Revisiting 2007 duPont-Columbia Award winners for their coverage of Hurricane Katrina

This week marked 17 years since Hurricane Katrina made landfall in New Orleans, flooding roughly 80% of the city and causing over 1,800 deaths and $100 billion in damages. Local and national news outlets flocked to the city in Katrina’s aftermath to cover the hurricane’s immediate impact and the subsequent evacuation of the city - one of the largest in U.S. history. 

Since 2005, much of the contemporary media coverage of Katrina has been criticized as being sensationalist, yellow journalism, and racially biased. But three news outlets - WWL New Orleans, WLOX Biloxi, and NBC - were recognized by the duPont-Columbia awards for their coverage of the disaster.

To better understand the extreme challenges of reporting in disaster zones, we invite you to review some of this award-winning coverage: WLOX Biloxi, WWL New Orleans, NBC.