By Ashley Withers awithers@smu.edu

An avid reporter since he was 6, foreign correspondent Mort Rosenblum has witnessed dramatic changes in the world of mass media over the past 50 years.

Amid the dizzying array of technological advances,, Rosenblum argues that journalists should be first and foremost reporters.

“What matters is the message. The challenge is to get it right within a context of history and humanity. The rest is only process,” Rosenblum wrote in the introduction to his latest book, Little Bunch of Madmen.

The process has drastically changed since Rosenblum first became a foreign correspondent at the age of 17.

Before even being old enough to vote in the U.S., Rosenblum already had his first abroad assignment.  He left the University of Arizona journalism department to work at the Mexico City Times and then moved to the Caracas Daily Journal in Venezuela.

However, foreign reported has definitely shifted since then.

“It’s made it infinitely cheaper to be a foreign correspondent,” Rosenblum said on the way technology has impacted his career. “It’s a mixed blessing because people at the desk can talk to you, but not necessarily help you.”

The amount of history that Rosenblum has been a part of definitely qualifies him to make these assessments. His biography reads like a history book of all modern world conflicts.

After his stints in Mexico and Venezuela, Rosenblum returned to school to finish his degree and in 1967, he received his next international assignment. The Associated Press sent him to cover the mercenary wars in the Congo.

At age 23, he was dumped out into the jungle to tackle the assignment on his own with no guidance other than the advice from a fellow journalist to wear “cotton underwear because nylon clings in the tropics.”

Still, he argues that the practice is actually harder in today’s times: “Foreign correspondence is more dangerous now because there is a lot of pressure to not make your own decisions,” Rosenblum said.

When he was in the field, Rosenblum recalls, he got to tell the desk what the story was, a compilation of the things he observed around him and the people he interacted with. But now the desk can call you and demand you write something at the drop of a hat. This out-of-the-field element has shifted the direction of foreign correspondence.

“Everything that is happening to the planet has to do with how we as a people connect and get information,” said Rosenblum. “I can’t think of anything in the world that is more important than foreign reporting.”

Over the course of his career, Rosenblum has written from 200 countries, some of which no longer exist, and has covered many of the world’s most influential international crises for The Associated Press.

One of the most memorable for Rosenblum was his coverage of the revolution in Czechoslovakia and the ripple effect throughout Eastern Europe after the fall of the Berlin Wall. In 1989, he won the Overseas Press Club award for his coverage on these topics and was short listed for a Pulitzer for his reporting on the fall of Romania.

He also mentions his breaking news coverage of the “dirty war” and the death squads in Argentina as one of his scariest assignments.

When Rosenblum was first sent to Africa during the 1960s, getting the story to print involved telegraph forms and sweet talking postal clerks to make sure the story was sent off in a timely manner. Carrier pigeons and couriers were still required to deliver photos. The arrival of the Telex machine in Kinshasa was game changing, as was the satellite computer decades later.

In the 1990s, when Mobutu Sese Seko, longtime dictator of Zaire, fell in a shower of gunfire, Rosenblum was able to dictate over a cell phone.

All of these technological advances personally changed his career and the way his job could be done, but Rosenblum maintains that all the technology in the world is not a replacement for a good reporter. They are simply tools to be skillfully wielded.

“Today, satellites and fancy electronics make real time the routine, obviating middlemen,” writes Rosenblum in Little Bunch of Madmen. “But what counts, as always, is the essence.”

Rosenblum ran AP bureaus in Kinshasa, Lagos, Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta, Singapore, Buenos Aires, and Paris. His reporting earned him AP’s top reporting award in 1990, 2000 and again in 2001.

The world’s current economic climate has many news organizations eliminating their foreign bureaus. With social networks like Twitter and Facebook people around the world can stay in touch and the rise of citizen journalism through these mediums has made some editors question the necessity of a foreign correspondent in the field.

“The way things are going now in the Middle East and Southeast Asia and with the global climate, I think that’s just further proof,” Rosenblum said. “It’s more important now than ever to have good foreign reporting. Yet, we are getting less and I think that’s something to worry about.”

Since leaving the AP in 2004, Rosenblum’s career has started to take a more multimedia approach, while still sticking to his core beliefs.

In 2008, Rosenblum founded and launched the quarterly, dispatches. The online publication was started not to compete with other news organizations or the be the first on the scene of breaking news, but instead to “provide a substance that gives hourly, daily and weekly news organizations added value.”

He has also moved into the realm of multimedia on his own personal website, mortrosenblum.net, greeting page visitors with a video laying out his personal views on the changing media landscape.

“With so many changes in news media and so many of our great new tools, there’s never been so many opportunities for courageous young people to go out into the world and be reporters,” Rosenblum comments in his video. “But, one thing hasn’t changed at all, it’s that you’ve got to be a reporter. Journalism takes skills, it takes ethics, it takes training. It may not be a profession, but it is certainly a craft.”

a quick word from Mort Rosenblum on Vimeo.

https://locker.smu.edu/users/awithers/slideshow/publish_to_web/

https://locker.smu.edu/users/awithers/public/Ashley%20Withers/Ashley%20Withers%20Audio%20Lab-%20Montreal%20Subway.mp3

The new presidential initiative to support military families is now officially underway.

President Obama, First Lady Michelle Obama and Dr. Jill Biden introduced the “Strengthening Our Military Families: Meeting America’s Commitment” plan in late January in an East Wing meeting with the press.

The plan identifies four priorities: enhancing psychological health, ensuring improved education for the children of military members, develop career opportunities for military spouses and increase child care availability.

This government initiative is much needed according to SMU students who have served in the military or grown up on a military base.

Grey Reed, a junior at SMU, entered the Air Force in 2006 and feels that helping people in the military with their mental health and well being should definitely be at the top of the government’s new plan.

“When people get back [from deployment] they are diagnosed with PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder) and a lot of military people blow it off,” Reed said.

“Most military people are hard. They see stuff and they don’t know how to process things.”

Reed also feels that alcohol awareness classes and Alcoholic Anonymous (AA) meetings should be more readily available to veterans because of the tendency of soldiers to rely on substance abuse as a coping mechanism.

Nicole Salazar, a University of Texas at Arlington student, grew up on a military base and is glad that some of the focus will be on the children.

“I think that he is right in focusing on helping the family. It can be pretty hard for some people to deal with having their mom or dad gone for long periods of time,” Salazar said. “Giving them as much help as possible should be a top priority for the military.”

Higher education for those on base is an aspect SMU junior Nick Brown wishes they would focus on. Brown served in the Marine Corps from 2003-2007 and his wife, who lived on the military base, had to put her education on hold for two years.

“I think a lot of people don’t realize what kind of a sacrifice military families make,” Brown said. “I hope the new programs put more of a concentration on quality education on bases instead of just online classes.”

Brown also hopes that communication between families back home and their deployed family members can be improved. While he was in Iraq on his second deployment he was injured and had no way to let his wife know that he was, at the very least, safe.

SMU junior Wesley Lavender also thinks that improved communication would help families of the deployed as a whole.

“The government should work to use technology, such as Skype, to connect children to their deployed parents to make it easier to deal with,” Lavender said.

“Spouses need a lot of support too, so programs that bring spouses of deployed soldiers together would be greatly beneficial. These programs would naturally prevent depression and suicide among military families.”

Lavender grew up on a military base in San Antonio and is currently in ROTC planning to serve in the army after graduation.

The new initiative drew together nearly 50 commitments by various Federal agencies to set up a unified front in supporting the United States military.

Each Cabinet Secretary vowed to commit to these priorities, share expertise and continue to create better solutions through working together.

Obama’s latest proposed budget for 2012 also recommends a 1.6 percent pay increase for members of the military.

“You’ve been everything we could ask you to be. You have done your duty,” Obama said in his January announcement. “And as a grateful nation, we must do ours. We have to make sure that America is serving you as well as you have served us.”

Blog Post:

Pledge for military benefits may not mean much
By Ashley Withers

After talking to the SMU students about their hopes for the new military programs, I was filled with hope for what Obama’s new military initiative could turn into.

However, as I continued to do follow-up research online, I stumbled across a plethora of stories of these “benefits” not fulfilling the needs of veterans and their families.

CNN posted an article Thursday in regards to the $3.6 billion caregivers’ bill that was supposed to go into effect on Jan. 31. This bill was passed in May 2010 and promised money and training for wounded veterans’ caretakers, usually their immediate family members.

So far, none of the promised payouts have reached military families.

When the bill was originally passed it was met with a lot of the same enthusiasm that Obama’s latest initiative found.

U.S. Congressman Henry Cueller said in an update to his constituents, “It is important that we help the men and women in our troops, those who stand by them, as well as our veterans. These caregiver benefits are vitally needed and well-deserved.”

The couple quoted in the CNN article has had to give up their entire lives without any compensation.

Staff Sgt. Matthew Keil was left paralyzed after a sniper in Iraq shot him. His wife, Tracy, left her job as an accountant and now must be a full-time caretaker for her husband.

The Keils are desperately waiting for the benefits from last year’s veteran’s bill to kick in.

The failure of the government to implement these veteran benefits has me concerned for the future of the “Strengthening Our Military Families: Meeting America’s Commitment” plan.

These promises sound incredible on paper, but difficult and expensive to implement, particularly in an economy such as ours.

You can see the full plan here.

The only part of this new initiative that gives me hope for actual implementation is the passion behind the Bidens and Obamas on the issue.

First Lady Michelle Obama toured several army bases personally and spent time asking soldiers exactly what they thought was a necessary change.

“Working with all of you is some of the best work I do,” Michelle Obama said in the East Wing meeting on the new initiative. “Your stories affect me not just as First Lady, but as a mother, as a wife and as an American.”

Dr. Jill Biden has a very strong family tie to the issue of military improvement.

“My son is a captain in the Delaware Army National Guard and he recently spent a year in Iraq, so my husband and I know well the mixture of pride and concern that all military families share,” Biden said in the conference.

President Obama told America in the meeting that this issue should be at the forefront of the national discourse, let’s just hope that this time the follow through is as good as the original plan.

You can watch the video of Obama’s speech here.

What about you? What do you think? Is this new initiative necessary for the American military? Will the government come through for the families of soldiers and veterans?