17.2.08

Journal Entry V

The following is part of a series of reposted journal entries made for a reporting class I am taking right now. They aren't particularly edited, or necessarily even interesting (though hopefully they are), but they do a pretty good job of expressing what I am doing right now. And, of course, they are pre-made content. Reader beware.

Journal Entry 5: VFSA Interviews

Meeting with the Veteran’s association was interesting on several levels. They were good people with complex histories and opinions. Their community was purpose-driven but also difficult to penetrate, and their story was equally difficult to understand and tell.

All told, I spent about two hours or so interviewing various members of the group in their EMU meeting room. The co-director, Shane Addis, was my first interview. He provided some good information, but was also very issue driven. I went back to talk with the members to try and get a more human face on their issues, which also gave me some of the best quotations.

Speaking with military folk comes pretty naturally to me after spending so much time with them, but the real trick for me was finding a good way to write down what was being said. While I only sat down with one person, a bull session quickly developed that had my pen racing across the page in a near illiterate fashion. Three people chatting are difficult to cover, even though I managed to retain their attention on me and my questions. While I managed to attribute just about everything, I was constantly worried about getting a great quote and not know who said it.

I later went back and covered their meeting with the PFC funding committee, which ended in disappointment for the VFSA members. I found myself wishing that I could write up a follow-up article on the group and on the meeting itself, which I thought was very interesting in how the personal dynamics played out. Clearly there was more story to tell, and I wasn’t surprised to see a follow-up in the Emerald the following Monday.

On a personal note, after seeing the funding committee, I’d agree with an unnamed interviewee who thought that the PFC seemed like, “a bunch of kids playing government.”

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