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When Disaster Hits, Report Your Own News

DH | November 21, 2011 | 0 Comments

When the disaster hits, news crews show up – reporters, photographers, satellite trucks. They do stories about human suffering and destruction, always in a predictable, formula approach. After a few days – seemingly on cue – they depart to move on to the next disaster du jour, few to ever return. For them, the story is over.

The Northeast region of the United States, especially New England, has been ravaged by natural disasters in 2011. The remnants of Hurricane Irene wiped out not only roads but severely damaged towns from New Jersey to Vermont. A freak Halloween snowstorm caused even more damage.

When coverage of a disaster ends, a false impression is often created that the suffering, damage and need for assistance has passed, that everything is pretty much back to life as usual. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

As I write this, there are towns in New England still struggling to rebuild, months after Irene. The fact there is no longer media attention doesn’t help local and state officials make a case for assistance. The disaster has become out of the media, out of mind. How can officials continue to make a case to secure much-needed continuing help? Sustained and active awareness-building – especially with online news sites – is essential to support rebuilding and funding efforts.

My counsel to such communities is to report your own news. Keep your story alive.

Tell your own stories through text and photos. Deliver your own news updates. Because at this point, there’s a good chance that no one else will unless you keep the story fresh, timely and human.

Here’s how, using the journalist approach of brand journalism or storytelling that I write about:

Register a domain name, such as <yourtown>news.org at Godaddy.com. The cost is about $11 a year.
Get website hosting from a provider, such as Hostgator, for about $100 a year.
Enlist a local blogger to set up a news site, using WordPress.org, the powerful and free software used by many mainstream news organizations. It won’t take someone more than a couple of hours to get it online.
Use a professional-looking theme or template, such as those available from Solostream.com, a Connecticut company that was also hit by the storms. By the way, the people at Solostream.com can handle the whole process of getting you online.
Get an army of local residents to take digital photos and write news updates, each story no more than about 100 words.
Learn to post stories and digital photos on WordPress. It’s quite easy, and there are many helpful how-to videos on YouTube.com.
Update the news site at least three (3) times each week.

Such a news site for a community severely damaged by natural disaster will keep the story alive. It will be a valued resource for local businesses and government officials to seek continued assistance. It will carry the message to Washington, across the country and around the globe.

Especially in today’s media environment of celebrity and soundbite snippets and when what we have known traditionally as mainstream news media is vaporizing, we have powerful online tools available at minimal cost to assure that responsible news coverage can continue. Report your own news.

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Tags: Brand Journalism, Featured