TODAY ON OUR JOURNALIST’S TOOLBOX: How to get the facts to cover humanitarian crises
This article was first published on the website of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists on November 22, 2013. As the country braces itself for more storms during the last quarter, we hope that this would serve as a handy guide for journalists, especially those in the community, the frontliners and the first to be deployed to cover natural disasters.
In a midst of a humanitarian crisis like the aftermath of Typhoon Haiyan, information on the disaster pours to and from the media. The situation is in flux and the needs are great, and troubling fragments of news drop in continuously from on-the-ground reports, government briefings, humanitarian responders and social media. It’s often incredibly difficult to answer the basic questions: How many victims? How much destruction? Who will help pay for the emergency response and help with the recovery? Who has already donated money and resources?
As an investigative journalist looking for facts and data about the disaster and humanitarian response, I first searched for any handy guide or tipsheet compiled by colleagues researching similar events. Although I found guides to using social media for crisis event reporting , like Emergency Journalism: toolkit for better and accurate reporting from the European Journalism Centre, recent guides to essential sources for fact-finding were elusive. If you have one, please send a link.
Click on the photo below to continue reading the article.
AFTER THE STORM | Village 88 in Tacloban City in ruins a week after Typhoon Haiyan struck. This photo was taken a week after the storm hit the Philippines, killing close to 7,000 people according to the official count | Photo by Julius D. Mariveles