Healthy Debate

HSAA staff and members spent much of 2009 defending the importance of their contributions to our public health-care system, demanding to be heard by a provincial government that refused to listen to its constituents.

As HSAA’s Communications Officer, one of my most important responsibilities is media relations – to cultivate key sources within the local, provincial and national media.

One of those “key” sources was Calgary Herald Journalist Michelle Lang. As a journalist, Michelle consistently displayed a high level of tenacity and curiosity, attributes that only a select handful of successful journalists boast, and demonstrate, on a daily, story-by-story basis.

Lang seemingly realized the craft of journalism wasn’t always today’s news, something frequently forgotten by members of our electronic media, always anxious to be first out of the gate with a story. Michelle and her editors, however, understood that laying the foundation over the long haul with sources was an investment worth making that often had the greatest impact on the communities they serve.

I spoke with Michelle in early December, prior to her journalistic deployment to Afghanistan, to make plans to meet for lunch in Calgary. AHS’s proposed privatization of Outpatient Pharmacy Services from Calgary Hospitals and numerous other cutbacks, were top of the agenda.

Sadly, Michelle was killed on her Afghanistan media tour with four of our Canadian military personnel last week, when a road-side bomb exploded. Having spent 20 years as a full-time print and electronic journalist, I’m well aware of the inherent risks that journalists frequently face with the hope of “impacting change” within their respective communities.

Today, I would ask each of you to remember Michelle Lang, who kept Mr. Stelmach, Liepert and company on their toes, demanding transparency from a government used to ignoring its constituents.

She will be missed.

Scott Pattison
HSAA Communications Officer

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 5th, 2010 at 11:37 am and is filed under Scott Pattison. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.