Journalism in the Eye of the Storm

A quick shout-out to those journalists who are placing themselves in harm’s way to cover the devastation in Puerto Rico, as Frances Robles and colleagues at the New York Times have done, and to those who earlier covered the evacuation of the western coast of Florida, as Tampa’s Fox 13 journalists did, and as the Houston Chronicle ‘s journalists continue to cover the devastation in and around south Texas and Louisiana. Journalists are creating helpful resources such as CNN’s stormtrackers and the Orlando Sentinel’s infographic that describes what a hurricane is. And then of course there are those journalists who are doggedly following the daily machinations of the Trump administration at The Washington Post, those finding innovative ways to use data at USA Today to reveal how power and influence operate on Trump’s golf courses, and those who are fact-checking rumors at the New York Times, among other places. There are also interesting innovations such as Buzzfeed’s Outside Your Bubble feature that directs your attention to the ways that various audiences across the internet are responding to the same stories. Let’s hope that stories like these both inform and encourage all of us to act as we can to address overwhelming problems and call our leaders to account.