CNN producer details Katrina coverage

CNN producer Ben Blake comments on footage of victims that was shot in the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina.

By Erika Usui

If you're heading to a city that has just been struck by a Category 5 hurricane, don't forget to bring quarters and your checkbook. Ben Blake, a CNN Gulf Coast bureau producer who worked as a field producer in New Orleans during and after Hurricane Katrina, found out the hard way that pay phones are the only means of communication and Visa cards are useless when two-thirds of a city is under water.

As part of a weekly colloquium for graduate students at the School of Journalism and Mass Communication, Blake visited the School in February.

When Blake arrived in New Orleans in late August, he said the only members of his crew were a photographer and two other producers. Soon they had a correspondent – she came rowing to them in a boat. But they still lacked ground transportation.

The group soon came across a man willing to sell his truck for $4,000. Fortunately, Blake had his checkbook with him. All ATMs and card readers were down.

The five-person crew then relayed news back to the CNN headquarters by reporting from payphones using a videophone to transmit images.

One issue discussed was whether reporters should display emotion when reporting.

"Emotion helps the audience to understand the context," Blake said. "And ratings show that people like to see emotion. It doesn't matter how objective our news is if nobody watches. But we need to draw the line in some way. We must find a balance because we need our audience, and we need to keep them interested."

Also, he said, journalists had difficulty deciding whom to believe, adding that his crew had to rely to some extent on the rumor mill because there were no other sources. That resulted in discrepancies in some reports. "It was our first time in that sort of situation, and we made a lot of mistakes with video, timing, etc.," Blake said. "But I think we did a good job overall, probably because we were a small group. We did make a lot of mistakes, but we progressed as time went on."

Mark Finney, a third-year doctoral student who worked with Blake over the summer as an intern, said he thinks Blake's view on journalism is interesting given his point of view as a British citizen.

"He contributes an interesting mix of both the outsider and the insider perspective," Finney said. "I think that the presentation will also contribute to our developing a more complete understanding of the journalistic process as it is conducted at CNN."