Newspapers Still 'Flood the Zone' In Haiti

Scott Wilson of The Washington Post has worked in war-torn Iraq, Gaza and Colombia. But he says the past week in quake-ravaged Haiti beats them all. “I'd call you but I can’t get a line out, which tells you something,” Wilson (left) wrote in an e-mail to me earlier this week. “The conditions here are extremely difficult. This is the harshest logistically, mostly because we have no electricity.”

Douglas Jehl, Washington Post foreign editor, said editors made the choice to cover it completely: “We made a decision early on to flood the zone. There are people from Washington, from the metro staff, Style and the national staff. Priority is high in terms of the scope of coverage.”

Wilson, one of eight Post scribes who have been covering the devastation since the first quake hit on Jan. 12, said he and colleagues at the Oloffson Hotel are using car batteries and charging them with their drivers’ cars. “No running water … Four of us sharing one room. Very crowded but not bad; two of us using mattresses on the floor, which this morning shook us awake with the 6.0 aftershock,” he wrote the day of the second shaker. “Opened a large crack in our cement floor and separated the outside wall from a tin roof. We're in a kind of outbuilding, so if it collapses there's nothing above us but a tin roof.”

He adds that food is available, but “prices for food and water are spiking. The UN compound has a reliable WiFi link, so last resort we can file from there at day's end. Sat phones have been very unreliable for calls and filing, a lot of signal interference maybe. In all, it's just a constant state of juggling to keep the gear up and running. We've given up on staying clean.”

The Post is similar to other major papers and the Associated Press, who tell us they have sought to cover this tragedy as widely as possible. New York Times Executive Editor Bill Keller says of the priority: “I've sensed no impact from budget cuts. The only question we've discussed from day one is: what do we need to do the story justice?”

While the Post has had 10 people total in Haiti for coverage, The New York Times boasts six reporters and four photographers; The Wall Street Journal has nine people there; the Los Angeles Times five, McClatchy newspapers assigned at least 12 (most from The Miami Herald), and AP counts “several dozen staffers,” according to AP Spokesman Paul Colford.

“AP is covering the Haiti story aggressively and extensively, given its broad dimensions -- the fatalities, the damage, the humanitarian effort and the recovery challenges,” Colford wrote in a statement to us. “We have several dozen staffers in place since resident correspondent Jonathan Katz was rattled at his home/AP bureau, fled the structure as it all but collapsed around him, and began filing numerous reports thereafter.”

Among the Los Angeles Times crew are Pulitzer Prize winners Rick Loomis and Carolyn Cole.

Along with its 12 Miami Herald staffers, McClatchy has dropped in reporters from The News & Observer in Raleigh, N.C.; The News Tribune in Tacoma, Wash.; and the Charlotte (N.C.) Observer. “As days have gone on, more and more McClatchy papers are sending people in,” said Mark Seibel, McClatchy international editor. “It is a huge local story for the Herald.”

Robert Christie, a Journal spokesman, said those going from his paper have related experience. “They include people who have been in war zones, Iraq and Afghanistan,” he said. “It is more of a war zone because there are no buildings, no running water, no infrastructure.” -- Joe Strupp

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