The wartime Maple Leaf and the Der Kanadier newspaper were different breeds. The Sentinel during the 80s was good for morale. It went fluffy then it disappeared because it was "too expensive to produce in a glossy format." Then we were flooded with DNews2000, Personnel Newsletters, Safety Digests, and Director of Official Languages - expensive, uninformative, civilian-run fluffy crap. The Air Force Safety Digest used to provide some wonderful true to life articles about accidents, incidents and prevention efforts. I don't know if it is still around or not I only ever saw it in the last 10 years on the racks by the elevators in NDHQ.
NDHQ and the Army now only publish policy amendments and Routine Orders on-line. For the average soldier who does not see a computer screen at work or in the field is out of the loop. To think that a 20-minute national Army news loop will tell him what he needs to know, is short sighted, but a step in the right direction. The Civilian HR people and the Base learning centres want to provide kiosks where soldiers and civ employees can plug in to upload info. There are fewer troop/company parades and the Commander's Hour has turned into multi-media, PowerPoint sleepfests.
The idea of a paperless office and on-line news works only when you are plugged in and don't have to fight with firewalls and DIN access. That is why Army.ca works - 7000+ people sharing concerns, ideas and advice from the privacy of their own home. Have you ever tried to send a question to an on-line DND Help site, your question usually is sent back through the chain of command unanswered.
you just might be on camera.
