I want to dedicate today's Al's Morning Meeting to a
monumental project by The Frederick (Md.)
News-Post. The
project looks at how 88,000 American soldiers are still missing from as far
back as World War II. More than that, the
paper used government records to find nine Frederick soldiers who are
missing. Eight of those served in the Korean war, and one served in Vietnam.
The work includes a big collection of interactive elements
including maps and databases.
I asked David Simon, assistant city editor, about the project
and about how you can use the databases to localize the story yourself. I have to believe that this would be an
enormously successful project for any newsroom.
How did your paper get started on this very
large project?
The project began with a simple press release about an
American Legion dinner to honor the county's sole Vietnam War veteran who
remains unaccounted for. He's been featured in our paper a number of times, but
we began wondering if veterans of other wars might be unaccounted for. Once we
started digging through the databases, we were amazed at the number of
unaccounted-for soldiers whose stories have never been told.
Where did you go to get your database? How
did you localize it?
The databases for each war, beginning with World War II, are
available at
www.dtic.mil/dpmo,
the Web site for the Defense Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Office. The databases for
the following wars can be sorted by state: Korean War, Cold War and the Vietnam War. Once you have the state list, a column provides information
about the soldier's hometown, and it's pretty easy to find the soldiers from
your coverage area.
Once we had the names, we worked with the public information
officers at DPMO to locate surviving family members who would be willing to
talk. We also scoured our obituary archives searching for family members or
friends.
We had about a 50-percent hit rate for family willing to
discuss the soldiers' stories, but the ones we did find made for compelling
journalism. For the other stories, we relied on DPMO's "scrub sheets" -- the Department of Defense's write-up of the circumstances under which the
soldiers were lost.
So could other journalists localized the
database too? What would they need to do to get the kind of data that you
found?
When it comes to taking a large database and bringing it to
the local level, this is one of the easier projects to tackle. Again, the data
is sorted by state, so sitting down with someone who knows your coverage area
extremely well and the list from your state would yield the names you're
looking for.
Eighty-eight thousand is a stunning number of unidentified
or missing military dead. In what wars did most "go missing"?
Here's the rough breakdown by war, according to DPMO: World
War II -- 78,000; Korean War -- 8,100; Vietnam War -- 1,800; Cold War -- 125; 1991
Gulf War -- 3.
Why is it that we have fewer and fewer
missing soldiers in later wars, since the first Gulf War for example?
Part of that has to do with advancements in identification
technology, such as DNA testing. Also, the military has made an effort to
ensure that remains will be identifiable -- since 1991, the Department of
Defense has been storing blood from every military service member. It now has
bloodstain cards of more than 5 million current and former troops.
Once you knew who the local missing were,
how did you find their families, and what concerns did you have about dredging
up the past?
For some of the service members, we worked with DPMO
officers, who contacted the families first to check if they would be willing to
share their stories. One thing we did in each case of contacting family members
was make sure they understood the intent of the project. We learned from a
piece we did on coping with loss and the psychology of closure that because no
funeral took place, those who grieve carry that burden for years, some to this
day.
It was paramount that the families understand our goal of
telling the stories that no one had heard and that the focus would be on those
who were lost.
How are you telling this story differently
on the Web compared to the newspaper?
The Web offers several features that we couldn't do in
print. The most prominent is a clickable map of the last-known locations of
each of the "Frederick
nine," as we've come to call them in the office. By clicking on a pinpoint
location, the soldier's story pops up in another window. It was crucial that we
try to give readers an understanding of what happened to these nine men and
why their lives (and deaths) are important. The map is a tool that brings
setting to the story in a way that words do not.
The second main Web feature is a documentary-style video
that incorporates all elements of the project. Interviews with family members,
DNA researchers, a soldier who guards the Tomb of the Unknowns and experts in
the psychology of loss are all featured. The video is meant to convey a complete
story arc, beginning with loss and returning to the continued search for those
still left behind. [Click on link under "Multimedia" to see the video.]
How important was photojournalism and
graphic design to this project? How were those journalists involved in
the development of this project?
We view graphics and photojournalism as essential and equal
partners in our work, and in this case, it was imperative to get those
departments involved early. Our main graphic designer for the project is a
history buff, and his input about the wars was welcomed and without question
improved the project. The primary photographer/videographer was involved with
every shoot, to ensure consistency and provide ownership of the project.
Throughout the project, snags arose, but the designer and
photographer were in constant contact with reporters about what they needed to
fill out their work better. For example, our videographer wanted extra shots of
the repository containing bloodstain cards, so we arranged another interview
and tour.
Missing in the Cold War
We usually think of MIAs as being from a declared war. But take a look at this
section of the government's database. It
is from the Cold War days where Americans on various surveillance missions were
shot down. There are listings of all of
the missing crews on this page.
What
is Being Done for MIAs?
Look at the work being done in various countries to account
for the missing: [The following are PDF documents.]
Read about the Bring Them Home Alive
Act and the Persian
Gulf War POW/MIA Accountability Act.
Click here
to see a state-by-state listing of MIAs in Vietnam.
Meet the Soldiers' Families
Families of the missing may attend monthly government briefings held
around the country. Here are the briefings still to come this year:
- Cincinnati, Ohio -- July 21
- Kansas City, Mo. -- Aug. 18
- Washington, D.C. -- Oct. 18-20
- Phoenix, Ariz. -- Nov. 17
We are always looking for your great ideas. Send Al a few sentences and hot links.
Editor's
Note: Al's Morning Meeting is a compendium of ideas, edited story
excerpts and other materials from a variety of Web sites, as well as
original concepts and analysis. When the information comes directly
from another source, it will be attributed and a link will be provided
whenever possible. The column is fact-checked, but depends on the
accuracy and integrity of the original sources cited. Errors and
inaccuracies found will be corrected.
