Journalism in Service to Community: A Checklist of Trials and Triumphs

By Aly Colón
Reporting, Writing & Editing Group Leader

The journalists sat hunched over tables in a community college amphitheater. They had gathered in a classroom at Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College in Gulfport, Mississippi.

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The classroom, where community college students study nursing, seemed appropriate. For these journalists had nursed journalism in the service of their communities during, and after, Hurricane Katrina’s devastating onslaught of water and wind.

Now they were taking a short respite. Along with faculty from the Poynter Institute and the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma, they paused for a couple of days to think about what they had endured, and where they had succeeded.

The journalists hailed from the Mississippi cities of Biloxi, Hattiesburg and Jackson, along with others from nearby Mobile, Alabama. As a way of understanding what they went through, we asked them to consider some of the trials—and triumphs—of their hurricane coverage.

Here were some of the trials and challenges they faced covering the hurricane and its aftermath:

• Managing communications among themselves and their communities;

• Establishing the accuracy of what they heard;

• Finding transportation;

• Staying safe;

• Dealing with the unusual situation of being part of the story;

• Finding a common language with which to communicate;

• Communicating with those outside the area;

• Returning to a life that was closer to a state of nature than more modern world they were used to;

• Living with aftermath;

• Dealing with compassion fatigue;

• Living with survivor’s guilt;

• Enduring comparisons among those who tried to compare who was the ultimate victim;

• The role that animal and pets played;

• Having to be the first responders to a tragedy;

• Maintaining perspective

• Establishing priorities

• Deciding the right timing for coverage;

• And communicating with different types of communities, especially those whose language they didn’t understand (such as Hispanics and Vietnamese).

Here were some the triumphs they listed:

• Getting the product out EVERY DAY;

• Fulfilling a need;

• Re-learning journalism as a calling;

• Focusing on the path from desolation to recovery;

• Finding good in everyone;

• Connecting people;

• Seeing a larger picture;

• Generating goodwill;

• Realizing how important and inspirational journalism is;

• The redemptive quality of good journalism;

• Seeing the mission of journalism that includes all media;

• Successfully sorting through information and getting to facts;

• Providing a sense of normalcy;

• Watching competition give way to cooperation;

• Seeing competition lead to better and different stories;

• Creating new forms of journalism, such as cartooning;

• Offering snapshots of “Before & After.”