Media dereliction of military duty

Media dereliction of military duty
By Kathie Costos
Wounded Times Blog
January 15, 2013

After I posted about the military suicides at an all time high minutes after it was released by Associated Press, I got a call from a reporter. She wasn't asking me what I thought was going on. She didn't want to know what could be done to prevent them. Had no interest in what was behind all of this after vast sums of money had been spent in the last 40 years. You know, the questions that should have been asked considering I've been doing this for 30 years and spend 365 days a year tracking all of these stories plus working with families and veterans to heal or the fact I am working on my second book The Warrior SAW, Suicides After War because of all the false information out there and the suffering of families blaming themselves after someone they loved took their own lives. No, she didn't want to know any of that. She wanted to know how I got these stories so fast.

I told her, first, I know what I'm covering. I know the subjects of all these reports well. Seven days a week, 365 days a year, 12 hour days and haunting dreams keeping me awake at night have produced over 17,000 posts in 5 years on this blog alone. I lost count on the emails I receive and phone calls I take from military families and people I talk to filming events with heartbreaking stories they need to tell someone praying for relief, a kind word, an understanding ear they know will not judge them and more often than not, a hug. Other than that, I'm dedicated to this work because I remember what it was like when all of this was going on and the media was even less interested in these stories than they are now.

When the Washington Post's The Fold put up two video reports, I was among the first to post two breaking news stories. The first piece of news was that 22 veterans a day are committing suicide, up from the 18 the VA had been reporting. I felt for sure this would be all over the news sites. I was wrong. Last night during a conference call with Point Man leaders, I broke that piece of news to sunken hearts along with the latest military suicides at 349. The Fold also did a report on a Navy SEAL Robert Guzzo's suicide and his family when "After Veterans Day, he went to "be with the angels."

Still this reporter was doing what so many others do. I asked her how she compiled a story, what she knew about the military and PTSD. She said she searched Google when she was assigned stories. At that point, I lost my patience and hung up the phone. It happens all the time when someone has to write a "story" on something they don't know anything about.

The worst was when a reporter from the New Yorker, William Finnegan wanted to know about Staff Sgt. Travis Twiggs. I picked up the story and so did my friend Lily Casura at Healing Combat Trauma. Lily has the heart and soul to do this work and did a fantastic job finding more about Travis. Finnegan called her after I told him he should. For days he picked our brains to learn about PTSD and suicide. When it came time to publish his story, later picked up by the UK, he forgot where he got all the information from and said his editor removed reference to our work.

The worst thing about all of this is that while I do have more reports than most sites, I am only one person. Sure I get a lot of hits on a daily basis but the "real media" sites get a hell of a lot more. It makes me sick to know that all these stories are out there but few reporters care about them enough to make the general public aware. Can't imagine how far we could have come if they had cared enough to do the same thing I'm doing.

They have money to advertise their sites and they have money to pay reporters. I can't even get enough in donations to be able to support the work I do for our veterans so advertising is out of the question. That is why I get angry. If they were doing their jobs, I wouldn't have to search day and night to make sure these stories were told to as many people willing to read them.

The next time a reporter feels the need to speed up getting their story out, they better have a check book ready to make a donation for my time. If they had been doing their jobs, I'd spend a lot less time helping grieving families.