Nagata Syndrome

My generation lives in a world set on hyper-drive. We’ve grown up being sensitized to this...but is it distracting us from being able to focus long enough to accomplish anything?

Instead of being fed information, news is shoved down our throats and screamed at us. It is second nature to be on the cutting edge of technology, culture, and current affairs. A popular t-shirt slogan says “I listen to bands that don’t even exist yet”...and for many of my peers, this is almost true. Our society is, globally, increasingly interconnected through social media, so when injustice happens, we read, see or hear about it...and then our attention is immediately pulled somewhere else. It is overwhelming, but addicting.

Author Courtney Martin writes in Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters, “Always moving...We pride ourselves on getting as little sleep as possible. We drink coffee. A lot of it...We are the daughters of feminists who said, ‘You can be anything,’ and we heard, ‘You must be everything.’”. She was writing about young women, but I would argue that much the same thing could be said of the young men I know.

Being everything means that we take on five projects at once, that we are interested in everything, that we find it difficult to say no to anything. And we continue to “find ourselves” over and over again, in new and different jobs, always looking for that one magical profession that will fulfill us. Often we think we have found it, only to be let down when it does not meet our expectations. So we move on, not sticking around long enough to stir the waters like we could, not long enough to realize our full potential.

Successful YouTuber Gunnarolla (Andrew Gunadie), also an alumnus of my alma mater, The University of Western Ontario, recently posted a video asking his viewers if it was worth him creating occasional videos. Between his two full-time social media jobs, Gunadie was losing time and passion for the medium that gained him fame to begin with. He said, “Yeah I have two jobs...My question to you is, is it worth trying to be a part time YouTuber? Why continue to make videos if you can’t be successful? To be honest YouTube is not really a creative outlet for me anymore.” Because he was no longer interested and available enough to create “good content,” Gunadie was questioning his involvement in what could be considered a third job.

I want to change the world. I’ve undertaken project after project, including volunteering, work experience, and two degrees towards that goal. I would hazard a guess that many people my age, regardless of their professional dreams, want to do the same in whatever field they are in, whether it’s entertainment, business, government or something in between. The problem is in deciding what that change will be, how we will craft it into something we can live off of, and then (and this may be the hardest) in sticking to it. Many of us find ourselves and our talents pulled in many different directions. And, being the ambitious, driven individuals we are, we often lose sleep rather than letting any one of our projects fail. If we do slip up, whether it is as small as a typo or something much more serious, we whine about how stretched thin we are...and do nothing to change it. This gives us incredible freedom in the possibilities, but carries costs, not the least of which is a lack of stability.


Enter Kai Nagata, the former CTV Quebec City Bureau Chief who, disillusioned with the business of broadcast news, recently quit his job. Nagata writes,

If storytelling turns out to be my true passion and the best use of my skills, then I'll continue down that path. If elder care, academia, agriculture, activism, art, education, Budo, or as-yet unforeseen pursuits turn out to make the flame burn brighter, I'll make the switch, or do them all...Right now I need to undertake a long-delayed journey of personal discovery. Having given away all the possessions that didn't fit into my truck, I've set out on the road again, heading West. I know I need to go home for a while. I need to surround myself with family and friends. I need to consult, meditate, and plan the next steps. I'm broke, and yet I know I'm rich in love. I'm unemployed and homeless, but I've never been more free. Everything is possible.

I identify with Nagata’s plight. He is a prime example of what has been called the “Peter Pan Generation,” for our refusal (or, if we are habitually unemployed, our inability) to grow up and don the mantle of a permanent job. He thought he had found something he could feel good about doing, and then discovered it was not for him. Regardless of whether or not his opinions on the business of news have merit, and despite the fact that many are shaking their heads at his Kerouac-like anti-career move, it took courage to follow his convictions. He, like so many of us, wants to make something of himself...or wants to make many things of himself.

I find myself in a similar soul-searching situation. But instead of looking at a myriad of interesting opportunities and trying to decide how many I can take on, I have made the choice to narrow down the options. As I apply for jobs in areas that I am passionate about, I am constantly asking myself- “Could I make a difference here? Does this use my skills in a way that I could be proud of? Is it something I can commit to?” If the answer is yes, I hit apply. If it’s not, I don’t, despite whatever financial consequences that may have. After six years of bouncing from cause to cause, I am looking for something that I can sink my teeth into, a job that I can devote myself to. I want to find my niche, and I want to work hard at it. Then and only then will I feel free to branch out again.

“Or do them all...” he said. For Nagata’s sake, I hope that's possible.

The Walrus

The Walrus is one of my favourite Canadian magazines, and my publication of choice for in-depth articles on politics and culture in Canada. So I was pleasantly surprised when I found out that my Dalton Camp Award essay is in the July/August online issue. I hope you'll check out their website, if not for my article, than for any number of other erudite reasons.



(Image © The Walrus)

Africa and Technology

The effects of technology (both positive and negative) on my adopted continent are something of a fascination for me. In November of 2010 I began Africa, Technology and Development, a project tracing the interaction between fast-paced technological change and the continent and people of Africa. I hope you will check it out!

My Essay in the Toronto Star

Some months back I made the difficult decision to write an essay, outside of the heavy workload of my Masters Program, to enter in the Dalton Camp Award. The topic? Democracy and the media in Canada.

During the course of the school year, I had become fascinated with those first female newswomen. I decided to explore their relationship with suffrage, and wrote a paper entitled, "How Canadian Newspaperwomen Won the Vote."

Well, the hard work has paid off. I was chosen as a finalist in the competition, and today my essay has been published in The Toronto Star. It was also printed in a booklet, and placed on the Dalton Camp website.

I would like to thank two very special professors who helped me with this project. First, Professor David Spencer at The University of Western Ontario. He made the history of the newspaper come alive for me, and inspired me to dig deeper into the early culture of the press. Second, Professor Barbara Freeman, who consented to a lengthy phone interview and was able to provide details and information to steer me in the right direction.

And of course, an ever present thanks to my parents, my best proofreaders.

The essays of other winners (past and present) of the Dalton Camp can be found here: http://www.friends.ca/DCA/winners

Home

School is done. For good. As I've been applying for jobs and contemplating the imminent possibility of leaving Canada yet again, I've been thinking a lot about the concept of home. I've lived in London, Ontario for five years, but it is not my home. I love this town, but I've lived in a lot of places, and I know when it is time to move on.

The other night one of my fellow MAJ graduates asked me if I considered Toronto home (where I went to high school) or Sénégal home (where I grew up and where my family currently lives). In my mind I added a third place to the list: Newfoundland, where I was born and where much of my extended family on my mother's side still lives. Which is home? Where do I belong?

In a creative writing class in my last year of undergrad I penned a personal essay on this topic. Unfortunately, it was temporarily lost on a crashed hard drive that I have not yet been able to recover. But a little less than a month ago, Jenn, one of my missionary friends in Sénégal, used the last few lines from the essay in one of her blog posts. I was shocked and honoured that she had kept the quote for more than a year, then remembered it to put in her blog! The words hit home for me, reminding me that as a journalist, where my home is has to be my choice.

“Home, I have come to understand, does not only have to be “where the heart is”. It can be anywhere that you decide to live, and live well. You make a place your home when it becomes a point of purpose, of decision, and of life. You make home, wherever that may be, and it travels with you. Home, in my experience, is a verb.”

Why J-Schools need risk and trauma training.

"Why didn't you tell me this before?"
(The following article was published in J-Source)

Megan Radford (pictured below) is a graduate journalism student at the University of Western Ontario -- she's already undertaken an internship in Malaysia and covered the G20 protests in Toronto. Last weekend, in her final term, she attended a workshop on Journalists & Risk which explored physical and emotional safety considerations in her chosen profession. Now she asks: Are journalism schools paying too little attention to these issues -- too late?



As journalists it is sometimes our job to put ourselves in harm’s way, to get the grizzly details and weed out what the public should know...and what they perhaps should not. What some may not realize is that the toll of this kind of life begins early. For some it begins even before we have officially entered the field.

I am a journalism student who has been taught by those who I consider to be some of the best in the business. But until recently, I had been given no training in how to deal with the myriad of difficult events that I have encountered in the past few months. Had I asked or reached out, my instructors would have been quick to respond. But I didn’t know what to ask for. Now I do, and so, from a student’s perspective, this is what you need to know:

It happened so quickly. I arrived at 10 a.m. to the third floor video department of my internship placement in Malaysia, just like I had on every other day that month. But on this morning, my supervisor wanted me to accompany him, a reporter and another intern to an exclusive interview.

That same month M. Krishnan, a man of Indian descent, had died in the custody of the Malaysian police. There was evidence to suggest that he had been beaten and refused medical care. The family was demanding an independent post-mortem to investigate the causes of death. Up to this point they had refused to speak with the media. But because of the family’s belief that our news organization was one of the few not controlled by the government, they agreed to speak with us.

Our crew of four arrived at a block of crammed apartment buildings. We rode the most decrepit elevator I have ever been in to the third floor and came to an open door leading to a small apartment. I was not prepared for the number of extended family members inside the small one bedroom home. Krishnan’s teenage daughters smiled at me shyly from the kitchen doorway, their slender arms protectively around their younger brother. On the floor in the corner of the tiny living room were two older women. Their grave eyes watched us set up the cameras. We were brought orange soda to drink in glasses. Then the family retreated out of the shot and Krishnan’s wife and mother arranged themselves on the couch in front of the cameras.

Not speaking Tamil, it was my job to man one of the cameras while my colleague conducted the interview. I zoomed in and out, thinking of the shots I was told to get till I noticed that the mother, who was speaking at the time, had begun to cry. She did not wail or scream, so there was nothing to warn me when it happened. But I suddenly became very aware of the fact that sitting in front of me was a mother just like mine, a mother who had lost a son and very likely would never find justice for his death. After that, and throughout the interview with Krishnan’s stoically calm wife, I found it very difficult to keep my composure. Was I even allowed to cry? I honestly didn’t know.

In thinking back on that experience, and the other desperate stories I have reported on in my short time as a journalist, I feel like I want to scream. I want to scream for that mother who cried so quietly. I want to scream for the babies who are abandoned by their mothers on the streets of Kuala Lumpur. I want to scream for the women in the fashion industry who are treated as sexual objects by certain photographers. I want to scream for the Congolese family I interviewed in London, Ontario that is losing loved ones as the war in their home country continues.

I also worry that without the proper risk assessment training, young journalists like me will be put in physical danger. When I reported on the G20 protests in Toronto, I was unprepared for the kind of mayhem that broke out. Similarly, when I was in a crush of people at a Hindu festival in Malaysia, it was mere instinct that caused me to find a high point (a metal grate) and to avoid being pressed against a wall, rather than any kind of training I had received. Often our tendency as inexperienced go-getters is to run to the story, no matter the danger. We think we are invincible. We are not.

I recently attended a workshop co-sponsored by my journalism program and the Canadian Journalism Forum on Violence and Trauma. My professor, Cliff Lonsdale (formerly of the CBC and a host of other media outlets) is one of the co-founders of the Forum, and hosts these talks for his students every year. The workshop, through a panel of journalists and interviews with top reporters, cameramen and editors from around the world, gave an overview of the risks that we as journalists, whether at home or abroad, will encounter in our careers. They run the gamut from mortars, to lone attackers with guns, to the emotional toll of sitting through a gruesome trial.

We were told that when we go through these situations, we need to find outlets to deal with the stress right away. We need to find other hobbies outside of work, we need to exercise to work off the stress. Most importantly, we need to talk about what we are going through with someone that we trust. If we don’t, the cumulative effect of the traumas can build to the point of breakdown.

For some of us in the room, the scenarios were hypothetical. But for others, those of us who may have had to call a grieving family for comment, or been exposed to very immediate danger, they were not. The information we gained from this needed to be put into action. NOW.

I’m sure that my experiences are not extreme, but the point is that even in such a short time, this job has had an effect on me. We may be young and we may have been working in the business for less than a year, but that has not stopped us from experiencing the kind of heartbreak and fear that any seasoned journalist goes through. This is why we as young journalists need to be informed of the risks, both mental and physical, that this job can have, right from the start. Far from being dissuaded from a career in reporting, I believe it will make us braver, more careful, and ultimately better journalists.

Dealing with Baby Abandonment in Malaysia