News Organizations and Information Gathering During a Natural Disaster: Lessons Learned from Hurricane Katrina

Rob Letterman

Reference  Goidel, R., & Miller, A. (2009). News Organizations and Information Gathering During a Natural Disaster: Lessons Learned from Hurricane Katrina. Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management, 266-273.

Theme:  News organizations play a critical role disseminating information to the public, however their biases can sometimes filter their view of the facts.

Summary: 

·        The role that the media plays in gathering and reporting information is amplified during times of crisis.

·        The News media is able to perform their work efficiently and report even in the face of natural and man-made disaster.

·        Their role in relaying messages to the public from emergency personnel is critical a successful recovery from an incident.

·        Examples from Katrina illustrate how the news media informed government officials of situations and victims that they were not aware of yet.

·        Government officials were often times viewed as inadequate or incompetent because they were not fully informed of every situation during Katrina.  The reality is the news media are the professionals at finding stories and informing the public.

·        News is information, and information is merchandise to a journalist.

·        Katrina was an unprecedented disaster that caused many to blame government officials.  However the media failed to ask or analyze the social and geographic vulnerability present before the hurricane.

Application to the Lesson Topic

Without the news media doing their job searching for information during disasters many victims will remain helpless.  Their reporting and news will at times be biased, but they are still a valuable tool in responding to incidents.

Application to Emergency Services:

It's critical for emergency personnel and especially public information officers to establish working relationships with the news media.  While Emergency Services is not concerned with grabbing headlines, I believe both sides do not want people to remain helpless longer than necessary.