FRIDAY, DECEMBER 23, 2005
Journalism That Changed America
Gene Patterson, the former editor of the
St. Petersburg Times and a sort of patron saint around The Poynter Institute, urged journalists "don't just make a living, make a mark" with their work. Journalists have "made a mark" already with their life-saving coverage of the hurricanes of 2005. And now, with the streets of some Gulf Coast towns still lined with debris, Americans have an unprecedented opportunity to make at least nine important and overdue changes that will make our nation stronger. Journalists have a vital role in helping the country understand the choices ahead.
Katrina, Rita, Wilma and other storms caused an estimated $100 billion in damage, took nearly 1,400 lives and heaped
damage upon damage that hadn't been repaired from 2004's hurricane season. It is difficult to think of much good that can come from so much tragedy. But history is full of sad events that have produced positive results after journalists uncovered what went wrong and doggedly pursued the changes that were needed to prevent tragedy again.
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Year of the Storms:
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Some examples:
- The Beverly Hills Supper Club Fire in Southgate, Ky. claimed 165 lives. But journalists spent years unraveling the story of how aluminum wiring, seat cushions that emitted toxic gas when burned and inadequate exit signage contributed to the death toll. The safety changes that came from that fire, and that coverage, affect your life every day.
- Hurricane Andrew was the wake-up call that transformed official evacuation orders from a signal to schedule hurricane parties to an alarm requiring serious response. The heroic coverage of the aftermath led to significant changes in state building codes that are making even large storms survivable.
- A magnitude 6.9 earthquake in San Francisco in 1989 that lasted only 15 seconds prompted repairs, renovations and new attention to the need for buildings constructed at a higher seismic resistance and the need for retrofitting older ones. Journalists tracked every move and kept the story on the public radar.
- The coverage of the terrible attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 awakened the nation to the need to get serious about national security and world terrorism.
Politicians often act on whatever is getting the white-hot light of media scrutiny. The hurricanes of 2005 have blown open a door of opportunity for the Gulf Coast -- and for the nation -- to make at least nine important changes that will benefit the country.
Here is my list:
1.) New evacuation plans. The experiences in New Orleans and Houston [free registration required] show how difficult it is to evacuate a major city in time of crisis. We need clarity and a workable system that will make the evacuations possible, orderly and swift. Cities and states cannot do this alone. Many cities' metro areas straddle state borders, so states have to work in concert with each other. We need a national conversation.
2.) FEMA response. The national agency that is supposed to guide us in crisis is clearly in crisis itself. Beyond replacing the head of the organization, what fundamental changes will be made before the next hurricane season, which begins in five months? Local governments clearly do not understand what help FEMA is prepared to give. In New Orleans, the city government spent time in the middle of the crisis asking for golf carts and laptop computers.
3.) Relief to individuals. People who suffer no storm damage are able to bilk the federal system out of an estimated $500 million in relief payments. (See story collection.) The first response was to hand out debit cards, then that program was quickly cancelled. People who lost everything in the storms still struggle for help. Clearly, the emergency relief system has serious flaws. And because people flow across borders in emergencies, the solution will have to be a national one.
4.) Banking reform. I have met homeowners in Katrina's path whose homes were devastated by floods -- but the homeowner had no flood insurance. How is it that homeowners could get bank loans and not be required to purchase flood insurance while living in a flood zone? In the coming months, we will see a significant rise in defaults and foreclosures. There are estimates in the banking world that uninsured flood losses will top $20 billion. If we stay on this thread, changes will come that will prevent this tragedy again. Homeowners in flood zones need flood insurance because homeowners insurance does not pay for flood damage.
5.) Flood maps need updating. FEMA admits the nation's flood maps are outdated. How are we to know where the dangers lie if we are working from 30-year-old maps? New construction, highways and urbanization lead to new water runoff patterns. We need a system of consistent funding for updated flood maps that lenders, urban planners and emergency responders can rely on.
6.) Levee Board reforms. This is a New Orleans thing, but the nation has an interest in seeing it happen. The levee boards that govern the New Orleans levee system failed just as surely as the levees themselves failed. There is no sense in rebuilding the flood walls if the system that oversees them remains broken.
7.) Radio frequencies for responders. How many times do we have to be told by post-emergency studies that it is long past time for emergency responders to have a radio frequency that will allow them to talk across departments? It was true in New York City on Sept. 11, and it was true during the response to Katrina. Congress has tried for years to make this happen, but there has been precious little news coverage that would propel the conversation to action.
8.) Building codes and building inspections. It is time to apply the lessons that Florida learned from Hurricane Andrew to other hurricane-prone states. It is time to get serious about stronger building codes, meaningful inspections and enforcement, even in rural areas that until now have shown little interest in such matters. On Jan. 1, Louisiana begins reconstruction under its new, tougher code. But passing a new code does not improve safety. Enforcing the new code does. Do what the Orlando Sentinel and Orlando, Fla.'s WESH-TV did. Once the new regulations are in place, test the allegedly tough new code system to see if inspections amount to a hill of beans. The journalists found that overworked inspectors let problems slide through. They found that contractors have enough political clout to dampen tough enforcement -- and they found a lot of shoddy construction that still gets permitted.
The (Jackson, Miss.) Clarion-Ledger says, "Mississippi building codes vary from town to town and county to county, and they're not required. The Legislature, which convenes in January, might consider a bill that would help determine a statewide building code."
The rebuilding that will occur in the coming years is an opportunity to significantly improve housing quality in one of America's neediest regions. Let's not allow dangerous shacks to be replaced by newer, slightly less dangerous shacks. It might require some creative national financial/lending solutions to make housing that includes these stronger standards affordable. But the cost of not making the changes will be greater, as we have seen this year. Harvey Ryland, president and CEO of the Institute for Business & Home Safety,
wrote for National Underwriter: Property & Casualty, a newsletter of the National Underwriter Company, "Proof of the effectiveness of proper building codes can be seen in Florida, where codes were strengthened after Hurricane Andrew blew through the state in 1992, causing more than $20 billion of insured damage. According to a study by
Institute for Business & Home Safety engineers, the new codes were responsible for saving $40 million in one Florida county alone following Hurricane Charley last August."
9.) Land Use Reform. I know it doesn't sound sexy, but this may be the most significant reform that could come as a result of the storms of 2005. Non-stop, clear-eyed and fair coverage could spark a long-overdue conversation about what people can build and where they can build it. Are we ready to talk about whether we are willing to rebuild seafront houses over and over again? Are we ready to talk about the continued encroachment on marshlands that could protect us? Are we ready to say some areas lost to storm damage cannot be rebuilt because it does not make sense to use the land that way? There may be no more emotionally, racially or politically charged conversations than these.
I can imagine that these huge issues look like the sole province of big newsrooms with significant resources. Big journalism organizations have a national voice in all of this, but smaller local newsrooms often are the ones that spark and track changes, step by step. Look to the 1997 Grand Forks, N.D. floods as an example. The Grand Forks Herald has been on top of the story for seven long years [PDF]. In that time, the coverage of what happened and why has resulted in the citizens' changing of their entire form of local government. The city has rebuilt in a way that has, in the opinion of many, made it better than it ever was. A new dike is to be completed in a couple of years. Without the flood, as awful as it was, it is unlikely anything would have changed.
I have seen smaller newsrooms tackle many stories of great significance, too. Dallas' WFAA-TV [free registration required] has shown unyielding dedication in covering the Texas' workers compensation system. Houston’s KHOU-TV 's investigation [free registration required] into the local DNA crime lab freed unjustly accused people from jail and shut down a corrupt and broken system. WCPO-TV, in Cincinnati, spent years investigating a broken system of minority contracts for the city's new stadiums. Two TV reporters in Boise, Idaho followed the trail of corruption in city hall that led to the resignation of the mayor and the chief of staff.
It was a local TV reporter in Salt Lake City who uncovered the Olympic Committee bribery scandal. I could point you toward Portland, Ore.'s The Oregonian, which has deeply focused on the problem of methamphetamine use and has led the country's media in seeking solutions to this drug epidemic. The Orange County Register found children eating candy laced with high levels of lead and dedicated years of coverage to the issue. The paper's work has led to national changes. I could go on and on. These stories have a few elements in common. They represent an uncommon dedication to the coverage of a significant story, and they all tackled something that neither the citizens nor the government itself could or would handle alone.
The old folks around where I grew up in Western Kentucky had a saying that shaped me. Whenever a tornado wiped out a community, a fire destroyed a barn full of tobacco or a hail storm crushed a corn crop, the old guys would gather around and inevitably somebody would say it: "Well, whatever don't kill you will make you stronger."
But communities don't get stronger just by saying they will. They get stronger through self-examination and reform. The role of the journalist, it seems to me, is never more important than during and after a crisis. You can connect your community to be in conversation with itself. You can keep the conversation going and push for end results, whatever the citizens determine those results should be.
The only tragedy worse than 1,400 deaths and $100 billion in damages would be for us to learn nothing from it all and to see these tragedies repeated needlessly.
We are always looking for your great ideas. Send Al a few sentences and hot links.
Editor's Note: Al's Morning Meeting is a compendium of ideas, edited story excerpts and other materials from a variety of Web sites, as well as original concepts and analysis. When the information comes directly from another source, it will be attributed and a link will be provided whenever possible.
Posted at 11:25:46 PM
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