Getting the Story in Haiti
Thursday, 14 January 2010
Being at the right place when it happens: Tequila Minsky, a freelance photographer based in New York City, was staying at the Hotel Oloffson in Port-au-Prince January 12 when the devastating earthquake struck.
Her photograph of wreckage was published the next day on The New York Times front page.
Two AP staffers, reporter Jonathan M. Katz and videographer Pierre Richard Luxama, also reported from Haiti on the day of the quake. Then they flooded in: more TV anchors, broadcast reporters and print writers than Haiti probably has ever seen at one time.
Katz, 29, was the only fulltime U.S. journalist based in Haiti when the earthquake struck. He was posted to Haiti two years ago and learned Creole. The house in the mountains overlooking Port-au-Prince where he lived and worked was left in ruins by the quake. Earlier Katz reported for AP from Jerusalem and the Dominican Republic.
OPC Board Member Ron Allen is on his way to Haiti now to cover the fallout from the devestating, 7.0 hurricane that shook the island on Tuesday.
Haiti was in the midst of recovering from a series of devestating hurricanes in 2008.
Photos here were taken by Patrick Farrell of The Miami Herald in 2008 when Haiti then witnessed what the U.N. called "the worst humanitarian disaster to hit Haiti in 100 years," after the hurricanes.
Farrell won the 2008 OPC Feature Photography Award for his series titled, "A People in Distress: Haiti's Year Without Mercy."
Haiti's 2008 hurricane season killed 800 people in what is the western hemisphere's poorest nation. Farrell traveled to the town of Cabaret where, as he describes it, "seeing those dead children — was a nightmare." His heart wrenching reportage is a work of great creativity under challenging conditions.
