Feeling responsible: Emotion and practical ethics in conflict journalism

This paper examines the role of emotion in the practices of journalists reporting on conflict and its effects in South Sudan, based on a thematic analysis of semi-structured interviews and ethnographic observations of the working routines of journalists working from Nairobi, Kampala and Juba. Contrary to perceptions of emotion as an akratic failure to reason in a rational, detached manner, obligations felt to people and situations can be understood as rational, information-bearing guides to action, directing journalists to consider personal ethical norms that may sit in tension with the norms of their professional roles as they understand them. The presence of such feelings in the case of journalists committed to a norm of emotional detachment in their work points to the moral incoherence of norms of detachment in (at least) journalism of this type.