Barry Stupid

This article (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/10/nyregion/10about.html?8bl) is the dumbest thing I have read about Katrina yet. Thank you, Dan Barry. First of all, I don't know about you, but I haven't been trying to determine which was worse, Katrina or 9/11. Second, after spending some 600 words making moronic comparisons between the two, he says, "Which is worse? Let the question go." Um. He just wasted my time with 600 words inanely comparing the two, THEN determines it is an act of futility? He comes off as a self-obsessed New Yorker who has to relate every tragedy back to himself and his thoughts about 9/11. I'm aware tomorrow is the anniversary of 9/11, but still, this is a stupid article.

Is the New York Times so hard-pressed for news stories about Katrina that they have to have Dan Barry transcribe his therapy sessions?

Words Of Advice For Young People

Clipped from the NYTImes Friday 9 September
Turn a Smoldering Mention Into a Four-Alarm Interview

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By COREY KILGANNON
Published: September 9, 2005

Turn a Smoldering Mention

Into a Four-Alarm Interview

The celebrities had come and gone from the splashy fashion show and party thrown by InStyle magazine at the Time Warner Center in Manhattan on Wednesday night. By evening's end, DENIS LEARY was sitting with friends on couches near the open bar and the free-caviar table.

We introduced ourselves to Mr. Leary, the star and creator of FX's gritty New York firefighter series "Rescue Me," and he agreed to an interview. We asked him what he was up to.

"You mean, 'What am I doing here?' " he said with a snort. We stammered and rephrased: What was he currently working on?
............

(Note of caution to Columbia J-School young'uns: Never rush headlong into a raging fashion party without having properly researched the expected celebrities, lest you run into one whose career, shall we say, has not enveloped the American consciousness. If it does happen, simply wave your hungry notebook, press pen to paper and ask the celebrity if he has anything to plug. Hopefully, if it's a regular Joe like Mr. Leary - a working class hero who holds fund-raisers with real firefighters and ice hockey players and has no sissy press person with him this night - he'll probably roll with anything. Maybe even give you a cigarette.)

Death With Dignity

I find it rich that Tony Ebbert, chief of New Orleans emergency ops, has the nerve to talk about providing dignity to those who died on the streets of New Orleans -- he says the way to do that is to keep the press out. Also, anyone have any idea on how to confirm whether or not there were children that died in the convention center? I remember seeing on Reuters that there was a seven-year-old boy who was raped and murdered in the convention center, his body hidden in an industrial fridge. I haven't been able to find the story since, though.



From today's WSJ:

Crisis News Tracker
September 9, 2005 12:47 p.m.
Updated regularly with news on the hurricane's aftermath. All times EDT.

Friday, Sept. 9

12:10 p.m.: At a midday press briefing, New Orleans police report that there were no major incidents overnight and that, despite rumors, there were no children found dead in the convention center. The city attorney for New Orleans says a mandatory evacuation is still in effect and that checkpoints have been set up at entry points to the city. "Force is not being used. Our officers and troops continue to strongly encourage, strongly encourage, people … to leave." She assure property owners that police and troops in the city are on constant patrol for looters and vandals. Tony Ebbert, chief of New Orleans emergency operations, discusses efforts to recover bodies. He says that, in an effort to make it a dignified process, there will be no press allowed when searches for remains are conducted.

Sources say...

(New York, NY) The print edition of the Facebook will be here Friday in our mailboxes, according to an anonymous source.

"I love anon."

Journalism lesson #1

It's 8 a.m., and I've been in my beat for over three hours.

You read that right.

I got up at 3 a.m. and shipped out to Astoria/LIC in time for the Rikers Island drop-off. (FYI - discharged RI inmates are dropped off at Queensboro Plaza station at 5 a.m. Monday through Thursday.)

"Why?", you ask.

I'd heard from a source that former inmates were causing ruckus in the neighborhood and harassing the staff at the 24-hour joints by the drop-off location. So I thought I'd go see, then chat up the night staff at the local donut shops, news agents, and convenience stores.

I sat. I waited. I watched.

Nothing happened.

OK, not quite. They got there. They bought coffee. Then they left.

And no one had any complaints - not the shopkeepers, not the patrol cop, not the random pedestrians.

This is why you always get more than one source.

Got a full day of meetings ahead. Better order another coffee.

Power of Master's Thesis

Media furor in Bronx fueled by thesis
By Lani Perlman, Forward, 2 September 2005. English Language.

"Like most master's degree students at Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism, I expected my 32-page thesis to gather dust peacefully on the library's shelves. Instead, it unleashed a political storm of scurrilous charges of anti-Semitism against one of the most prominent players in New York City politics — and my main source. Herewith, the short story of how one journalism student fell victim to her own profession's worst instincts."

See full text at http://www.indypressny.org/article.php3?ArticleID=2265

The Third Photo

Katrina Assistance from the J-school

A group of J-schoolers have gotten together to coordinate the J-school's response to relief effort for Katrina victims.
We would like some feedback as to what would you be willing/able to contribute. Most likely we will fundraise but we would like to go beyond collecting change.
Any suggestions would help.
In the meantime, here is a list of resources on the Internet that the group gathered that may assist in coverage:
www.nola.com
www.journalism.org/resources/research/reports/katrina/sites.asp
www.poynter.org/content/content_view.asp?id=88055#Al
http://neworleans.craigslist.org/
www.weather.com/newscenter/tropical/?from=wxcenter_news
www.ire.org/ (Investigative Reporters and Editors)
www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9160015/site/newsweek/
www.slate.com/id/2125448/
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/linkset/2005/08/30/LI2005083000825.html
Here are some blogs that have done some Katrina coverage:
http://www.instapundit.com/
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/
http://www.wonkette.com/
http://www.rawstory.com/
http://www.dailykos.com/
http://www.americablog.com/
http://www.politicalwire.com/
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/
http://www.airamericaradio.com/

Breaking news: Looting in New Orleans

Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said looting was not uncommon for countries that experience significant social upheaval. "Stuff happens," Rumsfeld said.

"Freedom's untidy, and free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes and do bad things," Rumsfeld said. "They're also free to live their lives and do wonderful things. And that's what's going to happen here."

"And while no one condones looting, on the other hand one can understand the pent-up feelings that may result from decades of repression and people who've had members of their family killed by that regime, for them to be taking their feelings out on that regime."

On Monday Group Captain Al Lockwood, said "Imagine the frustration of people after 25 years of repression by an evil regime," he told reporters. "They are only letting off steam."

Meanwhile, Mike Davis wrote that "Affluent white people fled the Big Easy in their SUVs, while the old and car-less -- mainly Black -- were left behind in their below-sea-level shotgun shacks and aging tenements to face the watery wrath.

"New Orleans had spent decades preparing for inevitable submersion by the storm surge of a class-five hurricane. Civil defense officials conceded they had ten thousand body bags on hand to deal with the worst-case scenario. But no one seemed to have bothered to devise a plan to evacuate the city's poorest or most infirm residents. The day before the hurricane hit the Gulf Coast, New Orlean's daily, the Times-Picayune, ran an alarming story about the "large group mostly concentrated in poorer neighborhoods" who wanted to evacuate but couldn't.

"Only at the last moment, with winds churning Lake Pontchartrain, did Mayor Ray Nagin reluctantly open the Louisiana Superdome and a few schools to desperate residents. He was reportedly worried that lower-class refugees might damage or graffiti the Superdome. "

Of course, Rumsfeld was talking about the glorious emancipation of Baghdad in 2003, and Davis was writing about Hurricane Ivan in 2004. But still, anyone see the contrast, anyone see the prescience?

Bloggers and the Katrina news cycle

From Sreenath Sreenivasan, Dean of Students:

"A friend of mine who works at a major network, sent me the following note.

If you would like to do what he suggests (with his help), e-mail me at sree@sree.net - Thanks...


Katrina provides a great case study of how stories gain traction. Example-the case of class and the role it played in this tragedy.I'd like to see a map of how thoughts progressesed from blog to smallprint to narrowcast to broadcast and big print - and if ever-into action.Example: bloggers pick up AP v AFP. Narrowcasters rope together a 20minute show on it - becomes an undercurrent to broadcasts - and big printclimbs on board - perhaps it's not an appropriate day 2 or 3 story - but astudent could pull this stuff together. Use other examples of storiesregarding the hyatt and ritz evacuations and how much press they got etc.Let me know if there is anyone at the school working on this and how I can be of help/get involved."

Fake Reporting? Not Anymore...

...according to Sreenath Sreenivasan, dean of students at Columbia University's school of journalism.

"Reading Amanda's item below [dated August 30th]... it appears that the class (or atleast some percentage of readers of this blog) is unaware of a major new venture that will be launched later this fall. When you created businesscards, you probably noticed the ColumbiaJournalist.org domain on the template. That's the URL for a brand-new site of student work to showcase what we do here. Professors will submit high-quality student work (ie, not everything written in every RWI class will be published there) and the site will be updated regularly. Once the site is launched, we will get the word out to recruiters, community leaders, the press and alumni. We are waiting for a few weeks to make sure there's enough good material tospotlight. Watch for updates."

As long as there's something about the blog :-p

real time addicts?

one of the most difficult sacrifices i have made to attend columbia is leaving my television/satellite/tivo in los angeles. if anyone out there in internetland has hbo and watches Real Time with Bill Maher, please invite me. i'm an excellent guest. i'll bring snacks or drinks and i love television.