WE’ RE FIVE years old and, though we’re still feeling our way without the aid of technicians or infrastructure, we’re getting a bit better at this thing – within the limitations of the site-building technology we’re using.

(One of those limitations is the fact that WordPress’s video player won’t allow muting. This  means that, on almost all browsers, video won’t autoplay, which is why you have to click on our videos to run them.)

This year, rather than a plain slate of features, we’ve mixed things up a bit in The Scavenger, by adding a trio of opinion columns and a short feature by Ishita Verma about what it feels like to be homeless and invisible.

We started this issue with the idea that we’d focus on mental health, but that expanded, as these things tend to do, over the course of the term into a suite of yarns about the marginalized and the victimized –  similar to what we’ve done in the past.

(One thing I love about journalism students is that the troubles of the rich and comfortable are of little to no interest to them.)

In what is likely the bravest piece ever published here, Gabriel Gauthier set out to document her struggle with bipolar. And, to balance out the subjectivity of memory, she took her lead from the Late David Carr’s Night of the Gun, and investigated herself as she would have any other subject.

Meanwhile, Sarah Spisak delivered two pieces, one on sexism and misogyny in the news industry, and a second on a local man who just finished his first prison sentence, and plans to make it his last.

Janelle Jensen took a look at what it’s like to grow up under the shadow of mental illness.

Zoe Cronin brought a ray of sunshine into what may be the gloomiest topic imaginable, with a profile of a man who walked away from a suicide attempt and has devoted his life to helping others do the same.

Jake Pesaruk – who has worked as a bouncer – talked to bar workers about the emotional and mental stress of their work, and the fact that there’s more or less nothing in place to help them cope.

Finally, Verma brought home the #Metoo era with a look at on-campus sexual assault, how the university tries to deal with it, and how likely it is that instances go unreported.

We’re  hoping you like what you read (and that by next year WordPress will have fixed that *&%$# autoplay issue).

Brian Gorman PhD
Associate professor,
Communication Studies
gormanb3@macewan.ca