By Bob Steele
Nelson Poynter Scholar for Journalism Values

Year of the Storms: Stories Yet to be Told

Year of the Storms: Lessons Learned & Stories Yet to be Told By Karen Dunlap The Katrina Beat: Covering the Intersection of Once Was and Will Be Listen to audio version By Keith Woods What Kind of Journalism is Needed When... Your City is Gone? Listen to audio version By Gregory Favre Leading After the Storms By Butch Ward A Journalist-Guided Tour of Mississippi’s Coast By Scott Libin Journalism in Service to Community: A Checklist of Trials and Triumphs By Aly Colón Images of Devastation, Feelings of Hope By Roy Peter Clark Respect and Restraint: Traits to Remember in Disaster Coverage By Bob Steele A Different Kind of New Orleans Vacation By Fanua J. Borodzicz A photo slideshow from the Poynter / Dart Center Conference By Kenny Irby Lessons from Katrina Comments from the conference A photo slideshow of Hurricane Katrina damage By Kenny Irby Sense Memories: Recalling the Stories They Told in the Storms By Jill Geisler After Katrina, Seeing Still is not Understanding By Kenny Irby

We learned a great deal from the journalists who attended Poynter's "Covering Hurricanes" seminar. I was particularly struck by the thoughtfulness and professionalism of the reporters, photojournalists, producers and editors who were thrust into exceptionally difficult situations reporting on the violence and the victims of Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita. They were humble in recounting stories where they were courageous. They were reserved in describing the horror they witnessed.

During our session on "Choices amid Chaos," I asked reporter Dee Dixon of the Beaumont (TX) Enterprise to recount the story of a New Orleans man, Donald Jacko, one of many who lost so much when Katrina swept ashore.

Dee Dixon met Jacko about ten days after Katrina's winds and floodwater had ripped apart his home and ravaged his family in New Orleans' Ninth Ward. By then, Jacko and his two sons were evacuees in Beaumont, applying for financial assistance and social services at a Red Cross Shelter.

Their loss was much more than material. As Dixon learned and wrote about in the Beaumont Enterprise, Donald Jacko had lost his wife and and his mother-in-law. Both drowned when they fell from the roof of their home as floodwaters roiled, Mr. Jacko and the two boys clinging for life and somehow surviving as the women died.

Dee Dixon's wrote a story for the Enterprise (a story co-bylined with Jacqueline Lane that included other accounts of Katrina victims), and at my request Dee told the story of Donald Jacko at our seminar last weekend.

I'm sure it was very difficult for Dee to interview Mr. Jacko that day, to learn of his pain and trauma, and to turn that interview into a newspaper story.

But she did so, thoughtfully and professionally. My impression is that she treated Mr. Jacko with great respect even as she asked him difficult questions. She showed him compassion even as she probed for details of what happened that horrific night in New Orleans.

Dee Dixon did what she needed to do as a professional journalist. She sought specific information to tell an accurate, contextual and fair story about something that was very important. She wrote a clear, compelling account that helped her readers better understand at least one more piece of the terrible tale of Hurricane Katrina.

I wasn't there when Dee Dixon interviewed Donald Jacko. But I was greatly impressed by the sensitivity and professionalism that Dee exhibited as she told the story, first in the newspaper and then to our group of journalists at the seminar last weekend.

I sensed that Dee Dixon cared deeply about what she was doing as a journalist, and she cared deeply about Donald Jacko.