The thesis of the influence of media content on audiences has been passed through numerous scientific papers. Articles of the crime news were often at the center of such research. Journalists were often accused of sensationalism and distortion of reality in order to make their articles as readable as possible, and thus more profitable. This paper attempts to explain how the traumatic events witnessed by journalists, as well as their professional environment, affect the construction of journalists’ social reality. Ten journalists from Večernji list and 24sata who work in the field, UGC or portal participated in the research. Using the method of semi-structured interviews, respondents stated how traumatic events affect their professional, as well as private lives. The research showed that things that respondents find emotionally difficult affect the way they will do their job and will do it in accordance with their own construction of social reality. Younger respondents also noted that their work affects the construction of social reality in terms of their private lives, so the two respondents stated that they fear that something bad will happen to them (for example, a car accident). Most of the younger respondents stated that they often follow the media in their free time and that they sometimes get involved in the work of the newsroom even when they are not at work, but they still think that work does not affect their private life. The research also showed that the impression that respondents have about security in Croatia is the result of their construction of social reality because it is based on their experiences. Nevertheless, the respondents “fixed“ the impression that Croatia was a "dangerous country" by referring to comparisons with other countries and statistics.