PressEthic

The guest speaker at yesterday’s Brown Bag gathering at the j-school was Elinor Tatum, the Publish and Editor-in-Chief of the Amsterdam News. Very briefly, she talked about the “legacy of Katrina” and how it was affecting the work at various black newspapers around the country.

Earlier this week, the New York Times had a Giving section that had a couple of articles talking about aid for Katrina victims. After the Storm, One Town Finds 1,000 Ways to Give gave examples of the innovative ways that people around the stricken area helped out.

Another story in the section, Shock of Katrina Pushes Black Charities to New Fund-Raising talks about how African-American philanthropic groups are raising money to prepare for the next disaster. It seems the creative and fundraising energies of these organizations should be used, in large part, to help poor people in everyday situations rather than in preparation for a hypothetical future disaster.

Overall, the section contains articles that discuss the donating habits of Americans, with only a few spots of criticism. However, the Katrina disaster provides an opportunity to address these sorts of issues, not only within the community that is directly affected, but also across media as an American issue.

Part of the problem is that it’s a hard topic to broach. No one wants to be labeled racist or unsympathetic to race issues. But on some level, it’s a timely issue that deserves further inspection. The government definitely needs to do more for all of the nation’s indigent and be better prepared for calamity. African-American organizations work every day to try and improve aspects of life within this community. Let’s hope that the legacy of Katrina will motivate people to continue to use ingenuity to push that further.