WHEN reporting on any disaster, natural or man-made, a good rule of thumb as a journalist is to 'do no harm'.
In Northern Ireland we have so many victims of our very recent conflict, people for whom the scars of their experience remain very visible.
I have interviewed hundreds of victims and survivors over 20-plus years as a reporter.
Sometimes they would say I was the first person who had sat down and asked them about their experiences.
Think about that - a loved one murdered and no-one had sat down and taken the time to speak to them about what happened.
For many families, the motivation for speaking to people like me may initially have been to raise awareness for a justice campaign, but ultimately they wanted a documented record that showed the deceased was more than just a statistic - that they were loved and that they loved back, what music they liked, what team they supported, what kind of a father/mother/son/daughter they were.
That storytelling can be healing but it also helps people see beyond the event that caused the death to the reality of what a family is suffering and experiencing.
But at all times we must ensure that we are telling those people's stories for the right reasons and not just because we can.
I've thought a lot this week about the role journalists play in bringing those stories to life, in giving a voice to the voiceless, not because of our own still-unresolved legacy, but as I've watched footage of dinghies full of refugees crossing the Channel, many being chased in boats by reporters waving a microphone and shouting "Where are you from?".
There is of course a story to be told by those refugees - why they felt the need to place themselves at such risk, why they left their own home.
To get a more rounded view of that we need to look at the political, economic and security situation in their countries of origin, circumstances that have more often than not been exacerbated by Western intervention.
But is chasing an unstable dinghy really the way to do that?
A few years ago I visited a number of refugee camps along the Balkan trail, the route used by many of those fleeing, Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq.
Among them was an unofficial camp in the Serbian capital of Belgrade, the equivalent of the Calais 'jungle'.
In freezing -10C conditions the boys and men camped in the 'Barrack' burned old railway sleepers for heat, hundreds of them with nowhere to go due to the closing of borders.
The old wood soaked in decades of engine oil gave off horrendous fumes that filled the freezing warehouse.
I spent maybe an hour or two there along with other reporters and charity workers talking to the men, listening to their stories.
When I returned home I had a chest infection that required two doses of antibiotics to shift - I was sick from two hours of breathing in fumes, they were living there.
Mainly from Afghanistan, many had been previously displaced to Pakistan.
They were terrified of being forced to return and so avoided the official refugee camps where conditions were immeasurable better.
The youngest person I met was aged 11. He had a young face but old eyes, and was travelling alone as an undocumented minor.
While I was there I looked down to see an enormous rat run over my boots. The place was sprawling and unsanitary.
People traffickers moved freely around the camp, identifiable by their clean clothes and shoes - exploiting human misery for profit.
On a wall the refugees had painted 'No-one leaves home, unless home is the mouth of a shark'.
I thought about that graffiti as I watch footage of dinghies crossing the English Channel this week.
The camp was cleared by Serbian authorities in 2017.
In the official camps, I met a supermarket owner, a dentist, a tailor, a hairdresser and even a former Hugo Boss model.
They all had stories of war, starvation, political persecution, fears for their lives, fears for their daughters lives under Isis, fears that were so great they had chosen to take a perilous journey for the chance of a better life.
I told their stories, I hope it helped, I hope I did no harm.
