment to lifelong listening and learning.
What book, podcast, documentary, or anything else would you recommend to people reading this?
The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk and Trauma and Recovery by Judith Herman were very helpful for me to understand the impact of trauma on the body and the brain and a survivor’s ability to share their story. For podcasts, I recommend Domino Effect of Murder, hosted by psychologist and homicide survivor Jan Canty, as well as The Trauma Impact, hosted by mental health professional and mass violence survivor Amy C O’Neill. I also just generally recommend any book written by a survivor about their experience. You will gain so much more insight listening to survivors than listening to “experts” who are not speaking through the lens of a survivor.
Who would you like to see featured in a future What I Do?
I would suggest psychologist, author, podcast host and homicide survivor Jan Canty. She is a survivor who draws so much wisdom from her own experience, her expertise in trauma, and the lived experiences of other survivors and I’ve learned so much from Jan.
What do you do in your off-time to decompress from such heavy subject matter?
I try to be as present as possible when with my kids. I exercise. Running outside is a big one for me. Fresh air in general. Therapy, therapy, therapy. Deep breathing, mindfulness, meditation with my kids.
What haven’t I asked you about that you’d like to add?
I think we’ve basically covered it!
And that’s What I Do for this week! Do you have any suggestions for who else you’d like me feature in this space? Let me know, and I’ll see if I can get them!