Devon Lancia

This weekend, MVJ celebrates the spirit of hard work and determination that keeps journalism alive. We appreciate all the hard work our community of military veterans, service members and spouses puts in to keep America informed, and we are pleased to announce that Military Veterans in Journalism will provide a free year of membership to veterans and military spouses who join our community during Labor Day weekend.

“We’ve seen the outsized impact MVJ’s programs have had on our members’ careers and growth,” said MVJ President Russell Midori. “And we’ve also seen our members’ impact on the newsrooms we’ve partnered with. We want to ensure that all veterans and spouses who need these resources to jump-start their careers can take full advantage of them.”

It typically costs $30 for a professional journalist to join the organization, but any new members who sign up from September 1 through September 4 are eligible to take advantage of this opportunity. Once veterans or spouses become members, they receive access to robust resources to support their career growth. These include exclusive job opportunities and paid internships and fellowships in local and national newsrooms, hiring and networking events and webinars, access to fully funded basic and advanced journalism training and certification programs, and a widely praised mentorship program that pairs world-class, highly experienced journalists with members.

To get a free year through this promotion, please reach out to MVJ Membership Coordinator Marcy Bach at [email protected]. We look forward to welcoming more military veterans and family members into our community and celebrating all the hard work and service our community does to bolster America’s news media.

The spread of malicious information and extremist narratives within veteran and military communities presents a pressing challenge. Groups involved in spreading these narratives target military and veteran community members, hoping to use their voices to normalize extremist ideas and bolster their perceived credibility, patriotism and professionalism – and it is working. Experts in domestic terrorism and law enforcement analysts “estimate that veterans and active-duty members of the military may now make up at least 25 percent of militia rosters.”  

As these groups gain support within the community via targeted disinformation, the narratives they perpetuate undermine public trust in our nation’s institutions and pose significant risks to national security and the well-being of those who have served. 

I have spent much of my career deeply involved in countering disinformation and extremism. I’ve developed counter-narratives against ISIS and Al Shabaab propaganda in collaboration with the International Center for the Study of Violent Extremism (ICSVE) and contributed to NATO research on Russian disinformation in the Central African Republic, among a variety of other opportunities. I have also had the privilege of putting my knowledge to use as an adjunct professor at NYU teaching about disinformation. As the executive director of Military Veterans in Journalism, these experiences in tackling disinformation have provided me the expertise to lead our organization’s efforts in safeguarding the integrity of information within military and veteran communities.

Launched in January 2023, MVJ’s Counter-Disinformation Program aims to tackle this issue by providing investigative, nonpartisan reporting, countering false narratives, and actively engaging within our military and veteran community to prevent recruitment to these violent extremist groups. This program is a demonstration of Military Veterans in Journalism’s dedication to supporting the welfare of our military and veteran communities while building public trust in American institutions, including the news media, through veteran voices.

We have been honored to partner with a variety of well-known, expert organizations in support of our program goals. Program partner newsrooms include Military Times, Military.com, Task & Purpose and The Associated Press. We have also collaborated with The Poynter Institute, PolitiFact, Task Force Butler Institute, the Northwestern University Medill School of Journalism, Project Over Zero and the Solutions Journalism Network on training initiatives to ensure our reporters are putting out the best journalism possible. Advisory collaborators include the University of Alabama’s Veterans and Media Lab, We the Veterans and Military Families, and START at the University of Maryland. Through these collaborations, we have equipped the program team with the knowledge and skills to effectively tackle the issues at hand.

With the program now underway, we want to take a moment to emphasize our organization’s objectives and values regarding how we are approaching this complex challenge. 

Our focus is on combating violent extremism and protecting our nation, irrespective of political affiliations. We are aware of the efforts by certain extremist groups to exploit the military veteran community and capitalize on its perceived credibility. This exploitation undermines the values we hold dear and poses a threat to our country. It also weakens the broader community when veterans are painted and characterized as extreme.

This is not a partisan issue for us at MVJ. For us, this is an issue of the potential extremist propaganda has to turn the freedom of belief veterans have sacrificed to protect into negative, harmful action. It’s about the actions these groups are driving veterans to take that harm our nation.

Countering disinformation is a complex and ongoing challenge. We are dedicated to refining our approach in collaboration with partners and experts in the field. Our program advisory board, established to guide our reporters in their coverage, consists of 11 such partners and experts. They will help us establish baselines for success, provide advice throughout implementation and guide coverage toward timely and pertinent issues within the malicious information space.

Our approach also involves engaging with the veteran and military communities. By employing veteran reporters and journalists, we aim to enhance trust and authenticity in our reporting. We recognize that trust is crucial in challenging disinformation and fostering meaningful dialogue, and that’s why we’ll be implementing a variety of tactics across social media and other online forums to directly engage with community members. We’ll be aggregating reporting in an online portal separate from newsroom sites.

While it is important to address the presence of extremism within some veteran groups, we want to emphasize that the vast majority of veterans and military members are not violent extremists. However, we know that those limited few who do turn to the extremes have an outsized influence, so we have an obligation to prevent their numbers from rising. We will continue to work with our partners to safeguard our nation, protect our community, and empower veterans and military members against the influence of violent extremist groups.

We welcome your questions, thoughts and suggestions on this effort. Feel free to email me at [email protected]. For more information and updates on our counter-disinformation program, please watch our website for updates as we navigate this complex challenge.

Military Veterans in Journalism is pleased to announce that The Washington Post has selected Army Veteran Eve Sampson to join its 2023 class of summer interns as an MVJ Fellow. Sampson is the second veteran to receive this intern position as part of MVJ and The Post’s partnership to increase the number of military veterans in America’s newsrooms.

Eve Sampson, an Army veteran and journalist student at the University of Maryland, was selected for this year’s internship opportunity with The Washington Post. Follow Eve’s work on Twitter!

Sampson is a student at the University of Maryland, where she is working toward her Master’s in journalism. She is a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point and commissioned as an Army engineer officer. While serving, Sampson helped integrate some of the first female enlisted combat engineers before deploying to Syria and Kuwait. She has also been a breaking news intern at the Detroit Free Press and a Pentagon reporter with Capital News Service. In her free time, Sampson enjoys traveling and spending time with her rescue dog, Mr. Biggs.

“Meeting some of the most incredible people, hearing their stories and seeing their resilience during my time overseas inspired me to pursue a career in journalism,” Sampson said. “I am so excited to join The Washington Post’s Foreign desk as a Military Veterans in Journalism intern and help tell the stories of people like them.”

As a fellow with The Post’s foreign team, Sampson will learn the ins and outs of international news coverage and assist with reporting stories beyond the United States.

“We enthusiastically welcome Eve. Her breadth of knowledge and expertise will add value to our newsroom and coverage while also serving as a testament to our rewarding partnership with Military Veterans in Journalism,” said Carla Broyles, the newsroom’s senior editor for career development who oversees the summer internship program.

Sampson, whose experience includes reporting with the Detroit Free Press and as a Howard Center for Investigative Journalism fellow, has also said she looks forward to the chance to learn from some of the best journalists in the industry and contribute to thoughtful and nuanced journalism.

 “We at MVJ are grateful for The Washington Post’s dedication to diversity through the inclusion of veteran voices at all levels of their newsroom,” said Russell Midori, MVJ’s president. “We are excited to see Eve’s skills flourish under the guidance of their excellent reporters, and we encourage other newsrooms to take the steps necessary to include more veterans.”

Military Veterans in Journalism is pleased to announce the winners of this year’s Top Ten Vets in Journalism contest. This annual contest, started in 2021, is aimed at recognizing and honoring journalists who have made significant contributions to the field of journalism and who have served in the armed forces. It is a testament to the incredible talent and dedication of these journalists, and we are proud to have them as part of the MVJ community.

Please meet 2022’s Top Ten Veterans in Journalism:

Ben Kesling, a former Marine Corps infantry officer, is a Midwest correspondent with The Wall Street Journal in the Chicago bureau where he also focuses on domestic security and veterans issues. He was previously a national security and veterans issues reporter at the Journal’s bureau in Washington. He also has experience as a foreign and combat correspondent. Ben graduated from Wabash College and has a Master of Divinity degree from the Harvard Divinity School. He attended Medill School of Journalism, Northwestern University.

Anthony Vazquez is a Marine Corps veteran and photojournalist for the Chicago Sun-Times where he concentrates on the city’s south and west sides. Previously, Vazquez was based out of Iowa, where he focused on the effects of Medicaid privatization, and Mexico, where he reported on rural life in the United States and Mexico. In the Marine Corps, Vazquez supervised flight line operations of multiple airfield control groups as well as aided in medical evacuations of injured personnel by securing and designating landing zones for helicopters. His experience in the Marine Corps confirmed the importance of documenting and sharing stories. After the military, Vazquez pursued journalism at the University of Iowa, where he served as photo editor of The Daily Iowan. He moved to Mexico post-graduation to continue documenting illegal immigration. While in Mexico, he was a stringer for The Associated Press and AP Images.

Ron Nixon is an American journalist. He was the homeland security correspondent for The New York Times, and the author of Selling Apartheid: South Africa’s Global Propaganda War. He joined the Associated Press as international investigations editor in early 2019, and was promoted to global investigations editor in March of that year

Dustin Jones is a news desk reporter at NPR, where he covers national and international issues like politics and COVID-19. He holds a Master’s in Documentary Production from Columbia Graduate School of Journalism and has was MVJ’s first intern with NPR in 2020. He is a veteran Marine Corps sniper with multiple combat deployments. 

He produced a beautiful and moving documentary about veteran suicide while at Columbia. He specializes in breaking news and long-form narrative pieces on issues across the spectrum.

Kenny Holston is a staff photographer for the New York Times. Most recently Kenny has contributed to the NYT coverage of Voting Rights, Afghan Refugees fleeing Afghanistan, politics, the COVID-19 pandemic, the insurrection of the US Capitol, the 2021 Presidential Inauguration, Black Lives Matter movement and the 2020 presidential campaign. Kenny is a former USAF photojournalist who served for 14 years and was awarded the DoD Military Photographer of the Year award in 2015, and is a graduate of both the photojournalism program at Syracuse University and the Eddie Adams XXVII workshop.

Noelle is an award-winning journalist from Cincinnati, Ohio, who came to Coffee or Die Magazine following a fellowship from Military Veterans in Journalism. She graduated from the University of Cincinnati with a bachelor’s degree in journalism and interned with the US Army Cadet Command in college. She worked as a civilian journalist covering several units, including the 75th Ranger Regiment on Fort Benning, before she joined the military and served as a public affairs specialist attached to the 3rd Infantry Division. She deployed once as a media analyst for the Special Operations Joint Task Force-Operation Inherent Resolve in Kuwait.

Thomas Brennan is the founder of The War Horse, an award-winning nonprofit newsroom. He’s the author of Shooting Ghosts with bylines in the Center for Investigative Reporting, Vanity Fair, and on the front page of The New York Times. Brennan has received the prestigious Edward R. Murrow and Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Journalism Awards.

Paul Szoldra served as an active duty Marine from 2002 until 2010. In 2012, he founded the satirical publication The Duffel Blog. For the past 4 years he has been the Editor in Chief for Task & Purpose. This year he has launched a new publication, The Ruck, with a focus on the future of national security. 

Drew Lawrence is an Army veteran, reporter, and producer of Military.com’s Fire Watch podcast. He is a graduate of The George Washington University’s School of Media and Public Affairs, where he studied journalism. He hails from Massachusetts and is a proud New England sports fan.

Sara Samora is a Marine Corps veteran and the veterans reporter for Stars and Stripes. A native Texan, she previously worked at the Houston Business Journal and the New Braunfels Herald-Zeitung. She also serves on the boards of Military Veterans in Journalism and the Houston Association of Hispanic Media Professionals.

These awardees were honored at the MVJ2022 convention, where they were recognized for their achievements and contributions to journalism. They have shown exceptional skills in storytelling and reporting and have used their experiences to bring attention to important issues facing veterans and military families.

About Military Veterans in Journalism:

Military Veterans in Journalism is a professional association that builds community for vets, supports their career growth, and advocates for diversifying newsrooms through hiring and promoting more vets. Learn more at www.mvj.network.

Earlier this year, Military Veterans in Journalism and the Ford Foundation launched its Disability Inclusion Program to advocate for better, more nuanced reporting around disabled military veterans. Eleven veterans were chosen to serve as speakers. MVJ organized a training series with top journalists and experts in the disabled veterans and broader disability spaces to discuss these critical issues and teach best practices.

Dan Clare is a Marine Corps and Air Force veteran, a former military journalist, and the chief communications and outreach officer for Disabled American Veterans (DAV).

In May, Dan Clare, the chief communications and outreach officer for DAV (Disabled American Veterans), held two training sessions with the Speakers Bureau veterans. Clare focused on the issues disabled veterans face today and how journalists should approach these concerns.

Clare began with a question: what is a disabled veteran? To him and to DAV, a disabled veteran is “an individual who, while serving in the armed forces, experiences a lasting change in their physical or mental health that impedes their ability to work or function in society.”

Disabled veterans are part of the broader world of disabilities and should be treated as such. One thing that makes service-connected disabled veterans unique, however, is that their disabilities were incurred while they were serving to defend the nation. They are not the only disabled people who have advocated for change, but the improvements in VA medical care and research disabled veterans have advocated for  help the movement to make America more inclusive and accessible to all disabled people.

While the military is rigorous in its physical health standards for enlistment, many veterans leave the service forever changed in some way, Clare said. The disability expert states it’s the public’s obligation to ensure veterans receive the care they need to function in society.

According to a report from the U.S. Census Bureau, 43% of post-9/11 veterans have a chance of having a service-related disability, with 39% of those having a disability rating of 70% or higher. The VA’s budget has risen accordingly over the years. In 2001, the VA received $45 billion in funding, which will increase to $300 billion by 2023. Overall, Clare said there’s an increased awareness of the benefits available to veterans and less reluctance to ask for help.

Yet even with that increased awareness, disabled veterans still struggle to receive the care they’re entitled to, and certain groups face more difficulty than others.

Disabled women veterans from across the country pictured together at the Paralyzed Veterans of America (PVA) Women Veterans Empowerment Retreat.

Women veterans comprise the fastest-growing segment of the population but some don’t identify themselves as veterans to others. Of the two million women veterans in the VA system, only 500,000 are currently in treatment, even though 60% of those in the system have a disability rating of 50% or higher. According to Clare, several factors cause this disparity — the accessibility of childcare and housing, harassment at VA care facilities, and disproportionate denial of claims related to military sexual trauma all serve as barriers to care for women veterans.

Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender and racial minority veterans haven’t fared much better over the years. LGBT+ veterans are far more likely to experience depression, and their suicide rates are higher than other veteran groups, according to the Journal of the American Medical Association. This group of people often don’t disclose their gender or sexual identity due to a history of mistreatment, bias, and outright denial of care, according to Clare.

Among veterans in racial and ethnic minority groups, service disabled Black vets use the VA care system at the highest rate, with only Hispanic vets coming close behind. Per the VA’s Office of Health Equity, the percentage of minority veterans in the VA system will continue to increase in the future. “The VA needs to diversify its staff,” Clare stated. “It needs to better represent the community it serves.”

Among the more widely-known issues facing veterans today is exposure to environmental toxins in service. Around 3.5 million veterans were exposed to burn pits in the Middle East, and more have been exposed to contaminated water on installations stateside. Yet it takes the VA a very long time to recognize toxin cases related to combat and begin treating them, and it’s often a fight to get there, Clare said. The result is healthy veterans getting sick and dying without access to the care they’ve earned. Clare noted that these veterans die prematurely and without access to benefits, and their families are brushed aside after their deaths. Justice, both for veterans exposed to these toxins and their spouses and families, he said, must be sped up.

The main image for the “Returning War Vet” TV Tropes page, which defines the trope as, “A stock character of many action movies. A character returns home from the military [and] will inevitably be called upon to put his skills to good use.”

“These stories need to be told, and they need to be told in a productive and effective manner,” Clare said. “We need reporters to ask, ‘What is the promise that [the public has] made veterans, and how [is the public] going to make them whole?’”

Clare advised the Speakers Bureau veterans against making broad, sweeping statements or assumptions about veterans in news reporting. Stories containing these statements are often publicity stunts or partisan in nature and don’t reflect the whole disabled veteran community, he explained. Broad assumptions about disabled veterans harm those looking for work, as the misperceptions created cause employers to balk at veterans with disabilities.

Instead, reporters should focus on straightforward, factual portrayals of veterans and provide readers with resources to maximize positive impact. Reminding reporters that they’re not alone, Clare said, is important. There are plenty of organizations like DAV available to reach out to for resources and fact-checking, and they can connect reporters with disabled veteran sources.

An airman tosses unserviceable uniform items into the Joint Base Balad, Iraq, burn pit in this March 2008 file photo. “Military uniform items turned in must be burned to ensure they cannot be used by opposing forces,” the Air Force said in a statement accompanying the photo. (Senior Airman Julianne Showalter/Air Force)

He also shared some tips for the Speakers Bureau members to take to newsrooms: 

• When journalists write headlines, they should avoid exaggerating.
• Journalists need to look at the issue, find the most credible source, and take the time to build a good story.
• Journalists should be objective in their analysis of VA. The department should remain accountable to the veterans and families it serves and the taxpayers who fund it. However, subjective or out-of-context reporting that erodes public faith in the VA could harm its ability to support those who served.
• Reporters should understand that veterans are never required to disclose their disability. If they choose to, the reporter has a duty to report accurately, and does not need to include that information if it’s irrelevant to the story.

Maintaining truth and clarity in reporting on disabled veterans’ issues is what Dan Clare believes should be central in future coverage. “In order for us to have the freedom of the press, citizens have to be willing to make sacrifices for the nation,” he said, “and it’s important to understand the public’s obligation to veterans beyond patriotism.”