For those of you who picked up the newspaper or visited the Web site this week, you probably noticed that we spent a significant amount of space on a project we did recognizing the second anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. Two of our most senior reporters, Eric Johnson and Joseph Schwartz, as well as a senior photographer, Beth Ely, traveled to the Gulf Coast in early August and spent about a week reporting in Mississippi and New Orleans. I encourage you all to read Joe and Eric’s blog and check out our special content page for Katrina coverage.
What did it take to put all of this together? It originated with Eric and Joe proposing this idea to me in the spring. After receiving the official DTH blessing (and a hefty budget of about $1,000), the team made their travel arrangements and outlined topics they hoped to look into for the project. The name of the series, “Eyes of the storm,” comes from a desire to tell the stories of ordinary people who are still struggling with the everyday impacts of the hurricane. The print coverage included a profile of a interesting person or family each day to reflect this.
Once the team returned from the Gulf, several editors sat down with the team to map out our coverage. Eric and Joe had a list of 10 stories that they wanted to write about, and Beth also requested full color pages to run pictures on for two different days of the week. It was at this meeting that our team really got cranking on the online and multimedia portions of the project. We wanted to create a one-stop shop for you online to read our coverage, hear the voices of the people interviewed and see more of the pictures and video that were shot. Hopefully we created a visually appealing and accessible site, but you’ll be the judge.
Hundreds of hours were put into this project. I think this reflects the feeling of much of the staff of the DTH that Hurricane Katrina’s aftermath is one of the great challenges facing our nation and this generation. It might be two years after the storm, but there is still a daunting amount of work to be done. See Friday’s coverage for ways that you can help out those who were impacted.
Special thanks go out to:
*Joe and Eric for their determined and precise reporting.
*Beth Ely for her vivid, and sometimes stark, photography
*Seth Moser-Katz and Emily Merwin for compiling a fantastic site to house our content
*Photo Editor Ricky Leung and Multimedia Editor Chris Sopher for ensuring coherence in our visual and audio content
*Managing Editor Allison Nichols for helping to shepherd the whole process and ensure continuity between our print and online products.
