In Danger In Numbers, On the Media Host Bob Garfield interviews Noam Schreiber of The New Republic (transcript here).
Are large numbers of journalists displacing rescue workers and supplies, in part by competing for scarce resources on the ground? This is an excellent discussion, and typical for OTM, an outstanding weekly effort to provide feedbacks to inform and correct journalism.
To answer this with regards to Earthquake Relief efforts in Haiti we need to know:
- How many journalists and support staff went to Haiti?
- How they got there? Did they displace transportation resources, or generate new ones?
- What did they bring in terms of supplies and money?
- What they consume, in terms of supplies and other resources?
- How much information are the able to get out of the country? Did they increase outbound bandwidth? This information isn’t used just by the “public” – it is, and should be, integrated into the intelligence stream. This is an extreme example of open-source intelligence – because it’s essentially a non-military, non-adversarial incident.
- Did the journalists facilitate or develop enhanced outbound transportation facilities? Did they make medevac space available, albeit inadvertently?
To answer this question, originally posted by OTM listeners, we need a census of journalists and their logistical operations.
It’s true that Haiti needs a lot right now – starting with an airlift of ham radio operators, historically volunteer can-do communications personnel in big emergencies. (We believe that Haiti likely has insufficient local ham operators, but we haven’t been able to fact-check that). The organizations whose members have been doing this for decades are
- ARES – Amateur Radio Emergency Services
- Radio Amateur Civil Emergency Service
- Here’s the Amateur Radio Relay League (ARRL) FAQ on ARES and RACES
Finally, there’s Brian Steckler of the Naval Postgraduate School and its exemplary Hastily Formed Networks Research Group.Professor Steckler, his students, and others were able to restore telephone service in Mississippi during Katrina within hours of arrival.
Their after-action reports, (critical documents here) indicate that they were substantially delayed by “celebrity” fly-overs – forcing them to drive
equipment from the West Coast to the East. They still got it done.
Having studied these issues for several years – if I find myself in a disaster with one outbound message, I’m calling Professor Steckler.
We hope to follow this post with additional coverage of communications and logistics issues relating to the current crisis in Haiti.