Lessons from Hurricane Katrina reflective coverage

As the 10th anniversary coverage of Hurricane Katrina winds down, it’s worth taking a look at how a few major news organizations planned their coverage. Here are a few to check out:

The Times-Picayune’s “Ten Years Later”

NPR’s special series “Hurricane Katrina: 10 years of recovery and reflection”

ESPN’s “Ten Years After Katrina”

The LA Times’ “Hurricane Katrina: 10 years later”

Slate’s collection of stories and commentary

In addition to those, search pretty much any major news organization for “Hurricane Katrina” and you’re bound to find a reflective story or two. There’s even a great story by Times-Picayune writer Dave Walker on what it feels like — and what he learned from — being the center of national attention for this month’s, and particularly last week’s, Katrina anniversary coverage.

I’ll share a few stories in different forms with my journalists this week, and I want them to think about how they might plan reflective coverage like this for their own local audience. In order to get them thinking, I’m going to share a Google document that asks them to do a little historical research.

Here’s a link to the doc: Reflective coverage brainstorming

We’ll search through our archives, both print and online, as well as other historical records from our community. At the end, I’m hoping they find a few topics worth looking back at this year, whether they warrant a full series of coverage or one simple story.