February 7, 2008 | Read Time: 1 minute
More than two years after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita devastated the Gulf Coast, a grant maker is using the Web to call attention to the larger issues of racism, poverty, and government neglect brought to light by the storms.
In 2006 the Open Society Institute, in New York, awarded 31 grants totaling $950,000 to journalists, photographers, filmmakers, and youth media groups to document the long-term effects of the storm and residents’ efforts to recover. Now, the grant maker has brought these projects — some of which have been published or broadcast elsewhere — together on a new Web site, “Katrina: An Unnatural Disaster.”
“The tragedy that followed Katrina and the floods is far from over, and the coverage and the awareness is still quite necessary,” says Larry Blumenfeld, one of the Katrina Media Fellows. A journalist, Mr. Blumenfeld has written about Hurricane Katrina’s impact on New Orleans’s music culture.
Other projects include a video that looks at the challenges rural residents face after the hurricanes; a series of articles about the environmental issues raised by the storms; a photo essay that documents the celebration of Tet, the Vietnamese New Year, in New Orleans East; and a radio documentary on rebuilding efforts in Biloxi, Miss.
To get there: Go to http://www.katrinamedia.org.
