Just when you thought the national media had all but abandoned New Orleans' post-Katrina story, TheNew York Times has announced it is sending a full-time correspondent back to the Crescent City, filling a post that has been vacant since April. From The Times Picayune:
Campbell Robertson, a native of Montevallo, Ala., will fill the job held most recently by Adam Nossiter, who left to supervise the newspaper's coverage of West Africa. Robertson had been stationed in recent months in Iraq, though he spent some time in New Orleans immediately after Katrina. He will arrive in New Orleans this month.
The announcement by the nation's most prestigious newspaper seems to signal that the narrative of New Orleans' laborious effort to rebuild itself from the ruin wrought by Katrina remains a story of national interest four years after the storm.
While a host of national and international news operations set up shop in New Orleans in the chaos after the storm, most decamped within a few months. The only newspapers that still have a full-time reporter posted to New Orleans are the Times and USA Today.
And even though editors at both papers say they remain committed to chronicling the city's recovery, it's worth noting that both papers now devote fewer resources to Katrina than they did in the first couple of years after the storm.
... written by LA Newshound , August 04, 2009 - 12:29 pm
CNN has a bureau in downtown New Orleans, does lots of broadcasting from and around there.
... written by elerra , August 04, 2009 - 03:31 pm
"Robertson had been stationed in recent months in Iraq, though he spent some time in New Orleans immediately after Katrina."
Before the Iraq assignment last year, Robertson was the Times' Broadway beat reporter and lead writer of its gossip column. This is his first U.S. news beat for the Times.
His big Katrina story was about how media coverage of New Orleans unfairly overshadowed Mississippi. Most of his Katrina-related bylines weren't from New Orleans; many of them were co-bylines with another reporter.
Also, while the bureau is physically in New Orleans, it's a regional post covering the Gulf Coast, and one of only two bureaus the Times has in the south. He'll have plenty of other stories that will take priority, like Nossiter before him.
And like Nossiter, Robertson likes to write as though he knows what he's talking about, even when he doesn't. I don't think it'll be as bad as Nossiter's distorting oversimplification, race baiting or tendency to come up with the story, then fill it with quotes that support it.
Robertson's Iraq reporting has been good, though as with any Iraq reporting, you have to wonder if it's him or his Iraqi aides doing the work. A handful of his stories didn't credit Iraqi assistant reporters, and one of them was a fluff piece on Stephen Colbert's publicity stunt.
I understand that's a reality of the place, but look at his body of work: the only beat he's worked unassisted was Broadway. Even most of his Katrina bylines were shared; the gossip column was axed while he was lead writer.
I want to be optimistic about this, but I've got a bad feeling that this is going to just throw more negative publicity through misguided or uninformed reporting. We were probably better off without a Times writer here.
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