Vanguard Blog

On my long transatlantic flight this week, I managed to catch up on a movie I’d been meaning to see for some time. It usually takes flying to force me to commit to watching anything on the screen for more than 20 minutes. So between a couple short naps I finally watched Transformers 2. Though the movie was lame, I’d been reminded of how much I loved the Transformers as a kid. I grew up wanting to be an evil Decepticon who wreaked havoc on humankind. (Just seemed more fun than to be a friendly Autobot.)

So I guess it was my childhood fascination with cartoon robots that fueled my interest in the idea of a robot takeover of Japan. And while that is far from being an even exaggerated reality, we’re surely seeing a growing number of them pop up in Japan. For a number of reasons Japan’s population is in decline: xenophobia, women are choosing to pursue careers and saying no to marriage, the Japanese aren’t having sex (no explanation).

And so, robots seem to be the solution — in a very odd Japanese way — to the shrinking workforce that’s threatening Japan’s economic vitality.

Since I did my story in Japan there’s been a slew of new robots, including a robot fashion model, scary horror movie child robots, jumping robots, even a sex robot (you can google that one on your own). How these robots –except perhaps the last one — address population decline, I’m not sure. But they’re fun distractions I suppose. Perhaps they’re not alone, though…because now, we’re starting to see robots invade other nations. This just might be the oddest one yet. Enter the shopping mall robot guide in the UAE.

Japan: Robot Nation (Video)

Recently on the Vanguard Blog:
- Why Should You Trust Us? – Mitch Koss
- My Second Tour of Sri Lanka – Mariana van Zeller
- Chinese Mobsters and Megacities – Joanne Shen
- The world: A dangerous place for do-gooders – Kaj Larsen
- The world: A dangerous place for reporters – Darren Foster
- Sometimes that which seemed impossible actually comes to pass – Mitch Koss

It was a big night Wednesday when the new season of Vanguard premiered with “The OxyContin Express” and Embedded premiered with Mos Def in Japan.

The teams that worked on these two awesome shows celebrated at Little Bar a few miles from the office with Mediterranean grub and Current playing on about 5 or 6 TVs. The observations from around the bar appeared to be that the premieres went off without a hitch.

The bartender even made a special martini for us — the Vanbedded.

I’m not sure what was in it, but Vanguard PA Tania Rashid had one!

I didn’t even have to buy myself a drink. I tried, but Infomania’s Conor Knighton and later Vanguard’s Darren Foster had me covered. Thanks dudes!

“The OxyContin Express”, Vanguard’s first of the new 8-episode season, is a must-see. But so are the exclusive web extras.

You can check out an extended interview and follow up with Todd, who says he’s been sober for nearly 100 days. Good for him!

As well, you get to see some footage from the cutting room floor that didn’t quite make it into the doc. A jailed addict scares a group of school children straight and Todd’s mom confronts Todd about his addiction.

While this is the third official season of Vanguard, to many just discovering us, it’s their first. [Side note: if you need to check out previous seasons, they're available here and here]

In case you haven’t figured it out, Vanguard’s mission is to cover stories that no one else is covering. While many news organizations attempt to do this, the young correspondents at Vanguard aren’t afraid to get their feet and hands dirty.

As Vanguarder Mitch Koss put it yesterday, the mission “is to try to keep track of important changes in the world, changes that affect us all, but might not get a thorough examination if we don’t look at them. We try to tell you important stories that otherwise might not get told—because we think it’s important for society that we know and understand” what’s going on around us.

So to introduce myself, I’m Vanguard’s one and only intern. I’ve yet to fetch coffee and I haven’t even bought my own drinks. So the situation could be much, much worse.

Instead, I get to transcribe interviews from upcoming documentaries. That means sneak peeks at what is to come.

I also do lots of research on potential upcoming stories, like the kidnapping industry (yes, industry) in Mexico and how tourism is starting to pick up in Iraq. Sometimes, I even watch porn in the office to make sure correspondent Christof Putzel is including the best examples of amateur or professional pornography scenes for the upcoming episode “Porn 2.0.”

Now I come from a newspaper and web journalism background, but know my way around a videocamera, a voice over and radio. But the question I get all the time is what kind of journalism do you want to do?

That seems like an unfair question: every good journalist knows he or she must be well versed in all mediums. I’m too new to decide on a favorite.

The answer to why I’m here; however, is simple: I really like what Vanguard does, and see a real value in journalism. So many people these days question the existence of true journalism, but when a younger generation is reporting for a younger audience, it’s different. Vanguard is one team hoping to make a difference. So here’s to us.