Citizen Journalism: Underscoring our need for (talented) journalists

If I could tell you two words that I would rather never hear again due to the sheer number of times I’ve heard them over the past seven years, it would be “dying industry.”

From the day I accepted my position as my high school paper’s editor-in-chief, I was told not to hold out too much hope that journalism would lead to a fruitful career, because journalism, specifically print, is a “dying industry.”

They credit that death to the rise of blogs, the greater access to free information and the speed at which we transmit information. They’re the next two words I least want to hear when discussing my field of work: social media.

Social media is a tool which can enhance journalism in beautiful, rich ways, but instead is more often used to undermine it. This undermining is usually committed by social media users in an effort to “prove” that journalism is irrelevant, and is perpetuated by social media consumers.

The most recent way in which we have seen that cycle of events is the “citizen journalism” which arose from the Boston Marathon bombings. I must start by saying that there are print publications which got it wrong too, which is definitely irresponsible journalism. However, when you look at the publications who did “get it wrong” or publish unconfirmed information, those were already publications which weren’t held in high regard before this.

Then in comes Reddit, who attempted to crowd-source an investigation. Their efforts to be the heroes and name the bombers, which thousands of trained law enforcement officers and investigative journalists apparently were not skilled enough to do in Reddit’s eyes. This effort resulted in the identification and divulging of personal information of the wrong person, a man who had nothing to do with the attacks.

Because we all fancy ourselves responsible for keeping the world informed, many people took to Twitter to name the man and spread his sullied name like wildfire throughout the social media world.

So when I am told that journalism is a “dying industry” because of our fast access to information, I say that journalism is an essential and gravely important industry because of our fast access to incorrect and inaccurate information.

The worlds of social media and journalism should be more closely linked than they are now. Unfortunately, their relationship is still more antagonistic than anything else. So what can we do to combat this?

Read the news. Read your dailies. Subscribe. Support the news you want to consume. Want left wing news? Subscribe to the Globe and Mail to get around the paywall. Want right wing news? Do the same with the Toronto Sun. But support the news. Create and sustain these jobs. Give our young, talented, emerging journalists a chance to point you in the right direction. Because some 21-year-old Twitter user isn’t going to.

The sensitive reporter

It’s a cartoonish yet strikingly common stereotype of reporters: the stoic, insensitive young member of the press stopping at nothing to get to the bottom of the story, pushing through grieving crowds at the scene of an accident, staring heartbroken mothers in the eye and pressing on with invasive questions, their stoney faces juxtaposed against the red, tear-filled eyes at a funeral.

I would like to thank TV shows such as Law and Order for helping to convince people that my profession is full of such jaded young journo-bots.

It is true that journalism has given me a tough skin — even in my days of student journalism. I remember after only working as a senior reporter with my student paper for two months hearing that there had been a car accident at the major intersection of our campus. I immediately grabbed a recorder and bolted for the scene, a photographer in tow. I remember not even hesitating to extend my arm and fan spectators out of the way as I approached a girl my age who had been hit by the car and proceeded to interview her. I was shocked at the authority in my normally flippant and feminine voice as I told people to get out of my way — I was press. Press.

This is the same woman who still cries out of frustration when she can’t finish a climbing route fast enough. Just the other night, I began to think about the possibility of my mother developing Alzheimer’s and burst into tears out of nowhere.

My very first interview was in fact a woman who was still grieving the loss of her father some months later. I knew this; I was interviewing her about a charity bike race she had completed in his honour. And the very first question I asked resulted in tears in her eyes — which of course caused tears to well in my own eyes.

Last night was not unlike any other; I was driving home from work listening to As it Happens on CBC Radio. Carol Off was interviewing Leah Parsons, the mother of sexual assault and bullying victim Reteah Parsons. Reteah attempted suicide late last week and her family chose to pull her off of life support on Sunday, April 7. Her long battle with depression from the trauma of not only her sexual assault but her humiliation and betrayal from her friends, peers and school was not something Mrs. Parsons was unfamiliar with. She had done her best to bring her daughter piece of mind and bring her attackers to justice, though the battle was in vain.

At least once a week I hear a radio broadcaster interviewing someone in mourning. They bookend their interviews with seemingly genuine wishes of sympathy. I don’t mean to question their intentions; I know that we are all human and we all know death, especially young death, is always tragic. And I hate to assume that someone in my own field is simply extending their condolences in an attempt to “look good.” However, a career reporter such as Carol Off has surely seen and reported on such a high number of tragedies and interviewed a staggering amount of grieving mothers in her time that this is nothing shocking, correct?

As the interview ends, Mrs. Parsons’ composed facade begins to crumble, her voice begins to waiver, and we hear the painful helplessness of a mother who has lost her child. It’s impossible for me to hold back tears in my eyes as I imagine her clutching the phone, her eyes fixed on nothing, haplessly wishing for her daughter to return home.

Carol Off extends her sympathies once again, this time more insistently, with a softer voice. She then asks Leah Parsons if she’s going to be okay. Parsons answers in the affirmative. She asks her final question — is someone with her? Parsons says yes, a house full of people. Jeff Douglas concludes the story.

Are reporters a special breed? Do we have skins of steel? Do our eyes not well with tears? Must we force ourselves to stop empathizing and sympathizing as a defence mechanism in order to better perform our jobs?

The answer is no — at least, not entirely.

It is precisely that sensitivity and empathy which makes a story compelling, human and worth reading.

On Richard Kachkar, retribution and “not criminally responsible”

It was a sad day for Christine Russell on March 27 as she listened to a judge rule that Richard Kachkar, the man who killed Russell’s police officer husband Ryan with a snowplow two years ago, was not criminally responsible for his actions.

Kachkar had been evaluated by three top psychiatrists, one of whom had been hired by the crown.

Russell’s death followed Kachkar’s early morning break from a homeless shelter as he went on to run through the snowy streets barefoot with no jacket, yelling about “Chinese technology,” Facebook and the Taliban. The psychiatrists on trial found that Kachkar was experiencing severe psychosis at the time.

Christine Russell has not disclosed her opinions on the legitimacy of Kachkar’s illness or mental state. She has, however, expressed that her husband, killed in the line of duty, “deserved better,” and that the ruling will follow her and her young son for the rest of their lives, that there is no closure and that knowing that Kachkar is “free” will haunt her son. She is urging Prime Minister Stephen Harper to push forward a bill that will tighten restrictions on people found to be not criminally responsible for crimes committed.

While Russell’s grief should be taken into account for her statements, her reaction has made me worry about our country’s current attitude toward mentally unhealthy “criminals” and the pedestal on which we place police officers.

Russell repeated that her husband was killed in the line of duty upon giving her reactions to the media. She also produced a family photo during the trial and asked Richard Kachkar to look at her family.

Mrs. Russell does not appear to understand that a person who is unable to appreciate the impact of what they’re doing certainly cannot appreciate the grief of a family without a father. Every death is tragic, and Ryan Russell certainly died a hero, but the tragedy of a death does not correlate with the intent of the killer.

More disturbingly, Christine Russell seems to have somewhat of a desire for revenge against mister Kachkar. I am sure that many have remarked, maybe even to the widow herself, that even finding Richard Kachkar guilty of first degree murder would not have given her the “closure” that she so craves. Her husband is still gone. As for how her four-year-old son copes with the loss of his father, that is up for Christine to decide how she wishes to approach the issue.

If she frequently tells her son that his father was killed by a bad man who is walking free now, of course it will strike fear into the heart of the young boy.

However, if she tells her son that her father was killed by a very sick man who did not mean to do something so awful and is getting the help that he needs and we hope he will never do it again, that is obviously different. It will teach her son to sympathize and not to fear the mentally ill, and instead of fearing for his own safety to hope that mister Kachkar gets better and that no family has to go through what his family did.

I fear that Christine Russell will teach her young son to be fixated on revenge from a very young age, and that he will become a young Bruce Wayne, minus the billionaire superhero part, forever searching for a feeling of completeness that can never be filled.

We must learn to divorce ourselves from the very legitimate emotions of the victims and their families when being critical of the perpetrators’ mental states. How angry someone is at someone else should not affect whether or not someone gets a fair chance at rehabilitation.

Lip service to mental illness is not the final frontier

It seems you can’t pick up a student newspaper, hear a student council election speech or pass by a campus bulletin without seeing or hearing the words “mental health.”

Mental health: we need to talk about it. Mental health: it’s as important as physical health. Mental health: erasing the stigma.

This is good, right? We do need to talk about mental health issues, especially among university students. I first noticed the increased saturation of conversations about mental heath at my alma matter, Wilfrid Laurier University, following a tragic and terrifying residence fire in my freshman year, 2009, which resulted in the death of one student, a well-liked varsity athlete. The fire was ruled as a suicide the following school year, and residence life dons were subject to more thorough training to recognize issues similar to the ones which lead to the tragedy.

The problem I now see is that “mental health” has become a new buzz-term said over and over by people who either don’t understand or don’t want to talk about the severity of mental illness.

In attempting to remove the “stigma” of mental illness, we’ve also avoided talking about the parts of mental illness that are downright ugly.

The words “mental health” are used in such general, nonchalant ways and as a result all mental health problems are regarded as homogeneous, with homogeneous solutions. Campus “experts” often cite class stress, separation anxiety from home, adjustment to a new life and relationship problems as common issues for students, and while these certainly need to be addressed, it seems that they are pussyfooting around some real big, significant problems — problems that maybe aren’t so easy to “just talk” about.

As many times as I have simply heard the words “mental health,” “issues,” and “stress,” and occasionally the words “depression” and “anxiety,” I could count on one hand the number of times I have heard the words “self-harm,” “suicide,” “disordered eating,” “addiction,” “abuse,” “post-traumatic stress disorder” or “assault” used in mental health campaigns.

Launching campaigns to assure people that they’re not alone and they’re not weird because they’re stressed out is all well and good, but there’s a difference between common anxieties shared by the vast majority of a student body and far grittier problems such as addiction.

While I definitely cooed at the notion of Laurier’s “puppy room” last December during fall 2012 exams, to hear that it was regarded as a “mental health” campaign only further emphasized to me that student mental health campaigns are still merely scratching the surface of true mental health problems. Not every problem can be solved with a puppy. In fact, most cannot.

Having someone to discuss your issues with is often invaluable, but that does not mean that it is helpful for everyone. Money being put toward mental health issues for post-secondary students should be put into more councillors equipped for dealing with very specific problems, not bubblegum poster campaigns.