August 1, 2025

Dear friends,

I’m writing to you with news about an exciting transition.

Starting this week, you'll be hearing from me in a new role: as executive director of the Global Center for Journalism and Trauma, an independent nonprofit championing trauma-aware reporting and advancing the resilience of news professionals worldwide. The Dart Center, where I’ve hung my hat for the last quarter century, is sunsetting at Columbia Journalism School. 

The Global Center for Journalism and Trauma, reflecting unwavering commitments to ethical reporting and evidence-based trauma science, will bring much-needed agility to the challenges of this perilous moment. Working in close collaboration with the Committee to Protect Journalists and other partners, the Global Center for Journalism and Trauma will build on a powerful legacy of research, innovation and advocacy. We’re deeply grateful to Humanity United, the MacArthur Foundation and Press Forward for essential support.

You’ll hear more from us in the coming days. You’ll find our resources for journalists at www.GCJT.org; announcements via Instagram, BlueSky and Facebook; and we’ll be launching a new Substack to share pertinent, timely content.

Thank you for your engagement and support, both past and future. Amid democratic crisis, the well-being of journalists is a core press-freedom issue, and bearing ethical witness to violence takes on new urgency. It is more important than ever to reaffirm our steadfast commitments to the unique community of which you are a part, along with so many other journalists, documentarians, clinicians, researchers, educators, survivor advocates and news consumers.

You are the Global Center for Journalism and Trauma.

Best,

Bruce Shapiro
Executive Director, Global Center for Journalism and Trauma