Covering Hurricanes

By Kelly McBride

Over the next days and weeks newsrooms are going to face ethical challenges every day, in every story out of New Orleans. Here are a handful of challenges and some thoughts about working through them.

 
• Bodies – Many newsrooms have policies that prevent displaying pictures of dead bodies. Yet the bodies are a big part of this story. There is news in the way people are dying, the places they are dying and what is happening to their bodies.

  Eric Gay / Associated Press

  Rigid rules, apart from journalistic values, undermine the truth. Now is the time for newsrooms to remember their primary roles as truth-tellers and watchdogs. That may mean searching for ways to tell the story of the bodies in words and in photos. The story and photo that ran in many papers and on many Web sites (including Poynter's St. Petersburg Times) on Wednesday told the story of Evelyn Turner. Her husband died during the hurricane, and she floated his body to City Hall trying to find a place for him. In the photo, the grieving Turner in the forefront, the shrouded body in the background. The story and caption provided context and treated Turner and her husband with respect. Telling the truth about the bodies may be the hardest challenge editors face in the coming days.
• Safety – Keeping journalists safe in New Orleans could prove more difficult than keeping them safe in Iraq or Afghanistan. Newsrooms need to be sure journalists have access to resources, an escape route, a support team and good insurance. That means having people outside the most dangerous geographic zones offering support. It might mean paying for security, the way journalists do in other war zones. It certainly means sending in journalists with experience. This might be the first domestic disaster where war correspondents are the most qualified journalists to tell the story.
• When to help – Although journalists are often cautioned to not intervene, it's impossible in the face of so much suffering to avoid giving away your water and Power Bars. With the need so vast and the people so desperate, the best strategies are those that allow the journalist to gather the stories, get the stories out and avoid becoming a distraction or creating more danger. Broadcasting the suffering of one could ultimately alleviate the suffering of thousands. But journalists entering the devastation need to think ahead about what they'll do.
• When to send staff and when to send more staff – The decision to devote resources to this disaster is immense. For many editors and news directors in areas not affected by Katrina, the key is a local angle, like following a group of hometown volunteers. More important is to tell stories no one else is telling. This is a saga, not a news event. There are millions of untold stories. If you send a crew, do it for the right reasons. Add to the historic narrative, rather than duplicating the efforts of others. Be a watchdog. Ask the hard questions. Who is in charge? How did this become so drastic? Why hasn't help arrived sooner? Many news reports describe what resources are on the way. Few say why it's taking so long.

Ultimately, telling this story will require courage. Courage to be among the desperate. Courage to spend the money and time. Courage to challenge the powerful. Courage to stay with the story when the immediate crisis is past. Courage to look at our leaders and, ultimately, ourselves, and ask: How did we let this get so bad?