The story behind the story: how media outlets are covering Haiti earthquake

The next time you find yourself complaining about the source who didn’t call back or did but then droned on and on when all you needed was one pithy quote, thank your lucky stars that’s all you have to whine about.

National Public Radio reporters covering the aftermath of the Haiti earthquake are sleeping in sleeping bags outside and bringing in their own food and water so they have enough to eat and drink.

You can read the story behind the story of NPR’s Haiti coverage in NPR ombudsman Alicia Shepard’s Jan. 15 post on the radio network’s Website.

One of the staffers Shepard interviewed was NPR deputy managing editor Stu Seidel who told her:

“This is a terrible, terrible story. Even though all of us have a lot of experience, we are still making this up as we go along. What’s in my head right now is who will be in the next group that I send in this weekend. This story is going to take a toll on the people we send there if we have them reporting constantly in a relentless way.”

NPR isn’t the only media outlet sharing a behind-the-scenes look at their Haiti coverage. Here are are few other accounts, plus one that questions whether news agencies are doing the right thing by sending so many people into an area with massive travel bottlenecks and limited supplies:

The Miami Herald – In the latest installment of its weekly “Inside the Newsroom” video, Miami Herald Executive Editor Anders Gyllenhall talks about the paper’s quake coverage and “how to do justice to a tragedy of such enormous proportions.” According to Gyllenhall, 10 Herald staffers are covering the tragedy for the paper and its website, Spanish language and mobile editions, focusing on two main themes: how to explain what’s happening, and how the rest of the world can help with the recovery.

The New York Times – The paper used its Lens blog to showcase photos taken by Tequila Minsky, a Manhattan-based freelance photographer who happened to be in Haiti at the time of the quake. According to a post written by David W. Dunlap, Minksy phoned a friend who’d previously been a copyeditor at the Times, who in turn called the paper on Minksy’s behalf offering photos of the scene. Since this post went up on Jan. 13, it’s been updated four times with more images from other Times’ photographers of the earthquake’s aftermath.

The Washington Post – In a Jan. 16 piece, the Post’s Philip Kennicott opines that images coming out of Haiti are more graphic than those of other recent natural disasters. Whether it’s because of the magnitude of the disaster, proximity to U.S. shores, or willingness of news media to present “the full horror” of the situation, media organizations have lifted the veil they once held over especially gruesome photographs of death and devastation, running images so ghastly some require warning labels. He writes:

After years of hinting at horror, the scales have fallen, the camera is unsheathed as a seemingly transparent window on misery, and journalists are allowed to show the worst, and say with the blunt, desperate urgency of the best journalism: Look.

MedPage – The amount of news media personnel who rushed into the country to report on the aftermath of the quake led bloggers such as MedPage’s Dr. Bjoern Kils to speculate on the advisability of letting news anchors, reporters and videographers take seats that could be going to doctors and aid workers. Particularly disturbing to Kils was an attempt to dig an 11-year-old girl out of the rubble reported live by CNN’s Ivan Watson. Wrote Kils: “I do wonder if this type of reporting is really necessary or if perhaps two more arms – or four or six more, depending on the number in Watson’s crew – could have made a difference in freeing her…”

If you’ve seen other items on the story behind the story of the Haiti earthquake, leave them in the comments and I’ll update this piece in coming days.