Katrina's Aftermath: News With No End in Sight

Katrina's Aftermath: News With No End in Sight

Fall 2007: Introduction

By Melissa Ludtke• Features• September 15, 2007

It’s been two years since Hurricane Katrina’s destructive force riveted the eyes of the world on the suffering of those left in its wake. In that time, newspapers in New Orleans and Mississippi have made adjustments while national news organizations wrestle with finding fresh ways to engage distant audiences. In this collection, written by journalists who have spent significant time trying to tell this story, Nieman Reports explores particular demands and difficulties posed by coverage of an ongoing news event with no end in sight. – Melissa Ludtke, Editor Read more

Keeping Katrina’s Aftermath Alive

By John Burnett• Features• September 15, 2007

‘Anyone who visits New Orleans knows the story is far from over.’ Read more

The Long Road to a Wide Bend

By Gordon Russell• Features• September 15, 2007

The Times-Picayune’s ‘focus has gradually shifted away from how the city will be rebuilt to how it is — now, in the present tense.’ Read more

A Tragedy Illuminates the Ethical Dimensions of Picture Taking

By Ted Jackson• Features• September 15, 2007

An Essay in Words and Photographs Read more

Journalism Driven By Passion

By James O’Byrne, Mark Schleifstein and Susan Feeney• Features• September 15, 2007

‘… we’re totally comfortable with the view that New Orleans should survive. As a newspaper, we’re clear on that position.’ Read more

Observing Everything to Tell the Story of Change

By Rukmini Callimachi• Features• September 15, 2007

‘I found the timeline of the city’s renaissance in mundane details and in revealing what daily rituals were still altered.’ Read more

Bypassing the Easy Stories in the Big Easy

By Jed Horne• Features• September 15, 2007

An editor and author urges out-of-town journalists to park their preconceptions at the city’s edge and be prepared to do some digging to find the news. Read more

Images Evoke Memories and Emotions

By Alex Brandon• Features• September 15, 2007

An Essay in Words and Photographs Read more

Personal Circumstances Intersect With Professional Obligations

By John Pope• Features• September 15, 2007

‘We have become tougher, more aggressive, more skeptical reporters due, at least in part, to the fact that we have a rooting interest in the outcome.’ Read more

A Forceful Voice About a City’s Survival

By Jarvis DeBerry• Features• September 15, 2007

With the ‘transformative power of anger, I was converted into a full-time columnist who took on the serious work of defending a city.’ Read more

Lessons in Rebuilding: A House and a Newspaper

By David Meeks• Features• September 15, 2007

After embracing ‘the value of persistent patience,’ an editor shares what he learned in the transformation of the newsroom and the place he calls home. Read more

Telling a Tough Story in Your Own Backyard

By Bill Haber• Features• September 15, 2007

Hurricane Katrina is the most difficult assignment of my almost 29-year career with The Associated Press. Three days after the storm flooded the city, it became very clear that this would essentially be the last story I would cover. There … Read more

Survival First, Then Needed Newsroom Adjustments

By Stan Tiner• Features• September 15, 2007

‘All of the silos were leveled, and the Sun Herald newsroom became a blended team with an intense Katrina focus.’ Read more

The Changing Roles and Responses of Reporters

By Kate Magandy• Features• September 15, 2007

‘… objectivity is a newsroom issue we’ve tackled head-on since the first few days after Katrina hit.’ Read more

Reminding Readers of What Is No Longer There

By John Fitzhugh• Features• September 15, 2007

An Essay in Words and Photographs Read more

A Steadfast Editorial Voice

By Tony Biffle• Features• September 15, 2007

‘… anything that does not have a practical application appears pompous in print in the aftermath of genuine disaster and tragedy.’ Read more

Impossible to Ignore: A Mental Health Crisis Changes a Community and a Reporter’s Focus

By Joshua Norman• Features• September 15, 2007

‘Only after several months of covering these issues am I beginning to understand the scope and dimensions of the crisis.’ Read more

Katrina Fatigue: Listeners Say They’ve Heard Enough

By Susan Feeney• Features• September 15, 2007

‘What we hear is not that it’s time to stop our coverage of Katrina’s aftermath: We hear that we need to do it better.’ Read more

The Friends of The Times-Picayune Relief Fund

By Susan Feeney• Features• September 15, 2007

Soon after Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, Susan Feeney and three women friends who worked at The Times-Picayune in the 1980’s started The Friends of The Times-Picayune Relief Fund to provide support to people in need who work at the … Read more

On-the-Ground Reporting: Why It Matters

By Liz Szabo• Features• September 16, 2007

‘… sometimes editors — and not just reporters — need to walk in the steps of the people they cover.’ Read more

Investigating What Went Wrong and Why

By Jenni Bergal• Features• September 15, 2007

‘As it turns out, many of the systemic failures that plagued the Gulf Coast during and after Katrina should have been predicted ….’ Read more

Teaching Journalism in the Digital Age

Teaching Journalism in the Digital Age: Introduction

By Melissa Ludtke• Technology• September 15, 2007

In our Winter 2006 issue, Goodbye Gutenberg, journalists described the ways in which digital technology affects their work, and adjustments being made within newsrooms were front and center. What wasn’t told, however, was how those who want to be journalists … Read more

Incubating Innovation at Journalism Schools

By Dianne Lynch• Technology• September 15, 2007

With the online generation entering college, some key ingredients for new ways of practicing journalism are arriving with them. Read more

Adapt or Die of Irrelevance

By Karl Idsvoog• Technology• September 15, 2007

The clash between academic requirements for professors and the education students of journalism need to have grows more intense. Read more

A Former BBC Producer Takes a Fresh Look at Foreign News: ‘It’s the Audience, Stupid!’

By Maria Balinska• Features• September 7, 2010

Using a new approach to storytelling ‘we managed to broaden our audience, expand our coverage and—this is critical—not “dumb down” in the process.’ Read more

Start Earlier. Expand the Mission. Integrate Technology.

By Kim Pearson• Technology• September 15, 2007

A journalism professor offers a fresh approach to training journalists alongside those who consume news and one day might publish it. Read more

The Web Resides at the Hub of Learning

By Nicholas Lemann• Technology• September 15, 2007

‘For us, the Web is entirely positive: It is a journalistic tool with wondrous powers ….’ Read more

How a New J-School Takes on a Changing Profession

By Stephen Shepard• Technology• September 15, 2007

CUNY is integrating new digital technologies with the ‘eternal verities’ of reporting, writing and critical thinking. Read more

Credibility Resides at the Core of Teaching Journalism

By Jean Folkerts• Technology• September 15, 2007

The challenge involves adjusting to the new rigors of the practice and getting students to think in digital ways. Read more

Teaching What We Don’t (Yet) Know

By Mark J. Prendergast• Technology• September 15, 2007

A course about change becomes a constant work in progress as it looks to the newsrooms, audiences and forms of the future. Read more

Digital Media Push Images to the Foreground

By Lester Sloan• Technology• September 15, 2007

In the midst of big changes in the working lives of photojournalists, a former news photographer looks at how journalism schools and programs should respond. Read more

Journalism and Academia: How They Can Work Together

By Jeffrey Scheuer• Technology• September 15, 2007

‘Neither the practical (newsroom) model nor a purely academic one is ideal for either the aspiring or the working journalist.’ Read more

Values Reside at the Core of Journalism

By Lou Ureneck• Technology• September 15, 2007

It is these essential values that ‘make someone a good journalist, and they are what lift this work above the trivial.’ Read more

Passing Along the Value of Humility

By Mike McKean• Technology• September 15, 2007

‘Students need to be open-minded about the best way to tell each story rather than seeing rich media as mere add-ons to word-driven narratives.’ Read more

Multimedia Journalism Changes What Universities Teach

By Jerome Aumente• Technology• September 15, 2007

‘Creating multimedia stories will require flexibility, a collaborative spirit, and strategic planning,’ and these are essential skills that must now be learned. Read more

Pushing and Prodding Latin American Journalism Schools to Change

By Guillermo Franco• Technology• September 15, 2007

A Colombian journalist makes it more likely that students will learn how to ‘think online’ so they will be prepared to enter the job market in this digital era. Read more

Newsroom Training: Essential, Yet Too Often Ignored

By Michele McLellan and Tim Porter• Technology• September 15, 2007

‘Only a third of news organizations increased their training budgets in the past five years ….’ Read more