What a terrible story. But listeners say that NPR rose to the occasion with some of its best reporting ever.
David T. Queen of St. Augustine, Fla., wrote to say the only two media organizations that got the story right as of last Friday were ABC News' Nightline and NPR:
NPR's coverage of the New Orleans tragedy -- including their courageous, accurate reporting on the poor and disenfranchised masses of New Orleans -- has been excellent and highly commendable. They have also dealt with RACE and CLASS -- taboo issues for most of the mainstream media.
'Positively Murrow-esque'
Mike Dillon from Pittsburgh wrote:
…to commend NPR for its extraordinary and riveting coverage of the situation in New Orleans. It's by far the deepest and most comprehensive coverage out there, [The New York Times] is only starting to catch up to you today. On television, as usual, it's all about them.
The report from the convention center, where the NPR correspondent refuted the Homeland's Panglossian assurance that all was well, was positively Murrow-esque. I teach journalism at Duquesne University and I've been a journalist for over 20 years. I consider myself hardened. I practically had tears in my eyes as I listened to that report. And a real sense of pride that there are still reporters out there doing it right. I've been sharing their reporting with my students.
One last note: Thanks for not sanitizing the comments of victims and officials. Had NPR done so their justifiable rage -- which people need to hear -- would have been muted.
A number of listeners applauded the persistence of NPR's Robert Siegel in his Sept. 1 interview with Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff on All Things Considered:
SIEGEL: We are hearing from our reporter -- and he's on another line right now -- thousands of people at the convention center in New Orleans [are] with no food, zero.
Sec. CHERTOFF: As I say, I'm telling you that we are getting food and water to areas where people are staging. And, you know, the one thing about an episode like this is if you talk to someone and you get a rumor or you get someone's anecdotal version of something, I think it's dangerous to extrapolate it all over the place. The limitation here on getting food and water to people is the condition on the ground. And as soon as we can physically move through the ground with these assets, we're going to do that. So...
SIEGEL: But, Mr. Secretary, when you say that there is -- we shouldn't listen to rumors, these are things coming from reporters who have not only covered many, many other hurricanes; they've covered wars and refugee camps. These aren't rumors. They're seeing thousands of people there.
Rigorous Questioning
Listener Peter Negrini had kudos for Siegel's interview and for NPR's coverage overall:
I was shocked and heartened to hear your interview with the director of homeland security. This is the first time in years that I have heard an American news program rigorously question a government official. Good intentions aside, how is it that the government can have been caught off guard by a hurricane that flooded New Orleans. It is a city that is below sea level. We have been hearing for years that it was only a matter of time. Where were these same tough questions when we were lied to about the war in Iraq, where were they when we found that our troops were not provided with adequate armor. Please, this is the type of reporting our country desperately requires.
Some listeners, such as Luke Klein, objected to NPR's use of the term "refugees" to describe the people dislocated from their homes. Mr. Klein wrote on Sept. 3:
I have heard this usage countless times from NPR. I expect NPR reporters and announcers to take great care in choosing their words. I would urge NPR to carefully consider issuing a directive to its reporters that those who have been forced to leave their homes should be referred to as "displaced residents" or some similar term and not as "refugees." I want to add that part of the reason that I am so irked by this issue is that I suspect that there may be racial implications in the way this term is being applied. This is particularly true in the television coverage, where images are so powerful.
Not Refugees
Bill Marimow, co-managing editor for NPR News, issued a reminder to all staff on Sept. 4:
In referring to the people who have fled their homes because of Hurricane Katrina, please use the words EVACUEES or SURVIVORS.
Please DO NOT use the word refugees, which has the strong connotation of fleeing to another country to avoid invasion, persecution or political oppression.
The coverage has been, in my opinion, both complete and compassionate. It managed to straddle an extremely difficult set of circumstances without becoming either maudlin or distanced. Listeners say this is among the best reporting of a domestic story ever heard on NPR, and I have to agree.
The NPR reporters on the scene have provided remarkable perspectives and have shown remarkable ingenuity in getting to the stories. The listeners have been extremely well-served.
Missing Local Public Radio
There has been one gap in the coverage: listeners to NPR have not yet heard from local public radio journalists in Louisiana and Mississippi. They know the region best, but Katrina turned their transmitters into scrap metal.
But an undaunted spirit of public radio remains: NPR member station WWOZ in New Orleans is now a webcast renamed WWOZ In Exile, staffed and led by the station's general manager, Dave Freedman (see link below). It is being heard through the facilities of the public radio station in Lafayette, La., KRVS -- thanks to that station's general manager, David Spizale.
Member station WWNO, also in New Orleans, is off the air for now. Chuck Miller, the general manager of that station, says he hopes to be back on the air as soon as possible but is unsure how soon that will be. In the interim, the public radio community around the country has been sending staff and materials to the region to restore normal service as quickly as possible.
NPR News should find a way to tap into these indomitable journalistic resources.
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