The Diversity and Social Justice Project sponsored a lecture by Los Angeles Times writer Scott Gold titled "Covering Katrina: The Ethics and Politics of Our Own Natural/Human/Political Disaster" on Monday, Jan. 29. Gold, who filed reports from New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina and its immediate aftermath and has continued to cover the effects on the city for the Times, spoke about his experience as well as the role of journalism in covering stories like Hurricane Katrina. Gold's lecture was accompanied by remarks from Sean Sullivan '07, who worked on news stories dealing with the storm's effects during his internship with Nightline this past summer.
Scott Gold began his remarks by congratulating the Diversity and Social Justice Project and those in attendance for their decision to keep the issue of Hurricane Katrina and New Orleans alive. Despite the fact that almost 2,000 people were killed and 1 million people displaced by the storm in the summer of 2005, Gold said that many people in New Orleans believe that they are alone in dealing with the issue. Gold said that the city continues to be in bad shape; there is still lawlessness in some parts of the city, two-thirds of child care centers and one half of public schools remain closed, and the unemployment rate is at 32 percent. Yet, in last week's State of the Union Address, President Bush did not put forth any plans to counter these lingering effects of the hurricane. The people of New Orleans, Gold said, feel abandoned and forgotten.
As Houston Bureau Chief for the LA Times at the time of the hurricane, Gold was responsible for covering the New Orleans area. He had previously written stories about the potential grave danger to the city posed by a weather event such as a hurricane. Because of disappearing wetlands, below sea-level construction, and weak levies, New Orleans was particularly susceptible to damage and flooding from a powerful storm such as Katrina. Gold also said that surveys had shown a large portion of the New Orleans population were either not capable of evacuating the city in the event of such an emergency, or did not intend to do so because they feared leaving their homes and possessions unattended. "New Orleans had been lucky for 40 years," Gold said, "so the city forgot how bad it could be."
Gold admitted that part of him had bought into this idea, that New Orleans was indestructible and would always thrive. When he was leaving his home in Houston to cover the approaching hurricane from New Orleans, he expected to be home in a few days after routine storm coverage. Instead, he ended up being away from home for the better part of a year covering the storm and its dramatic effects on the city and the Gulf Coast. Gold rode out the storm in a hotel, and he said that the particularly ferocious hurricane seemed to have a personality right from the start. After the storm had passed and the levies had broken, flooding the city, Gold traveled to the Superdome, where he reported on the "unspeakable horror" faced by those seeking shelter there. Within a few days, Gold said, he was living somewhat like the storm victims; he had nearly all his belongings stolen and was wading through knee-high water, walking past dead bodies, and was stealing food where he could.
Five days after the storm, the military came into the city to "take it back." Gold was able to travel with soldiers heading from the Superdome to the city's convention center. When two black men were slow to move out of the truck's path, Gold heard a white soldier remark, "Just shoot 'em, who cares?" This comment was not printed in the Times, but Gold said that perhaps it should have. It embodied not only the distrust that some soldiers had developed for the people they were there to rescue, but as the overall question arising from the disaster - who cares about this city and its people?
In covering a disastrous situation such as Hurricane Katrina, Gold said, some of the most basic rules of journalism – don't change the story, don't get involved – are challenged. The experience of covering Katrina, he said, may represent a reawakening for the national press core, which was so cowed in the years before the storm. Journalists relearned that their job is not always as simple as finding two opposing points of view and reporting on them, Gold said. Instead, a situation like Katrina reminds journalists that they must cut through spin and behave as advocates for unheard victims with public officials. Questions that may have been considered too confrontational, inappropriate or unpatriotic before Katrina were asked of the people in power about the quality of the government's response to the disaster. While people may disagree on the answers to these questions, Gold said, "people of any political stripe can celebrate that the questions were being asked." The vital question that must keep being asked, he concluded, is why the disasters surrounding Hurricane Katrina happened and what lessons can be learned from them.
Gold's talk was followed by brief remarks from Sean Sullivan '07, a senior who interned with Nightline while participating in the Hamilton College Program in New York City. While working at Nightline, Sullivan watched the preparation of several news stories relating to the one year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, dealing with structural assessments of the city's ability to recover, the economic impact of the displacement, and personal stories of victims of the storm. When looking through the viewer mail in response to these segments, Sullivan said, he found that most people's reactions were either "How could this be happening and I not know about it?" and "What can I do to help?" He said that he was encouraged by these viewers desire to be proactive.
This event was the first in a series by the Diversity and Social Justice Project on Hurricane Katrina and its after-effects. The next event in this series will be a lecture with Dr. Robert Bullard of Clark Atlanta University, titled "In the Wake of the Storm: Environment, Disaster and Race After Katrina," on Wednesday, Feb. 7 at 7:30 p.m. in the College Chapel.
-- by Caroline Russell O'Shea '07
