Hurricane KatrinaStephen, Katt, Shannon, LC

Pre-Conceived Notions of Effective Journalism

An effective journalistic piece would:

Show us how to prepare for the crisis at hand

Give us fact based information

Let us know if we are prepared for the crisis

Give us the information to know exactly what is going on at any given time and who is at risk

Cover multiple sides of the issue– stay objective

Before

Effective- “Many Levees Need To Be Raised”– Associated Press State & Local Wire

“‘We need to go back and re-do those designs,’ he said. ‘We need to make sure that if we’re telling people they have a certain level of protection’”

“They found that some coastal areas have sunk as much as a foot in the past 20 years”

During

Effective: NPR: All Things Considered September 1st, 2005 - Robert Siegel

SIEGEL: But--and what is your sense? I'm trying--I mean, by the weekend do you expect that everybody in New Orleans will have some kind of food and water delivered by this operation?

Sec. CHERTOFF: I would expect that--unless people are trapped in isolated places that we can't get to, I would expect that everybody's going to have access to food and water and medical care. The key is to get people to staging areas. There are some people who are stranded but who are not in imminent danger. They are not people that we're going to necessarily rescue immediately. We're going to try to them, you know, food and water, so they can sustain themselves until we can pick them up.

SIEGEL: We are hearing from our reporter--and he's on another line right now--thousands of people at the convention center in New Orleans with no food, zero

All Things Considered

During

Effective- “Storm Crashes Gulf Coast; Dozens are Reported Dead in One Mississippi County” by Peter Whoriskey and Guy Gugliotta from The Washington Post on August 30th 2005 “‘The roads are flooded, there is no electricity, the

phones are down, there is no food or water,” Blanco said. ‘I have ordered the Louisiana State Police to block reentry to affected areas. Wherever you live, it is still too dangerous for people to return home.”

“Blanco said the storm had breached a 50-inch New Orleans water main, rendering the city’s water undrinkable in all but a few neighborhoods”

During

Effective - “In Coastal City, Ruin All Around” by Shaila Dewan from The New York Times on August 30th, 2005 “The streets clogged with fallen trees and power lines,

the fancy casinos with giant holes punched in the outer walls, the collapsed buildings and flattened historic homes”

“Residents and officials of this city of 71,000 people, one of the hardest hit by the storm, could hardly find the words to describe the devastation: roughly 50 people dead in Harrison County”

“A 5-year-old boy found on the steps of an office building, alone and in shock. A couple, believed to be his grandparents, found dead. His mother and 8-year-old brother still missing.”

After

Effective - Anderson Cooper- AC 360 interview

with former FEMA director Michael Brown, on the way he handled Hurricane Katrina cleanup

1:09-1:50

What Is Effective Journalism?

Our perceptions of what makes effective journalism have changed after reading and synthesizing these effective pieces.

Pre-Conceptions of Ineffective Journalism

Not-Enough Information- not detailed enough

Too emotional

Biased- too one sided

No relevance- the piece does not connect others to the crisis

Before

Ineffective - Times-Picayune by Eugene J. Green Jr.: “Levee District Has Built Acres of Beautiful Land” February 6th, 2005 “Using public money, the Orleans Levee District created

the beautiful subdivisions of Lake Vista, Lakeshore, Lake Terrace and Lake Oaks, among other developments. The public development of the west shore of Lake Pontchartrain -- its beautiful bird sanctuaries, many businesses, parks and recreation venues -- has generated hundreds of millions of dollars from leases of commercial properties and from the sale of land for residential development. These funds maintain the levees and the flood protection projects that keep our citizens safe.”

During

Ineffective -“‘ It’s Just Heartbreaking’ Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco’” by The Dallas Morning News, August 31st 200568 words “A patchwork of roofs pushed through the

floodwaters Tuesday east of downtown New Orleans one day after Hurricane Katrina’s march through the Crescent City.”

“Roxona Park held fast to her friend Althea Brown on Tuesday in Gulfport, Miss., as they surveyed the devastation brought by Hurricane Katrina”

After

Ineffective- Fox News Network, Fox Special Report with Brit Hume on September 26th 2005CYNTHIA McKINNEY (D-GA): As dead bodies lay

strewn about the New Orleans Superdome, military recruiters blew into Houston's Astrodome to reap the harvest.

HUME: And that gives you an idea of what some of the rhetoric was like. Apparently there were reports, none verified by any reputable news organization that I've been able to find, that military recruiters descended on the Astrodome to try to sign up the desperate refugees from Hurricane Katrina to serve in the military.

Too Soon?

“Damage to Economy is Deep and Wide” by Eduardo Porter from The New York Times on August 31st 2005 “Casinos were destroyed in Mississippi and New

Orleans; tourism is not expected to revive for months. Grain shipments face serious delay: Bunge, the world's largest oil-seed processor, evacuated a huge soybean operation in Destrehan, La., its main export terminal in the United States. Food exports and imports that normally flow in huge quantities through regional ports, roads and rail lines are likely to face major disruptions for weeks, if not longer”