The Times-Picayune of New Orleans and the Sun Herald of Biloxi, Miss., have won the Pulitzer Prize for public service with their Hurricane Katrina coverage. The Times-Pic staff also won in the breaking news category. Huzzah!

Update: Also, Todd Heisler of the Rocky Mountain News won the feature photography prize for his Final Salute story (download a PDF of the 24-page section here or see jpgs of the pages here), and the Dallas Morning News staff won the breaking news photography prize for their Hurricane Katrina coverage.

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Katharine Seelye has a good updater in tomorrow's NYT on the state of the Times-Picayune and the Biloxi Sun Herald seven months after Hurricane Katrina struck.

At CC's coffeehouse on Magazine Street one morning last week, there were so many people absorbed in that day's Times-Picayune that the scene looked like a commuter train.

"These writers are energized and passionate," said Angele Thionville, 34, a mother of three boys, as she glanced up from the paper. She was not a big fan of The Times-Picayune before Katrina, she said, but now if she misses the paper one day, "I feel so out of touch."

While much of the country has moved on from coverage of Katrina, considered the largest natural disaster in modern American history, both The Sun Herald and The Times-Picayune remain all Katrina, all the time. For their role in covering and enduring the storm, both papers have received accolades, and next week both may well receive Pulitzer Prizes.

>As Katrina Recedes, Newspapers Still Float [The New York Times]

Previously: NewsDesigner.com Katrina coverage

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The judges of the recent SND Best of Newspaper Design competition have unanimously awarded Judges' Special Recognition to the staffs of The Times-Picayune of New Orleans and the Sun Herald of Biloxi, Miss., for their coverage of Hurricane Katrina.

"People talk about making a newspaper a vital party of the community and these newspapers fulfilled that function stunningly after this devastating hurricane leveled the towns they serve," judge Cory Powell said. "That they managed to make such great work in the middle of it all humbles us.”

I can't think of a more well-deserved award.

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The Times-Picayune, after a couple of weeks printing 16-page papers in Houma, La., today printed a larger press run of three-section, 32-page papers at the Mobile (Ala.) Register, another Newhouse paper. No word yet on when they'll be able to return to their building. But I've heard that their presses seem to have survived the flood.

Also, Mark Glaser at Online Journalism Review has an interview with Jon Donley, editor of NOLA.com, the online affiliate of the Times-Picayune. Not only did the blogs and forums keep people informed, they actually saved lives.

Donley said that an aide of Lt. Gen. Russel Honore, the commander of the relief efforts, had tasked a group of people with monitoring the NOLA View blog, and were taking notes and sending out rescue missions based on the postings. "In fact, one time we had some server issues," Donley said, "and [the aide] wrote us frantically saying, 'Get this up as soon as you can, people's lives depend on it. We've already saved a number of lives because of it.'"

>NOLA.com blogs and forums help save lives after Katrina [Online Journalism Review]

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Times-Pic editor Jim Amoss was on NPR's Fresh Air today. Listen to it here.

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Spiegel Online, the top German news site, has a piece on the Times-Picayune for those of you who sprechen sie Deutsch (or an automatic translation here, for those who don't). There's also a little photo gallery of the staff evacuating.

And speaking of the T-P, somebody paid $560 on eBay for a copy of the Saturday paper.

>Die Augen im Hurrikan [Spiegel Online]

(Thanks, Jan!)

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Some final words from Kevin Wendt:

Well dude, this will be the last post from the Biloxi North-Northeast bureau from me, as I head back to San Jose tomorrow (Wednesday).

I've posted the Tuesday paper at newspagedesigner. Tomorrow I drive from Columbus to Atlanta for the wonderful-sounding Atlanta-to-Dallas-to-L.A.-to-San Jose flight.

There's a part of me that's bummed and a bit guilty to be heading off (but another that's ready to get home, and there's an exciting vacation coming up). A couple of us have talked about what we here in Columbus have done, and what theoverall Sun Herald has done, and pretty much agree it will be a long time before it really sinks in.

We've heard reports of people in Southern Mississippi working out street-wide reading patterns so they only need one paper for several residents, just so we can get the paper out to more people. We've seen the front page used on various newscasts, especially the "HELP US NOW" front.

But most of all, I think we all know we're helping people, and we know going forward there is a lot more to do (that's where the guilt sets in). Whether it's the information we can provide or the distraction of a crossword puzzle, this is the event where we truly feel the impact the newspaper can have on people's lives.

There are a lot of tough decisions coming up for folks, especially those with kids who need to get enrolled in school and are unsure how safe it is to stay in Biloxi. For those of us who came to help, I know I'm grateful to be heading back to some sort of normalcy. For those from Biloxi, some whom now own whatever is left in the trunk of their car, I, and I think everyone reading this, wish you the best of luck and as soft a landing as possible.

Some random blurbs/kudos:

* From the Tuesday, August 29 paper to today's Tuesday, September 6 paper, the Sun Herald published 204 pages - about 20 of which were full page ads. The paper began taking advertising in the Thursday edition, if memory serves.

* The original group who published the Tuesday paper was six people: From Biloxi, asst. city editor Blake Kaplan (who has managed this process with unbelievable calm, the man at the center of communcation between the Columbus paper, his paper and Knight Ridder corporate -- no easy task); 1A designer Jared Head (who not only rocked out some great pages, but does a hi-freakin-larious Stan Tiner impersonation), graphics artist/designer Rudy Nowak, wire editor Paul Hampton. The Macon Telegraph sent us presentation editor Randy Waters (who has since be renamed Ricky, Rusty and Raphael). From San Jose: some yahoo named Kevin.

* We've now grown to over 20, with contributions from Biloxi, Macon, San Jose, Miami, Wichita, Aberdeen, Contra Costa, Akron, Charlotte, Ft. Worth and Lexington. Say what you want about Knight Ridder, but when it's time to mobilize, the mobilization happens.

* For the past two days, the Sun Herald has been put together in Columbus and ftp'ed down to Biloxi, where their presses are up and running. The goal is to transtion down there over the weekend, and begin full production of pages in Biloxi Sunday for Monday. Many of those from other KR papers here will transition down to Biloxi with the rest of the team.

* Ever had a group visit your newsroom and you think "jeez, what are these people doing here?" Columbus had another paper show up, and their hospitality has been way beyond the call of duty. Furthermore, they've been unbelievably patient, answering questions about DTI, helping with pages when we're in a jam, and generally just making everyone feel welcome. Many thanks.

*�And of course, to THE newsdesigner, many thanks for posting updates and spreading the word.

kevin

Thank you, Kevin. The work that you, the Biloxi folks, the Times-Pic staff and all the other Gulf Coast journalists have done has simply been the most inspiring thing I've ever seen in this business. Words fail. And let the rest of us remember, as the front-page presence fades and our eyes turn from the South to Supreme Court hearings and state legislatures and other things, that these courageous folks' battles will go on. They now face the gargantuan tasks of rebuilding their communities, their homes and their lives. Godspeed, all of you.

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Once again, ladies and gentleman, direct from Columbus, Ga., Kevin Wendt!

The Monday pages are up at newspagedesigner. Just another solid, solid newspaper.

It defies belief how calm and collected everyone here from Biloxi seems. Last night we received pictures of a couple folks' houses. One seemed pretty OK (there'll be some trips to the Home Depot), while another guy's apartment complex is pretty messed up. His apartment is relatively OK, but the building lost its roof. And his car is totaled ("And I was THIS CLOSE to paying it off!").

I'm sure work is a good distraction and any down time is spent wondering about all sorts of issues. I just can't say enough about how professional and down-right friendly everyone has been. By this point, someone should have blown up at someone about something. I mean, it's still a freakin' newspaper!

But that just hasn't happened. Along with working our asses off, there is plenty of laughter to brighten the mood. When everything gets serious and we hit the late-night rush -- and there's always a late-night rush -- all it takes is a good Stan Tiner impersonation (exec. editor in Biloxi) to lighten the mood.

Biloxi's presses are up and running, and we're transmitting pages down to them. Operations will slowly move down there until the end of the week, when hopefully the transition will be complete.

kevin

And speaking of Mr. Tiner, there's this tale from Knight Ridder Biloxi update memo at Romenesko:

On the humor-in-every-tragedy front, Executive Editor Stan Tiner had a once-in-a-lifetime experience last night; he was in a port-a-potty when a forklift picked it up to reposition. He suffered no lasting ill effects.

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The New York Times tells the tale of the Times-Picayune today.

The evacuated employees were sent to two locations. By midafternoon Tuesday, many had arrived in Houma, La., where The Courier was offering food, computers, phone lines and, although spotty, Internet connections. Employees' families were dropped off at nearby shelters. The Courier, which is owned by The New York Times Company, had just finished work on its afternoon issue.

About 12 journalists, led by Dan Shea, a managing editor, stayed in Houma that night, posting news on the Web site and trying to put together an issue of the paper in portable document format, or pdf, which allows for a traditional newspaper layout.

The team had none of their production software and templates, and no access to any of The Times-Picayune's fonts, and was struggling with rolling blackouts. Still, Mary Chauvin, a copy editor, was able to replicate the look of the paper on the fly by cobbling together graphic elements from earlier online editions..

About 60 more Times-Picayune staff members went on to Baton Rouge, La. There, the Manship School of Mass Communication at Louisiana State University had offered banks of phones and computers.

The paper that appeared the next morning, again in pdf format on the Web site, contained 17 articles and an editorial, all written by staff members, and 12 photographs, only one of which came from The Associated Press.

>Hurricane Forces New Orleans Newspaper to Face a Daunting Set of Obstacles [The New York Times]

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The lastest from Kevin Wendt:

Pages from Biloxi's 32-page Sunday edition are up at newspagedesigner. A slightly more edited posting to stop from hogging all the new stuff!

Last night was quite a little scramble with the Rehnquist guy. We had a 10:30 close for the Biloxi paper (that's 7:30 p.m. in San Jose, bringing to two the things I can't ever complain about again: deadline and CCI -- we're using DTI out here, and the learning curve is, well, getting better). So, we got the news at about 11:15. Good ol' chasers...

The big development today is that Biloxi is going to attempt to run its presses down there. We're publishing 20,000-25,000 copies here and attempting to run 20,000-25,000 more down there. Discussions are beginning about how to move the operation back to Biloxi. Opinions vary on how soon a move would be made, but as power and water pressure start to get more consistent, that talk will heat up fast.

Right now, I overheard someone say we've got 17 people in Columbus working with the Sun Herald. They include folks from Biloxi, San Jose, St. Paul, Contra Costa, Aberdeen, Macon, Wichita, Miami -- geez, is that all? What a phenomenal effort by all, both here and especially down in Biloxi.

kevin

Also on Sunday, the Sun Herald ran this doubletruck graphic by San Jose Mercury-News folks Pai, Robert Hernandez, Jonathon Berlin and Leigh Poitinge. A PDF of the graphic is here, and an HTML version here.

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Today's update from Kevin Wendt, on the scene in Columbus, Ga., helping put together the Biloxi Sun Herald:

Day 5: Hurricane Katrina is up at newspagedesigner. Great 1A photo by Tim Isbell, and another solid effort by Jared Head on 1A.

Those of us in Columbus, Ga., got a visit from the man himself last night: Bryan Monroe. He's heading back after leading the charge upon arrival Monday in Biloxi. And after days of no sleep or attempting to sleep on the floor, he was still gracious enough to take the group here out for a beer. Awesome.

Three quick notes from his many stories of his time down in Biloxi:

1) For the first two days, the deployment of reporters and figuring out what to cover depended on one thing: gas.

2) While there was some electricity at the paper, those thinking it was an oasis of air conditioning are mistaken. Without water pressure, the air conditioner may run, but there's nothing there to cool it.

3) The menu during the beginning days: Peanut butter & jelly sandwiches, with Saltine crackers for desert.

4) Bryan saw the devastation after Hurricane Andrew. "That one isn't even close to this."

5) The paper is starting to get running water. I'll leave that one alone.

kevin

That's some fine work, everyone, and it would be even if you weren't working under some horrendous conditions. I am humbled.

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CNN's Aaron Brown talked to Times-Pic editor Jim Amoss last night.

BROWN: Is it a huge marker in some sense for the paper to get? Does it tell us anything about the situation on the ground, honestly, that the paper's publishing?

AMOSS: Well, the fact that the paper's publishing I think is a testament to the hunger of its readers. And we experienced it firsthand when we distributed the first print product post-hurricane this morning to people in shelters. And as our circulation director said, they accepted it, they grabbed for it almost as if it were food.

And here's a picture of the Times-Picayune's makeshift newsroom at LSU's Manship School of Mass Communication in Baton Rouge taken by Paul Dietzel.

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Here's today's Biloxi update from Kevin Wendt:

I've posted the Sun Herald's Friday pages at newspagedesigner.

It was a mad rush at the end of the night last night, but that's to be expected. Communication continues to get better as the Biloxi newsroom gets steady Internet access. I know it's been said before: How did newspapers ever publish before the Internet?!

We're now up to about 12-14 folks -- 7 from Biloxi, the rest from San Jose, Miami, Wichita, Aberdeen, Akron and Macon, and are making plans to bring in more. The plan is to keep publishing from Columbus, Georgia, for about another week and a half. So, the push is to attempt to get enough folks here to not rely on last-minute help from Columbus staffers (who have been incredibly, unbelievably gracious in hosting us and letting us work in their newsroom). We're also moving up from 24-page sections to 28-page sections starting today, with a desire to grow from there.

That's the update. Talk to you later, man.

kevin

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Sure a major American city (in the South, even!) is descending into anarchy, but in Columbia, S.C., it's football season!

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Editor & Publisher today addresses the rumors of the Times-Picayune shutting down that sprang up after yesterday's Times-Picayune press release and a posting on the NABJ listserv.

Steve Newhouse, son of Advance Publications President Donald Newhouse and a company executive, told E&P the press release was meant to offer security, not hints at a bleak future.

"That was to reassure people," said Newhouse, who oversees Advance.net, among other responsibilities. "We have just resumed publication [of the Times-Picayune], we are going to keep growing."

When asked if the newspaper would suffer major cutbacks or permanent reductions beyond October, he declined to offer assurances.

"I have no idea what will happen beyond the very short term," he said. "We can barely think beyond 10 minutes from now. We are dealing with what is happening this second. For us, the future is tomorrow." ...

When asked to comment on rumors that the Times-Picayune would be cutting back or even folding as a result of the hurricane, Steve Newhouse said, "I can't control rumors. No one knows what the future is going to bring, we don't even know the status of our printing presses until we get to them. We can only say what we know at the moment."

Update 12:21 PDT: This statement from Times-Picayune publisher Ashton Phelps Jr. was just posted at Romenesko:

An NABJ forum appears to be the source of a rumor that The Times-Picayune is going to cease publication. "We just resumed publication so thoughts on ceasing publication at some later date are ridiculous," said Ashton Phelps Jr., the paper's publisher. "The Times-Picayune will continue to publish. Period."

>'Times-Picayune' Back In Print, But For How Long? [Editor & Publisher]

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The Times-Picayune today (18 pages available here) sounds a note similar to yesterday's Biloxi front.

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Here's today's update from the estimable Kevin Wendt in Columbus, Ga., helping put out the Biloxi Sun-Herald.

We just finished the Friday paper, and I've just posted all our Thursday pages, including a killer 1A by Biloxi 1A designer Jared Head. I'm told someone at NBC or ABC reporting from Gulfport held it up to start the newscast.

While there are certainly kinks in the process -- ever try giving someone directions with a bad cell phone connection? try talking about putting out an entire newspaper! -- but by the end of the night Biloxi was getting a bit more phone reception and Internet access. Still a bit sketchy though.

Overall the work continues to be amazing. It's difficult to even picture what everyone down in Biloxi is up against, but the reporting and photography has been magnificent -- and as we get organized it's only going to get better.

kevin

Yes, a nice page. Reminds me a bit of one of those great Miami Herald covers from Hurricane Andrew.

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This was posted on the NABJ forum:

Sent: Thursday, September 01, 2005 4:58 PM
To: nabjforum@yahoogroups.com; youngblackjournalist@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [NABJFORUM] Times Picayune

Just got off the phone with my dear friend at the Times Picayune. He just got word in a meeting that they will pay the workers through October and that they need to look elsewhere for work. The paper will cease for the unforeseeable future.

I worked there for six years and there are a lot damn good journalists at the paper.

Gregory Lee
Senior Assistant Sports Editor
The Boston Globe

Update: Perhaps should be skeptical about this. Doesn't really make much sense, thinking about it. I'm wondering (as are some others) if the NABJ folks are misreading the last line of today's Newhouse news release, which says: "During the months of September and October all Times-Picayune employees will receive regular paychecks, regardless of whether they perform work, The Times-Picayune announced to its work force today."

Update 2: After some more thought, I'm going to ramp up my skepticism way, way up here. This just doesn't fit with anything I know about the Times-Picayune and Newhouse (full disclosure: I get a Newhouse paycheck every week). I simply don't see them cutting and running at a juncture this crucial. Steve makes good points in his comment.

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The Times-Picayune will publish a print edition tomorrow, after three days of online-only publishing. The paper will print about 50,000 copies using the press of the Houma Courier, a New York Times newspaper about 58 miles southwest of New Orleans.

(via Romenesko)

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At Visual Editors, Times-Picayune designer David Baker posts about his last few days.

I was the only designer on staff who did not evacuate ahead of Hurricane Katrina, and we sort of deputized a new staff of people to help produce pages, and I supervised things and continued to design several pages including the fronts.

These past few days have been ... overwhelming to say the least. I finally got sleep last night, and I am taking a few days off to separate myself from this for a while. The entire staff has been relocated an hour away, and designers are starting to return, so I feel like I can take a break.

One of my regrets is that we were not able to produce graphics during those first couple of chaotic days. But you work with what you've got -- and the deadlines you're given. We usually had about 3 hours to produce the pages.

Best of luck, David. You Times-Picayune folks are an inspiration.

Thursday's 15-page T-P can be found here.

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Kevin Wendt, news design director at the San Jose Mercury News, is down in Columbus, Ga., helping the good folks there publish the Biloxi Sun Herald. He was nice enough to send along this remarkable report of what the last few days have been like.

First off, there truly are no words for what this experience is like. The fact of the matter is, I'm going back to San Jose at some point. My apartment awaits. My phone works. I'm on the Internet. I've talked to family members, and we're way, way, way far away from coast. But the four Biloxi Sun Herald folks here are just finding out how their families have fared and all still have no idea if they have a house to go home to. The Biloxi Sun Herald is still looking for unaccounted-for staffers to check in down in Biloxi. The entire situation is a definition of "disaster" I've never been this close to, and to be honest, hope no one ever has to go through.

On Sunday, I got a call that Knight Ridder wanted to get a group of folks to the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer -- about 5 hours from Biloxi on a normal day, 7-10 hours on Sunday -- to publish the Biloxi Sun Herald in case it wasn't able to publish from Biloxi. I was in Chicago for the weekend, and decided it was the right thing to do. Quite frankly, there were a lot of reasons I thought about not coming. But the argument that won out was, basically, if I'm ever at a paper in a natural disaster, I'd like to know someone would come help, too. At this point, that reason feels weak, and it doesn't begin to touch on the emotion experienced by what we're attempting to do. It's indescribable.

Continue reading "Getting the Sun Herald on the Street"

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Several Gulf Coast papers have put their entire editions online today. The Times-Picayune's Wednesday edition is here, the Mobile Register has Tuesday's paper here and Wednesday's paper here, the Mississippi Press of Pascagoula has today's paper here and the Sun Herald of Biloxi has an eight-page edition here.

Also, Editor & Publisher is publishing a blog, of sorts, with "material from and about newspapers in the stricken Gulf Coast cities, mainly the Times-Picayune in New Orleans and the Sun Herald in Biloxi, updated frequently." They don't seem to be linking out of it to any of the non-E&P sites they keep mentioning, though. C'mon, dudes. A sentence like The Mobile Register's "Storm Central" blog has just posted 100 new "damage" photos, and has a full gallery from the past three days that has no clue about how you find those photos is just silly. That's not just Blogging 101, that's Journalism 101. (The "Storm Central" blog is here and those photos are here, by the way.)

Other stories:
>Katrina Makes Strange Bedfellows at Baton Rouge Paper [Editor & Publisher]
>Newspapers Improvise With Web Editions and Blogs [LA Times]
>Flooding Stops Presses and Broadcasts, So Journalists Turn to the Web [The New York Times]
>The back story on that St. Pete Times photo many papers used Tuesday [PDN Online]

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I can't find the following Newhouse story anywhere online, so I apologize for busting copyright here. I'll take it down if I can eventually find a link it (or if lawyers start e-mailing me), but I thought it was important to bear witness to what some of our journalistic colleagues at the Times-Picayune in New Orleans are experiencing in their struggle to document the devastation, bearing in mind that most of these journalists, like countless others in the region, have suffered severe losses of their own.

Times-Picayune Forced Out of 'Uninhabitable Metropolis'
By DAVID WOOD
c.2005 Newhouse News Service

(UNDATED) New Orleans "has become an uninhabitable metropolis; nothing like this has ever happened to an American city." With that, Jim Amoss, editor of The Times-Picayune, ordered the evacuation Tuesday of 300 staffers clustered in the venerable newspaper's downtown offices.

Pressmen and reporters, photographers and secretaries, graphic artists and family members who had sought refuge there waded through rising water into dozens of idle delivery vans and plowed out toward high ground and safety. Until Tuesday, staff members said, the newspaper had published continuously since 1837.

Most of them don't expect to be able to return to the houses they left, Amoss said, noting that the city where he has spent his career as a newsman "is under eight feet of water. And the infrastructure is ... destroyed."

Continue reading "Covering the Loss of a City"

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Somebody needs an "It's Not All About You" lecture.

Chicago Red Streak

London Daily Telegraph

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The Times-Picayune published only online today. Find the pages here. Also, the T-P staff has evacuated.

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The Times-Picayune has posted some PDFs of early edition Monday pages in their breaking news weblog.

Godspeed, everyone.

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