Digest 01/24/2022

Disasters in the news, and safety on the beat in this week's digest.

by | January 24, 2022

This week’s Study Hall Digest feature has been handed over to Carly Berlin, a freelance journalist in New Orleans focused on climate, disasters, housing, and more. Follow her at @carly_berlin.

THE NEWS CYCLE VERSUS DISASTERS

Watching information slowly trickle out of Tonga after the volcanic eruption off the Pacific island’s coast last week has me thinking about the speed of the news cycle versus the long aftermath of disasters.

Tonga is a world away from where I live in New Orleans, but the news from there is a reminder of what I’ve witnessed covering the record-breaking hurricane seasons of the last two years for Southerly. Communication lines down. Access to clean water limited. Homes upon homes destroyed. Politicking over critical aid. Concerns around relief workers spreading COVID. (This story does a particularly good job of spelling out the history of European colonists bringing diseases into Tonga). 

I expect the headlines to fall off in the coming days. The media does an okay job of covering the immediate aftermath of an acute disaster like this one, but so often fails to hang onto the thread during the weeks, months — often years — of recovery that follow: the disaster after the disaster. And we play a really critical role. 

I think a lot about a conversation I had with disaster researcher Samantha Montano over the summer. In her book Disasterology, she has this to say about the media’s role during disasters, both for folks experiencing the disaster and for those of us outside it:

“The media is one of the most important participants in the emergency management. Survivors depend on it for information about the disaster itself — if they need to evacuate, how to stay safe, where to find shelter or food, to tell their story, and to communicate to the outside world what is happening and what they need. Those outside the disaster depend on media to tell us what is happening, if our family and friends are safe, and how we can help. Furthermore, the media is supposed to hold emergency management accountable. When help doesn’t arrive and government officials fail to respond effectively, it is the responsibility of media to illuminate their failures. Accurate, appropriate, and timely disaster coverage literally saves lives.”

No pressure, though.

“I JUST GOT HIT BY A CAR”

During a live broadcast late Wednesday night in West Virginia, WSAZ reporter Tori Yorgey got hit by a driver. The camera kept rolling as Yorgey got back on her feet, calling out that she was okay. “You know it’s my last week on the job,” she said. “I thought I was in a safe spot but clearly we might need to move the camera over a bit.”

Yorgey might very well not have been okay. When the video of the car plowing into her went viral last week, many local reporters pointed out that increasing work pressure and cost-cutting measures in broadcasting put journalists in unsafe situations — like filming from the side of the road at 11pm during a snow storm, with little support. 

Don’t even get me started on pedestrian safety and the fact that cars are death machines on wheels. And where was this driver looking when she rammed into a person? Here’s to hoping Yorgey recovers fast and finds better luck (and working conditions) in her next gig.

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