The Situation Factor

There has been a great amount of information that has come out recently in Canada about how the Canadian Forces (CF) are dealing with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) among veterans. The CF has recently released a backgrounder on the subject, and ministry of veterans affairs has recently announced the establishment of a new residential clinic for the treament of complex operational stress injuries (OSIs) such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The clinic will be located at the veterans’ hospital in Ste-Anne De Bellevue, in the West Island of Montreal. There is also research being conducted into the subject, and much more information available from the CF as well as veteran’s support groups.

I am interested in creating a multiplatform investigative piece looking into the prevalence of PTSD among our veterans and how the military is treating it. This would include interviews with veterans, their families, CF spokespeople, researchers and experts. It could also include visuals of the hospital in Ste-Anne’s and other facilites, and facts and figures about PTSD.

Whereas the CF was previously reluctant to divulge information about PTSD, it is now opening up and this is an opportunity to look into an issue that is not well undersood and historically unter-treated by militaries around the world. The opening of the facility in Ste Anne’s follows the creation of the Veteran’s Charter in 2006 by the minister of veteran’s affairs.

As someone with and interest in political affairs and friends in the military I find this a topic I would find great interest in. I also happen to live in the West Island, so the Ste Anne’s hospital would be easy to visit on a regular basis, should I gain any kind of access.

A friend who is familiar with the topic has sent me the following links for leads. As this is a blog post type of pitch, I think it would be appropriate to include them:

CF backgrounder on OSI (Operational Stress Injuries) and PTSD
http://www.forces.gc.ca/site/news-nouvelles/view-news-afficher-nouvelles-eng.asp?id=2844

Other DND Health Services links:
http://www.cmp-cpm.forces.gc.ca/ps/hs-ss/index-eng.asp
http://www.forces.gc.ca/health-sante/ps/mh-sm/otssc-cstso/default-eng.asp
http://www.forces.gc.ca/site/news-nouvelles/view-news-afficher-nouvelles-eng.asp?id=2691

Ombudsman stuff:
http://www.ombudsman.forces.gc.ca/rep-rap/sr-rs/osi-tso-3/index-eng.asp
http://www.ombudsman.forces.gc.ca/rep-rap/sr-rs/pts-ssp/index-eng.asp
http://www.dnd.ca/hr/cfpn/engraph/03_02_ombudsman_e.asp

Other:
http://www.thehilltimes.ca/html/cover_index.php?display=story&full_path=/2008/august/4/soldiers/&c=1

For sources, here’s a link to the Married to the Canadian Forces forum, a forum for military spouses:
http://www.marriedtothecanadianforces.com/

This forum is more open and easily searchable
http://forums.army.ca/forums/index.php?PHPSESSID=tlhk83fperttsbp47i6qqesm20&action=search

And for vets and dealing with PTSD for earlier wars, check out:
http://www.vac-acc.gc.ca/clients/sub.cfm?source=steannes
http://www.vac-acc.gc.ca/clients/sub.cfm?source=mhealth

The aspect I most noticed about this research project is the overall ease of use and interactivity of its content. Whereas a print article has static text that can really only be read how it is written, and broadcast pieces which must be watched or listened to in the format they are edited, here Graeme Smith essentially delivers all of the material obtained in his research in a way a consumer could easily navigate. This is the best example I’ve seen of “showing your work” reporting, a term I remember from grade school math class.

Although Smith produces edited videos to summarize each section, I found it creative how all of the video materials, graphics, and interactive commentary are included in each section. This allows the consumer to perouse the material in whichever order they choose, consume as much as they choose, and revisit material at any point. This provides more information for the consumer, and allows the consumer to more easily draw their own conclusions about the Taliban.

The videos themselves are also produced in a somewhat viral format in an obvious effort to give the project some legs online.

It must have been a challenge to Smith to convince the researcher to do so many interviews, perhaps risking his own life. It also must have been a challenge logistically to train the researcher to properly obtain the video and properly interview the subjects, not to mention find the subjects.

I would take a guess at how many people were involved in the project, but I counted nine in the credits. Smith must have been accompanied by a camera person, a translator, and potentially a producer in Afgnanistan, with at least an editor and a web developer here in Canada.

The videos gave a good introduction to the project, and their presentation was sure to attract more eyeballs than text, and it seems Smith was making a real effort to use multimedia, even recording the audio biography.

The project was more consice and compact than the mental health package, which may convince consumers to stay on longer.

I’ve always been in tune with technology, but I always seem to be a bit behind the curve. I took a PR class last year where we learned how to group people into categories based on how quickly they catch on to trends or advancements in technology or society. The top group would be those trendsetters who are always the first to create, discover, or use what’s new and what’s hip. The second would be the first responders, those who immediately follow whatever the trendsetters do, then the second responders, those who don’t jump to it immediately but eventually find it unavoidable to catch on. Finally, there are the laggers, who either wait so long to catch on that by the time they do the next big thing has already started, or never bother.

I always tend to find myself in the second responders group. I’m never the first to get anything, and i only really buy into trends or new technology when it’s become obvious that they are trends or the technology has become the norm. Shortly after i do, the next thing always comes out.

Every computer I’ve ever had became old news shorty after i bought it. The same goes for every cell phone I’ve had. I just bought a macbook a few months before the new macbooks came out.

As a kid, i played computer games because my parents seemed to be the only in existence that did not allow their children to have game systems like Nintendo. I’m not sure how effective the tactic was, because i spent the entirety of my weekends when i was 13 at my best friend’s house playing Goldeneye and Mario Kart on Nintendo64. The rest of the week would be spent in my room playing Civilization or NHL 93 on a pre-pentium computer. It would be another couple years until i finally had a real social life.

Then came this fabulous new system call the internet. I remember the first time we got it, and had no idea what to do with it. In retrospect this would seem wierd today, but the first thing we ever did regularly on the internet was chatrooms. Back then, the subject matter was irrelevant. It was the sheer amazement that i was talking live with people all over North America that made it fun. This soon expanded out of chat rooms and into an early version of AOL Instant Messenger, where the norm was to find a random user and ask “A/S/L?” for Age/Sex/Location. I remember finding it so cool when I was talking to some girl from Texas who liked some rapper called “M&M”. Oh 90s. And no, I don’t remember any old men asking if I want to meet and if I can keep a secret.

Although I was never on the forefront of new technologies, I have since then used computers on a daily basis, and it definitely helped that I went to a private high school where every student had an IBM laptop starting in 1998. Once again, although I was there the first year laptops were issued, the old clunker laptop I got that year was quickly surpassed by new models, yet that was the laptop I was to keep until I graduated. I know, “poor me,” but you see how it furthers the narrative I began earlier?

Since my high school, including teachers, communicated through AOL IM, i lived off of instant messaging up until about three years ago, when I realized I became annoyed every time someone messaged me, just like I’m annoyed every time my blackberry rings, yet I’ll never be more than 10 feet away from it.

I briefly used Myspace after spending some time in the U.S. at the height of Myspace mania, but when it became apparent that in Canada, everyone was using Facebook, I gave into that. Once again, falling nicely into the “second responders” category.

I would say I lived on Facebook for two years, but lately I’ve become less interested and I’ve generally had less time to waste on it. It’s stil the primary mode of communication with friends of mine from my 12 years of life in Ontario (Age 12-24), but not so much locally. I’m proud to say my mother is a Facebook friend, with no restrictions of any kind. My little sister is less open.

Outside of techonolgy, I can pretty much describe myself as someone who was married to music in one way or another from the age of 14 until the age of 24, but who was cheating on music with politics for the last four years of that marriage before finally breaking it off cold turkey a year ago and eloping to the states for a honeymoon with politics.

My interest in journalism pretty much stems from a fascination with American politics and the global events it affects. I began blogging on the American election last summer at alexleduc.com, and by September my columns were on several community newspaper websites as well as in the Concordian, and I was invited to comment on the election on CTV, which ended up earning me an internship in their newsroom.

Although I have grown to love blogging and writing, I am having an awesome time being introduced to television news and I may eventually end up with a career in TV, where I can always blog on the side. My ideal assignment would naturally be White House correspondent and my ideal job would be a 24h cable news host at CNN.

That way, I can hold a reasonable hope of eventually graduating to “first responder.”

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My impression of the “Reporting Across Platforms” course was that it was helpful in guiding our mindsets to this type of reporting, as most of us are already geared towards looking at a story in terms of its potential for either broadcast or print.

Aside from that, the exercise felt like reporting on any other story.