“The Drowning Coast” published in The New York Times and “Our Drowning Coast” in NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune brings the fate of Louisiana’s coasts back into the national spotlight.
The three-part series published Feb. 24 was a collaboration between NYT and The Times-Picayune.
The series focuses on three aspects in the story of Louisiana’s disappearing coasts: coastal town Jean Lafitte in “Left to Louisiana’s Tides, a Village Fights for Time”; post-Katrina New Orleans “Fortified but Still in Peril, New Orleans Braces for its Future”; and an invasive species in “Insects Feast on Louisiana’s Wetlands, Inviting the Gulf In.”
“Together, they depict a losing race against time, one likely to be replicated in coastal zones around the world as sea levels rise,” according to a Times-Picayune article.
The project took 10 months to complete, according to an article in NYT. NYT brought John Schwartz and Kevin Sack, along with the tools to produce the visual component. Mark Schleifstein, Sarah Sneath and Tristan Baurick joined NYT from The Times-Picayune.
While NYT has partnered with other publications in the past, “The Drowning Coast” marks the first partnership between NYT and a local newspaper like The Times-Picayune, according to the article.
“The big institutions like The New York Times can’t just talk about the crisis of local journalism around the country — I think we should do something,” said NYT executive editor Dean Baquet in the article.
Natural resource ecology and management junior Madelyn Smith said she appreciated the accuracy of the photography and visuals used in the series. She said she thinks the photography captured the everyday reality of these coastal communities, and she attributed that success to the help from local journalists.
In addition to studying coastal land loss, Smith, along with other classmates, published a culmination of photographs and stories of people living in coastal communities called “Louisiana Gone.”
Smith said the partnership between the local and national organization could help frame coastal land loss in Louisiana as a national issue, rather than something left solely to the state to solve.
“Louisiana needs to do a better job nationalizing this issue, and I think The New York Times article does a good job of that,” Smith said. “In general, we need to frame it more as an American problem that’s going to require multi-state cooperation to solve.”
Smith said she’s already gotten questions about the articles from out-of-state people. While at an interview for the Truman Scholarship in Texas, she said several students and her interviewers asked her what she thought about the series.
Smith said she was struck by the state’s reluctance to build flood control structures in Lafitte, and the Lafitte mayor’s persistence in building up his city. She said she believes the state’s inaction sends a message to these communities that Louisiana isn’t committed to help coastal towns survive.
“It seems funny that he’s trying to get all these grants to build structures, but that sends a message,” Smith said.
Smith said she thought the series should also include more of Baton Rouge in its depiction of the coastal land loss issues. She said the article, like many others, tends to be more New Orleans coast-focused. While that’s important, she would be interested to see something that included more of the decision-maker side, which is happening in Baton Rouge.
Director of LSU Center for River Studies and civil and environmental engineering professor Clinton Willson said the articles take the issue beyond the superficial.
“In a superficial way, people from around the country knew about this, but to them, New Orleans is a place where you go to listen to jazz,” Willson said.
From a technical standpoint, scientists and engineers recognize the significance of the Mississippi River and the challenge Louisiana faces, Willson said. The soil subsidence and other elements of Louisiana’s coast differ from other coastal areas like Miami and New York where sea level rising remains the predominant issue.
He said Louisiana’s unique predicament is not driving the national significance of the problem or the determination of resources. He said the partnership NYT answers the question of how to get the word out about Louisiana’s wetlands.
Willson said he thinks NYT brought a significance to the pieces due to its reputation and credibility. He said it also brings a new perspective to an issue that’s been written about by the same authors for the past few years.
“The perception from an article from NYT is like, ‘Oh wow, this must be an important issue,’” Willson said.
Willson said he was saddened to read that the publications had to find additional funding to support the project.
“You’d hope news organizations would have the resources, but they don’t.”