Take 5— Media and Disaster Reporting- A Focus on Information Transfer and Responsibility
“If we are in a position to be able to save lives, let’s make sure we are absolutely adamantly prepared to do that.” -Pat Kerrigan
“Understand [not only] the power that you have, but also the responsibility you have to tell a very strong but truthful story with the powerful tools that we all carry.” -Sydnie Kohara
“I’m getting back to the preventative side of things. There are little things every homeowner could do to harden their homes.” -Wendy Nystrom
Media is arguably one of the most powerful resources in terms of information gathering and distribution. As the old adage goes, “the pen is mightier than the sword.” Media, especially that which has gone digital and wirelessly transmitted to smartphones and televisions has become a force unto itself — capable of bringing changes in the society, influencing people to action, and even saving lives.
In critical events, some people have played significant roles in saving lives, and they are not people of authority but ordinary citizens who have used the power of the media to deliver critical facts and stories. They are called “citizen journalists”. If we can harness the power of media personalities and citizens as information gatekeepers during a disaster, this will be a game-changer in the field of disaster response and recovery.
This episode is focused on the current media landscape, its role in disaster reporting and the responsibility it owes to the public, and how the public can also be reliable and authentic storytellers. Our guests, award-winning radio host Pat Kerrigan, Kohara Studio Founder Sydnie Kohara, and Environmental Social Justice founder, Wendy E. Nystrom talk about what the media and the community can do beforehand to deliver information as fast and factual as possible and utilize the tools a.k.a. our gadgets to add value to the community during a disaster. We also hear practical advice on how working with different sectors such as agriculture and first-responders can help bridge the gap in information transfer and build a more resilient community.
Highlights:
01:34: Season 2 Ep 1— How to Broadcast Media: Radio with Pat Kerrigan
04:43: Season 2 Ep 12— How to Inform the Public as an Information Gatekeeper During a Disaster with Sydnie Kohara
08:46: Season2 Ep 19— How to Address Wildfire Risks and Insurance with Indigenous Practices and Community-Wide Preventative Responses
Tweets:
We are an information generation, a generation of information seeking, sharing, and consuming. During a disaster, what responsibility and opportunity do the media and the public have with regard to sharing information? Hear it from @AfterTheFireUSA CEO @JenGrayThompson, award-winning radio host @ UnleashedPat, Kohara Studio Founder @sydniekohara, and @Env_Soc_Justice’s expert in environmental and pollution management risk management, Wendy E. Nystrom. #Recover #Rebuild #Reimagine #NorthBay #podcast #wildfire #disaster #AfterTheFire #newseason #Season3 #HowToDisaster #Take5 #media #digitalworld #informationsharing #facts #stories #journalists #citizenjournalists #community #communication #technology #internet
Quotes:
02:26: “In any relationship, you develop a degree of trust with the person that you’re speaking to. That trusted bond encouraged the powers that be to answer their phone or get right back to us the minute they could… So relationship is absolutely essential and that trust became a real, living part of this equation.” -Pat Kerrigan
03:29: “For members of the media, whether radio or print, it’s important to gather all of those folks together in times of non-emergency so that we can teach each other how to be best effective and reach the most amount of people.” -Pat Kerrigan
04:43: “If we are in a position to be able to save lives, let’s make sure we are absolutely adamantly prepared to do that.” -Pat Kerrigan
05:43: “Understand [not only] the power that you have, but also the responsibility you have to tell a very strong but truthful story with the powerful tools that we all carry.” -Sydnie Kohara
09:35: “You cannot send people from other agencies who cannot communicate with each other. They will not be safe because there were no communication systems that were resilient.” -Jennifer Thompson
10:28: “I’m getting back to the preventative side of things. There are little things every homeowner could do to harden their homes.” -Wendy Nystrom
Meet Pat:
Pat Kerrigan is a third-generation San Franciscan, who came to Sonoma County with her eye (and ear) on the radio. When the wildfires hit the North Bay in October, Pat was in the studio by midnight and spent the next 24 days on the air. She was the voice of Sonoma County when most other modes of communication were unavailable. Pat provided accurate information, comfort, and compassion to the hundreds of thousands who ached to know what was going on. Since then, Pat has expanded her morning show by an hour to accommodate the many issues involved as Sonoma County recovers from this unparalleled disaster. She has become an advocate and a leader in the county, holding leadership accountable to the benefit of her beloved community.
Meet Sydnie:
Sydnie Kohara is the founder of Kohara Studio, former KPIX news anchor, and Emmy Award-winning journalist. She has more than 30 years’ experience helping people tell their stories. She lived and reported from all over the world- from the US to Singapore, Frankfurt, Dublin and London – and works across all media – from print, radio and television to online and digital – to cover current events, profile newsmakers and share stories that matter.
As founder of Kohara Group LLC, Sydnie has produced media projects for Fortune 500 companies like Oracle and Charles Schwab & Co. as well as provided media training for diverse clients, including a healthcare think tank at MIT, the City of Palo Alto and several healthcare startups.Her storytelling reflects a diverse career and a knack for discovering heart pumping adventure.
Sydnie is also a member of Asia Foundation’s Lotus Circle in the Bay Area, a vibrant community of philanthropists championing The Asia Foundation’s work across 18 countries. She has emceed and moderated programs around the world.
Meet Wendy:
Born in Pasadena, raised in the midwest, and educated on the east coast, Wendy has a Master’s degree in Geology/Earth Sciences/Geochemistry and has worked in the environmental industry for 20 years. She hosts the Environmental Social Justice webcast where every Wednesday at 9 am PT / 12 pm ET she hosts a live webcast on Facebook and YouTube to discuss current topics as they relate to The Environment, Equality, and Social Justice. The webcast aims to bring everyday information to the audience on how they can impact the globe with informed decisions on environmental conservation and community-based responses. She currently is associated with Basher LLC, related to the news publication, The Guardian, for her work with the Environmental Social Justice production based out of Beverly Hills, California. She advocates and informs the public with her diverse skill set and experience on topics of environmental education, climate news, insurance, and preventative measures. She collaborates and partners with many groups to assist with other climate projects around the country.
Transcription:
Jennifer Gray Thompson: Hi, my name is Jennifer Gray Thompson, and I am the CEO of After the Fire. Welcome to the podcast, How to Disaster, recover, rebuild and reimagine. In this podcast, we bring you the very best practices, best hearts and great ideas from other disaster affected communities. Thank you for joining us.
Welcome to Season 3 of the How to Disaster Podcast where we help you recover, rebuild and reimagine. During this season, we will be releasing Take 5 shorter episodes that highlight some of our past guests speaking about similar issues, themes, topics. We wanted to do this so that perhaps it would be easier if you only have a few minutes, but you wanted to connect with these focused episodes and guests so that you can condense all their messages into one smaller bite sized piece.
One of the things that we know about disaster is that we really have to meet people where they’re at. And sometimes, where you’re at is you only have five minutes. We’re very excited for the third season. We’ve got great guests, wonderful information and content about how to actually help get your community through to the other side. So thank you for joining us. And if you wish to find out more, please visit our homepage at afterthefireusa.org. Consider giving us a like or follow if you liked this podcast, we really appreciate it, and thank you for your time
From Season 2, Episode 1: How to Broadcast Media, Specifically in Radio. Local Sonoma County Radio Correspondent, and you can find her on her own podcast called Unleashed, Pat Kerrigan.
“In any relationship, you develop a degree of trust with the person that you’re speaking to. That trusted bond encouraged the powers that be to answer their phone or get right back to us the minute they could… So relationship is absolutely essential and that trust became a real, living part of this equation.” -Pat Kerrigan
Pat Kerrigan: It was essential. I mean, I can’t imagine not having those relationships and trying to deal from that position. I think that the other radio stations in the area did their best to inform and did their best to keep up with it. And we were definitely at an advantage. And those relationships are not only, I hope that the people that I was talking to knew that I would be fair and knew that I would be thorough. I think in any relationship, you develop a degree of trust with the person that you’re speaking to. And to me, that trusted bond I think encouraged the powers that be to answer their phone or get right back to us the minute they could. And I think that that trusted bond also existed with our listeners prior to October 8, and I think based on reactions to the ones that came that night and the days, the many days that followed. So relationships are absolutely essential. And that trust became a real living part of this equation. That’s how I feel.
“For members of the media, whether radio or print, it’s important to gather all of those folks together in times of non-emergency so that we can teach each other how to be best effective and reach the most amount of people.” -Pat Kerrigan
For members of the media, whether their radio, or their print, or whatever, it’s important to gather all of those folks together in times of non-emergency so that we can teach each other how to be best effective and reach the most amount of people. When I was at the Broadcasters Association a year later, one of the things that I told these broadcasters from all over the country was, we think about, okay, how many people can we get to listen to every 15 minutes? How many people can we get to show up at our events? Why aren’t we asking the question? How many lives can we save if we find ourselves in the middle of this kind of disaster? And that’s the question that media entities of every kind, ham radio operators, podcasters, everybody should be talking about prior to a disaster happening. So that competition, the hell with that? If we are in a position to be able to save lives, let’s make sure we are absolutely adamantly prepared to do that.
“If we are in a position to be able to save lives, let’s make sure we are absolutely adamantly prepared to do that.” -Pat Kerrigan
From Season 2, Episode 12: How to Inform the Public as an Information Gatekeeper During the Disaster. CEO and Founder of the Kohara Foundation and former KPIX News Anchor in San Francisco, Sydnie Kohara
“Understand [not only] the power that you have, but also the responsibility you have to tell a very strong but truthful story with the powerful tools that we all carry.” -Sydnie Kohara
Sydnie Kohara: Let’s see, I’ll take the best practices as you’re becoming a journalist. And truthfully, Jennifer, we’re all journalists, we’re all storytellers now with the tools that everyone owns a phone that has the camera and a recorder. I mean, we are all storytellers and journalists. And what I would say is for aspiring journalists or people who find themselves in that situation, somewhere along the way, you’re going to be in a situation where you can help tell a story that someone else isn’t close enough to tell isn’t part of. And I would just say to aspiring journalists, number one, understand the power that you have, but also the responsibility you have to tell a very strong but truthful story with the powerful tools that we all carry. Now that you are a person who can help tell the stories, every news outlet now has a way to contact and saying, if you know something about this, can you tell us the story. So there are a lot of citizen journalists out there. And I would say, if the next fire comes and you are in a place that you can tell the story from the Latinx community, know beforehand who you can contact to help share that story. Most people, it’s Facebook, or Instagram, or something. But the New York Times, they’re monitoring all of these, but understand how you might share that story in your community, or a more personal story, or a more truthful story that maybe journalists who are coming from somewhere else. People know the place, what value can you add to those stories, and I think there’s a lot out there. Everyone I think could be a journalist.
I think of one of these events when everyone is standing around a microphone, and then you have a whole line behind them. These are very, very important for updates, but dispense with the pleasantries and get right into the information and look at these events as a production of the show, if you will. I mean, it’s tough to think of it that way. But have someone there who can say, this is what we’re going to do, and this is what we’re going to do, and it just moves very, very quickly. In this day and age of technology, one of the things I would love to see is the communities that are affected. Some people on call, whether it’s a graphic designer, or freelance, or something who can quickly like they do in weather, in a television station, in a newsroom. There is a weather producer who’s making new graphics for every forecast and every new show. And if there’s something that someone that you can pull in and say, let’s give them a graphic of exactly where this fire is, where it’s going, what we’re going to be doing. There’s so much with technology that we could be doing. I know there’s a lot going on during a disaster, but these are things, this is part of the preparation
From Season 2, Episode 19: How to Address Wildfire Risks and Insurance with Indigenous Practices and Community-Wide Preventative Responses. Host of the Environmental Social Justice Webcast, Wendy Nystrom.
Jennifer Gray Thompson: Here comes the fire and Reva Feldman, the City Manager had to run the city from the lifeguard station.
Wendy Nystrom: Because there’s a landline.
“You cannot send people from other agencies who cannot communicate with each other. They will not be safe because there were no communication systems that were resilient.” -Jennifer Thompson
Jennifer Gray Thompson: Because there’s a landline there, and then the LA Times the next day, LA Times, New York Times has a photo of all these mutual responders in their fire trucks on Zuma Beach. And the constituents in Malibu were like, what? Why weren’t you going up into the canyon to save our homes? And the reason why is because you cannot send people from other agencies who cannot communicate with each other that they will not be safe. And because there were no communication systems that were resilient. That’s my very long treatise on the Woolsey Fire.
Wendy Nystrom: I know. I love the fact you brought up the communication because you and I had that discussion about a year ago. And with everything that happened in Louisiana, it hit me and I thought, I bet all of they’re communication lines went down again because we are dependent on Wi-Fi cellular. So again, engineers out there, those big smart guys with big brains, and women. Please, satellites, maybe direct, we used to have satellite phones, or remember those big honkin things back in the 90s, bring that back.
“I’m getting back to the preventative side of things. There are little things every homeowner could do to harden their homes.” -Wendy Nystrom
I’m getting back to the preventative side of things. I mean, there are little things every homeowner could do to harden their homes. You can close off your eaves. The embers go into your roof and that’s how your roof catches on fire. So if you can close that off, if you have a lot of vegetation around your house, I grew up in the Midwest, the bushes went right up to the edge of the house. Maybe you trimmed in for the bugs, but how here you want like five feet away from your home. Because what if that catches on fire? It’s just gonna go right in. A lot of people are doing community wide efforts with the fire department where they will pull back or deal with the agriculture that’s going on homes or neighborhoods. Goats and sheep? I know that sounds ridiculous and stupid, but those things will eat everything.
