ABOUT THIS SERIES

In December 2005, a contingent of Poynter faculty and staff members, along with representatives from the Dart Center for Journalism & Trauma, traveled to the Gulf Coast to work with journalists who were dealing with the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. In anticipation of the three-day concurrent seminars in Biloxi, Miss., and New Orleans, Poynter faculty members asked each participant to write a short essay about his or her experience in the days that followed the storm. Those essays, published here for the first time, with the permission of the journalists who wrote them, will continue to appear on Poynter.org throughout our weeklong remembrance of the one-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. Some of the participants agreed to go one step further and provide us with an update of their experiences, which you will find after some of the essays. Click here to see the compilation of essays, which we will add to throughout the week.

DECEMBER 2005:  Ethical Decision No. 1

Several days after Katrina made landfall, evacuees who had been stranded in New Orleans because of the levee breach began pouring into Baton Rouge. Literally hundreds of calls came into the newsroom about violence in the streets of Baton Rouge. SWAT teams rushed to one of the shelters just blocks from our station, downtown office buildings were "locked down," city government workers were told to go home to avoid the violence and there was a general feeling of panic.

Callers were telling us of armed robberies and assaults -- even rapes at area Wal-Mart stores. They claimed to have seen some of these crimes.

To make matters worse, radio talk shows were putting these callers on the air. We covered the "ruckus" at the shelter, told the story of "locked down" buildings and dismissed workers but we did not put the so-called "eyewitness" reports on the air.

It was tempting, because we had been on the air for more than 100 hours at that point, and we were desperate for fresh information. There were incidents of minor crimes we did report but only after police confirmed the incidents or we had staff actually go to those locations to confirm with people on the scene.

The atmosphere in Baton Rouge and the surrounding communities was volatile. People were panicked. A reporter and photographer returned to the newsroom with what they called a great story: A local gun dealer had a line of customers that wrapped around his building.

Most customers were happy to talk to our news crew, telling us they were there to purchase guns because of all the violence in Baton Rouge. They needed the guns to protect their families and property from the New Orleans gangs.

I made the decision not to air the story. During our expanded coverage of Hurricane Katrina, I continually reminded myself of an obligation to "minimize harm." I felt that airing that story would only add to the public panic.

Ethical Decision No. 2

After almost 140 hours of virtually wall-to-wall coverage, I asked a licensed counselor who had been with us on the air and as support for our staff what we could do as broadcasters to comfort and help viewers emotionally.

He told me we needed to tell people to turn off their televisions or watch something other than aftermath coverage.

You can imagine what went through my mind. I thought about the hundreds of thousands of people who were desperate for information. I thought about my general manager's reaction to being the first station to pull the trigger and return to regular programming. I thought about the hundreds of unanswered questions and our responsibility to our new audience -- almost 300,000 evacuees and to our regular viewers.

About 24 hours after the counselor made his recommendation to me, I called him into the studio and I asked him to tell viewers to turn off their televisions. I had our main anchor tell viewers that we would return to regular programming for the evening but would continue bringing information to our viewers on our lower-third ticker and return at 10 p.m. with more continuous coverage.

We aired CBS prime-time programming for several days before stepping down gradually from wall-to-wall coverage. I sincerely believe we did the right thing for all of our viewers.

In all, WAFB aired 196 hours of extended coverage for Hurricane Katrina.

WAFB-TV Ch.9 News Director Vicki Zimmerman has been at the Baton Rouge station for the last six years and has covered hurricanes in Louisiana and along the Gulf Coast for more than 20 years.