Getting ready...

...to send in my application to EPIK (English Program In Korea). Not only do i have to send them their application form duly filled out, but i also need: two letters of recomendation, a criminal record check, my renewed passport, a medical form filled in by my doctor, a medical form filled in by me, a personal essay (see below), my original degree (only getting that june 12), and original sealed transcripts. That's it. not much eh? haha. it's been a right pain in the ass getting it all ready, and i'm still waiting on a few things that will have to be sent separately from my application. i have to send it to Ottawa since that's where the embassy is, if i get an interview, i'll have to go there for the day to do it. Pray or keep your fingers crossed for me, whichever you prefer. anyway the deadline is coming fast but i think i'm ready. the more i think about it and the closer it comes to the time to leave, the more nervous i get. i'm excited, but also scared. anyway, here is the cheesy personal essay that i wrote for my application... hopefully it isn't too bad!

My name is Elizabeth Jane Mavor. I live in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. I have just completed a Bachelor of Arts and Science Specialization Journalism at Concordia University. Journalism, and writing, have been passions of mine for as long as I can remember. Finishing my degree means that I now have the credentials to back me up. University was a great and difficult accomplishment, but I strived at it. Not only did I have a grade point average of at least 3.6 throughout, I was also a member of the Journalism Students’ Association (last year I was the President), and worked part-time (25 hours per week) at one of Canada’s leading financial institutions. The last four years of my life have been trying, but I overcame all obstacles so that I can now pursue one of my many life goals: to teach abroad.

The opportunity to teach in South Korea is not only about teaching but also about learning. I will do my best to ensure that my students can excel, and I will also do my best to excel in South Korea. The experience is also about what I will learn – about Korea, about myself, and about the world. I have longed to travel since I was a teenager; I have explored a few countries other than Canada, but never for more than a few weeks at a time. I look forward to being able to integrate myself in a new culture. I am also eager to learn as much about Korea as I can, and have already begun reading its history and learning the basics of the language.

Of course, teaching will be a new experience for me, but I have been told that I am patient and good at helping people. My job for the last three years has been to help customer service representatives with whatever they needed. I know that I can explain things in an easy to understand way. I enjoy helping others; there is nothing better than the satisfaction of a job well done – especially when someone else is even happier that you were able to assist them. I hope to use as many tools as possible to help my teaching, including, video, print, audio, and art, to name a few. I would like to be in an engaging, and pleasurable environment, as I’m sure the students will.

I know that I work well in groups, having been a member of the Journalism Students’ Association for the last two years – last year I was the president. I organized events with upwards of 70 guests, while coordinating the rest of the JSA members. As a financial officer I budgeted expenses and signed for purchases. I was a liaison between the Department of Journalism and the student body – representing student interests and keeping up to date with everything going on in the university. I was also the representative to the larger student body of the Arts and Science Federation of Associations. Also, working closely with the director of journalism afforded me the opportunity to work in the department as an admissions assistant and to be a member of the search committee for a new director of the department – there is only one undergraduate student chosen to sit on the panel, and it was me!

Here I am going on about school when I have done so many other things and had so many other experiences in my life. I have worked as a photographer, as a photo lab technician, and in restaurants (as a waitress, and cook). As I mentioned, I have experienced limited international travel, and look forward to the new experiences that South Korea will offer me. I am more excited about doing this than I am about graduating from university. I know that I will excel at anything I put my mind to, and I hope that you will give me the opportunity to join your team in South Korea.

Water or Coke?

This is a forward that i received from my father... i have always believed in drinking your 8 glasses a day, and never drink less than that if i can help. Water or Coke

WATER

1. 75% of Americans are chronically dehydrated.

2. In 37% of Americans, the thirst mechanism is so weak that it is often mistaken for hunger.

3. Even MILD dehydration will slow down one's metabolism as much as 3%.

4. One glass of water will shut down midnight hunger pangs for almost 100% of the dieters studied in a University of Washington study.

5. Lack of water, the #1 trigger of daytime fatigue.

6. Preliminary research indicates that 8-10 glasses of water a day could significantly ease back and joint pain for up to 80% of sufferers.

7. A mere 2% drop in body water can trigger fuzzy short-term memory,trouble with basic math, and difficulty focusing on the computer screen or on a printed page.

8. Drinking 5 glasses of water daily decreases the risk of colon cancer by 45%, plus it can slash the risk of breast cancer by 79%, and one is 50% less likely to develop bladder cancer.

And now for the properties of COKE:

1. In many states (in the USA ) the highway patrol carries two gallons of coke in the truck to remove blood from the highway after a car accident.

2. You can put a T-bone steak in a bowl of coke and it will be gone in two days.

3. To clean a toilet: Pour a can of Coca-Cola in! to the toilet bowl and let the "real thing" sit for one hour, then flush clean. The citric acid in Coke removes stains from vitreous China .

4. To remove rust spots from chrome car bumpers: Rub the bumper with a rumpled-up piece of Reynolds Wrap aluminum foil dipped in Coca-Cola.

5. To clean corrosion from car battery terminals: Pour a can of Coca-Cola over the terminals to bubble away the corrosion.

6. To loosen a rusted bolt: Applying a cloth soaked in Coca-Cola to the rusted bolt for several minutes.

7. To bake a moist ham: Empty a can of Coca-Cola into the baking pan,wrap the ham in aluminum foil, and bake. Thirty minutes before the ham
is finished, remove the foil, allowing the drippings to mix with the Coke for a sumptuous brown gravy.

8. To remove grease from clothes: Empty a can of coke into a load of greasy clothes, add detergent, and run through a regular cycle. The Coca-Cola will help loosen grease stains.

9. It will also clean road haze from your windshield.

For Your Info:

1. The active ingredient in Coke is phosphoric acid. Its pH is 2.8. It will dissolve a nail in about 4days. Phosphoric acid also leaches calcium from bones and is a major contributor to the rising increase in osteoporosis.

2. To carry Coca-Cola syrup (the concentrate) the commercial truck must use the Hazardous material place cards reserved for Highly corrosive materials.

3. The distributors of coke have been using it to clean the engines of their trucks for about 20 years!

Now the question is, would you like a coke or a glass of water? Have A Great Day and Share It With Others Water or Coke

The Big Apple...

...and Jon Stewart...

It is the city that never sleeps, the city of lights, the big apple – New York City – the home of international finance, fashion, art, culture, and music, not to mention the United Nations. It is the most densely populated city in North America, with over eight million residents. I only had sixty hours to see as much of it as I could, but I made the most of it.

My Television News professor, Peter Downie and another television professor at Concordia University, Brian Gabriel, organized the trip. There were 15 students and two other faculty members with us. We got a group rate with Amtrak and the Journalism Students Association sponsored the trip, so it was dirt-cheap for all of us.

The train from Montreal was terrible – don’t ever do this – we were delayed by over two hours on the way there, so we arrived at 9:30 PM at Penn Station in central Manhattan. Our hotel– The Pennsylvania Hotel – was across the street from the station, which sits under Madison Square Gardens, home of the Knicks and the Rangers.

It was a great location and a deal, quadruple occupancy (with four beds) for around $200 US a night. The rooms were large, clean, and comfortable. Each person got their own key card, so we could all come and go as we pleased. The staff were courteous, and we didn’t experience any problems with the room. We were minutes walking from Times Square; the subway was easily accessible – though a bit harder to figure out than Montreal’s Metro, I managed just fine with my built-in super navigation system (I’m always the navigator on road trips).

What can I say about New York that hasn’t been said before? Probably nothing. But it was my first time there, and a whirlwind trip at that. I managed to pack in: Times Square, the Statue of Liberty, “Ground Zero” at the World Trade Center Site, Battery Park, Chinatown, Canal Street, Little Italy, the Staten Island Ferry, a cab ride, a rickshaw ride through central park, the Strawberry Fields of Beatles fame, the “Friends” fountain, Trump Tower, The Ritz, Rockefeller Center, The Empire State Building, FAO Schwartz (where I played the giant piano like Tom Hanks in the movie BIG), Fifth Avenue, New York pizza (terrible BTW), not getting carded for cigs or in bars, taking the subway, shopping, shopping and shopping. Not bad for two days. Of course the main event wasn’t even seeing the city… I was there for The Daily Show with Jon Stewart!!!
We arrived for the taping at just past 4PM we were waiting in the “VIP” line, which meant that we actually had tickets and they were waiting for us. The building sits on the corner of 11th Avenue and 52nd Street and has a blue awning and huge posters of the members of the cast. A sign above the door reads: “Abandon News All Ye Who Enter Here.” We were given our tickets – pink laminated poster board with a handwritten number, mine was 17. Once in the building, we were herded into a room to wait more. We were told there would be no photos or autographs, but there would be a short question period before the show.

Our group was the second to be seated. Front row, on the right side of the studio, Jon’s desk was about ten feet away from me. There were about 200 seats and as many lights in the studio. Four Sony cameras equipped with Teleprompters were placed around the stage and several huge screens made up the rest of the set. Jon’s desk sits on top of a two-stepped circular platform. It was a little over ten feet away from my seat.

I pulled my seat as close to the stage as I could, and waited. There were big black curtains hanging beside me, I pulled an edge back to see what I could. There was a man sitting with headphones looking at a monitor. He looked at me and raised an eyebrow. “What do you do?” I asked him. “You’ll see,” he replied. I didn’t (still don’t know what he did.)

Since we were the first to be seated we had to wait for the audience to fill up. They were leading people in group-by-group and assigning them seats. Microphones hung from the ceiling all over the studio – no laugh tracks at the Daily Show. The ceiling looked like the night sky for all of the lights that were shining. It’s incredible what it takes to put together a real studio. People were running around the studio, getting ready for the taping, but the atmosphere was relaxed and everything was under control, after all, they do it everyday. Finally the emcee came out. I didn’t catch his name, but he’s a staff writer who used to be a lawyer. He got the audience warmed up; after all, you need to be in the mood before being able to laugh loud enough for TV.

He picked on the group across the studio from us; they were from the National Defense University – basically the military’s think tank – they probably could have been guests on the show. He picked on one woman who was just back from Iraq – she had been in charge of reconstruction – “So, you were building houses?” he asked her. “No,” she replied. “So then you were directing a construction site?” Again she answered no. “so you weren’t really doing anything then!” he laughed in her face. I would be careful what I said to some of those people. She ended up getting him back later on by telling him that he shouldn’t have quit his job as a lawyer. His reply to that was lying down on his back, spreading his legs for her and telling her to lick his balls. In poor taste? Probably. Funny? For sure.

He came to our side of the studio and saw that we were all wearing Concordia Journalism sweatshirts. He asked us where we were from. He honed in on Brian – one of the professors that came with – “Are you their chaperone?” he asked. “Well, no,” Brian replied, “I just came with them.” Which, of course, is true. Then he picked on a few other people, and before we knew it Jon Stewart was front and center.

“Boxers or briefs?” one woman asked him. He answered with something like “the boys are free!” After a few quick questions, it was time to tape the show. Everything went so smoothly, all the b-roll, the camera movements, Jon’s delivery; the show went off without a hitch. The guest was a guy who wrote a book called Eat This Book, about competitive eating. Jon’s best question: So, how hard do you have to work to make this legitimate? – or something to that effect.

At the end of the show Jon walked behind one of the giant screens, but was in my direct line of vision. I caught his eye and waved. He looked right at me and waved back. What a moment. Seems so silly, but I think it just shows that he’s probably a really nice guy. Brian told me after the show that he noticed that Jon said “thank you” every time he was handed fresh copy.

It was a great experience, and worth the train ride from hell. I wouldn’t do anything differently, except maybe ask Jon a really smart question. But no regrets! We walked back to the hotel through mid-town Manhattan. Stopped at the Hershey store where I bought a bucket of chocolate for Cherry (my room mate).

I didn't have nearly enough time to see all of New York. I’ll have to go back. When I do there are a few things on my “to do” list. The United Nations – where you can get a sheet of stamps with your photo on them. Museums, museums, museums – MoMA, Natural History, Guggenheim, Television and Radio, just to name a few – there are hundreds. More of Central Park. More clubs and bars. Soho. A Broadway show. TV tapings – Saturday Night Live, David Letterman…Everything else. You could probably live in New York for your entire life and not see everything, but I think I did quite well for sixty hours.

Oops!

So sorry... i’ve been ignoring this blog for several weeks, but really, i'm just that busy... or i was anyway. Since my last post, i have finished my undergraduate studies and been to New York City (for the first time)... add on the two jobs that i had, organizing the journalism end of year/grad dinner and it left very little time to bother with this blog. BUT, now that i have plenty of time on my hands, i should be posting more regularly. i want to get this blog up and running and looking good... maybe i can get a little traffic... put some extras on here... i will get around to it very soon. i’m currently writing a story about my trip to New York that will be posted here shortly, with photos and all. So, until then, cheers!

The Psychology of War and Trauma Reporting

An essay by Elizabeth Mavor

Whether covering conflict and war zones around the world, or murders and court cases in their own backyards, bearing witness to traumatic events is often part of a journalists’ work. For some, the thrill of reporting from war zones is enough to sustain them, for others, trauma is a reality that prevents them from leading a “normal” life. One journalist upon his return home from Bosnia said, “I was not feeling well. I wasn’t sure of what was wrong with me. I knew it was work related and I knew it was specifically conflict related.”

While only a handful of studies have been carried out to understand the effects of trauma on journalists, the findings are similar in all of them – trauma does affect journalists. One study found the lifetime prevalence of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in war journalists was almost three times that of police officers and other trauma responders. A high rate of exposure to violence and its stressful results were also supported in a study of American newspaper journalists covering the local crime beat. However, trauma and psychological issues among journalists remains a taboo subject.

“An unwritten code among journalists holds that no assignment, no matter how brutal, can defy one’s capacity to take a photograph, gather facts, and produce a story. Moreover it is part of the code that the journalist then proceeds to the next assignment without acknowledging or treating the emotional toll of the tragic event.” What is posttraumatic stress disorder? Why do some journalists choose to cover conflict? Why do some journalists “make it” in war reporting, while others do not? What does exposure to traumatic events do to foreign and local reporters? Through examining these questions this paper will identify the role of psychology in the lives of reporters around the world.

Posttraumatic stress disorder first appeared in the American Psychiatric Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders in 1980. In order to be diagnosed with PTSD “an individual must have experienced or witnessed an event that involved actual or threatened death or serious injury. Responses to this must involve fear, helplessness or horror. ” As well, a specified number of symptoms from the PTSD triad must be present. The triad is made up of three categories: intrusion, avoidance and arousal.

“‘There are a lot of situations that stay with you. Nightmares. I find myself abusing alcohol and drugs in order not to remember my dreams.’” Recurring dreams, nightmares and flashbacks are all symptoms of intrusion. Flashbacks and memories can strike at any time, often giving the person the feeling of “actually experiencing the trauma again or seeing it unfold before their eyes and in nightmares.” A study, by Dr. Anthony Feinstein, of the University of Toronto, released in 2003 showed that 77 per cent of war journalists experienced flashbacks and involuntary recollections. The study also showed that even journalists who did not have PTSD showed abnormally high symptoms of intrusion.

The second group of symptoms in the triad are those of avoidance. “The person feels numb, has diminished emotions, and can complete only routine, mechanical activities.” Many journalists returning from covering traumatic events report difficulties in returning to normal life and in carrying on personal relationships. Less than 45 per cent of war journalists are married compared with over 80 per cent in the aged matched general population.

Arousal – the last symptoms of the triad – includes “difficulties with sleep, irritability or temper outbursts and poor concentration.” According to Feinstein, hypervigilance and an exaggerated startle response are the most common of the arousal symptoms. After returning to London from Grozny, a cameraman describes how he is different from the other local journalists covering an arrest. “I was just standing there and this lorry drove over a plastic bottle and it sort of exploded, and you have never seen anyone hit the deck so quickly. And everyone just looked at me and said, ‘God, what’s wrong with you?’”

The symptoms that make up the PTSD triad tell us that journalists who are exposed to traumatic events don’t just go on to the next assignment, as the unwritten code would have us think. Journalists carry around stories of close calls and near death with them for the rest of their lives. Although some journalists deal better – Feinsteins study showed that 70 per cent of war journalists do not suffer from PTSD. This does not, however, mean that these journalists do not experience higher than average mental disorders – they do. Even journalists without PTSD scored higher across the board in the triad symptoms.

“Journalists race around in search of civil war, secretly happiest when they sign off from some hell hole where the bodies are stacking up and the omens of apocalypse are most vivid.” Journalist Fergal Keane doesn’t have a definitive answer to why some journalists choose to go to war, Feinsteins’ study reveals several possible explanations.
“What I got out of war was a buzz.” Where does the buzz come from? The Sensation-Seeking Scale (SSS) can help in determining reasons why war journalists put their lives on the line for the adrenaline rush. The four chief features of sensation-seeking behavior are “thrill and adventure seeking, experience seeking, disinhibition, and boredom susceptibility.” Results from years of SSS scores have identified certain key demographics that apply to the war journalist. Data take from the general population shows that men tend to have higher SSS scores than women. This can help explain why three quarters of war journalists are men. Also, SSS scores decline with age, which also draws a parallel to war journalists – their mean age being in the mid-30’s.

Although sensation seeking is one potential explanation for war journalists to continue to put their lives in danger, Feinstein posits that a person neurophysiological makeup may also be part of the answer. “It is at this level that a few key neurotransmitters and hormones modulate novelty-driven behavior. Neurotransmitters are chemical messengers that carry information from one nerve in the brain to another. Neurotransmission underlies every aspect of human behavior.” When journalists like Keane talk about the “buzz” or the high they get from war zones, it is a physical reaction that their bodies are creating. Adrenaline speeds up the heart rate, increases breathing and induces sweating. But it is not adrenaline that controls sensation-seeking behaviour it is dopamine.

There are two ways that dopamine can be broken down in the brain, through the enzyme monoamine oxidase (MAO) or by conversion to noradrenaline (a pre-cursor of adrenaline). Studies have shown that low levels of MAO are correlated to high SSS scores. “The inference is that low levels of MAO lead to high levels of dopamine, and that in turn manifests as pronounced sensation-seeking behavior.” No study has ever been done to find out the MAO levels of journalists, but it is impossible to attribute the why of war journalism to physiology alone. While it may, in fact, be impossible to determine why journalists do what they do, we can assume from the Feinsteins’ findings that physiology can play a role.

Thus far we have been looking at war reporters who usually live in the west and are able to go home at the end of a period of time, but what about journalists who cover conflict and violence locally? “As the years of street-reporting experience increase, reporters and photographers are morel likely to suffer behavior symptoms akin to those experienced by victims of trauma in public-safety work.” These “local” findings are similar to Feinsteins’ international study. Symptoms of both intrusion and avoidance were high in local journalists covering traumatic events. Though no study has been done to test for PTSD specifically in local journalists, there has been enough evidence to support a correlation between witnessing traumatic events and journalists who “burn out” or have breakdowns. In their book, Covering Violence, Coté and Williams show that journalists are affected by violence from the first assignment they cover. Mark Pinsky, a veteran crime reporter in the USA stopped working the crime beat because he felt couldn’t do it anymore. Twelve years later he had the choice to go back to crime reporting, or lose his job. He chose the crime beat. “I found the pace un-relenting, the beat more grueling than ever. It wasn’t that the murder beat had changed over the years. I had.” Pinsky says that there are two major pitfalls for journalists covering crime. “If you protect yourself too much by screening out the unpleasantness, you cheat the reader by failing to convey the horror, which is, after all, your job. On the other hand, if you allow yourself to absorb the reality of what you see and hear, you run the risk of destroying yourself emotionally.” He came to this conclusion more than a decade after leaving the crime beat, this is telling of the lasting effects of violence on journalists.

We have seen that journalists who work abroad covering war and conflict are at a much higher lifetime prevalence rate of PTSD We have also seen a correlation between covering traumatic events and local journalists developing emotional problems as a result of their job. What is being done in the industry to help professionals deal with the stresses that are inherent in their jobs? Coté and Simpson offer suggestion for coping with covering crime.

First the responsibility of the employer needs to be addressed. Because of the “macho” culture among journalists, there needs to be a system in place for journalists to get help anonymously. After a crime reporter witnessed the shooting of a suspect by police the journalist was showing signs of depression. A police officer at the station suggested that the reporter see a police psychologist. “The newspaper’s management had not suggested that the reporter talk to a counselor.” Feinstein found similar results in his study, “journalists who over the course of their careers developed a disorder like PTSD or became seriously depressed seldom received treatment.” Feinstein doesn’t put all of the blame on news organizations, or journalists, but rather a combination of both. “This neglect, at times approaching disdain, was part of a wider macho culture of silence that historically has enveloped the profession when it came to psychological health and other emotionally freighted issues.” The macho culture continues, but slowly the industry is taking psychological health more seriously. Many news organizations now offer professional counseling to their staff, as well as training sessions for journalists who will be going to war zones.

“Every effort should be made to ensure that the facts are not distorted by a journalist’s depression, anxiety, substance abuse or post-traumatic stress disorder, for all these conditions may act as a biased filter through which a particular event, emotional in itself, is viewed.” Journalists need to understand that they are not invincible as “the code” would have them believe, and news organizations need to create safety nets and training programs for their employees. Only when the industry as a whole can recognize that there is a problem, can it begin to be solved. The first step is for journalists to recognize that they are vulnerable.

Bibliography

APA - American Psychiatric Association 1999 “APA Let’s Talk Facts About…Posttraumatic Stress Disorder” retrieved from http://www.psych.org/disasterpsych/fs/ptsd.cfm. April 2, 2006.

Coté, William & Roger Simpson. 2000. Covering Violence. New York: Columbia University Press.

Feinstein, Anthony. 2003. Dangerous Lives: War and the Men and Women Who Report It. Toronto: Thomas Allen Publishers.

Pinsky, Mark I. 1993, “Covering the Crimes.” Columbia Journalism Review, January-February 1993, p.29

Simpson, Roger A.; Boggs, James G.. “An Exploratory Study of Traumatic Stress Among Newspaper Journalists.” Journalism & Communication Monographs, Spring 1999, Vol. 1 Issue 1.