When I reached Mr. Gettridge he was working on a job, at a friend's house in the Garden District. I hope I'm that able when I'm eighty, is all I can say, although I have a feeling that sitting at my desk typing all day long won't have the same physical impact as working mixing plaster and construciton. At any rate, Mr. G said "it was fine," which is a big complement coming from a humble man. Mrs. Gettridge remembered us, but not that she had been filmed. She is even more humble. There's a truism in journalism about not doing stories about people who don't want to be filmed, which I had many reasons to recall while I was shooting this film. But theres something different about the people who don't get their jollies from dreams of tv stardom. And this family showed why.
from Gale, the eldest daughter: "My family's story mirrors so many in Louisiana after Katrina. Tje tears and the struggle to maintain Godly life is shared by all as we continue to care for our parents. We pray the documentary will be a blessing to those still wanting to return but encourage others in America to contact Washington to hold them accountable, and to advise them that New Orleanians are still in need of funds to rebuild our neighborhoods and hospitals.
Friday, January 9, 2009
two days later
It's been an exhausting, somewhat frustrating week - and a gratifying one, finally seeing my film, "The Old Man and the Storm" air. The press has been great, and the blogsphere response really gratifying, especially this one. I was particularly taken by the response outside of New Orleans It makes me realize how tired this whole idea of "katrina fatigue" really is, even if the ratings say that folks are tired of watching the same old stories of people trying to overcome, there is a hunger to know why they're still trying to overcome that involves doing some deep reporting that MSM has yet to address.
An interview with shock jock Mancow Muller reaffirmed this idea. Mancow lambasted me on air for not putting the camera down to help Mr. Gettridge, then never offereed me the chance to respond while he went on for the next three minutes playing a punch of sound effects meant to denigrate the people of New Orleans and particularly it mayor, C. Ray Nagin (who unfortunately presents an inviting target); but, here's the thing: Mancow assumed that the only way I could help Mr. G would have been by putting down the camera and picking up a hammer. He didn't know because he didn't ask, how often I brought food and beverages to a man living without a stove or refrigeration; he didn't know, because he didn't ask, whether Mr. G's electricity - and the ensuing outrageous electric bill for time he had no power - might have been mitigated by Frontline's persistent phone calls; he didn't know, because he didn't ask, whether the family's Road Home payments came through as a result of our inquiries.
My online chat with the Washington Post was way more encouraging. The questions I was asked by the online community were way smarter and interesting than many I received from MSM, and I had a chance to get into some topics that hadn't been included in the film. One of those is the insurance industry, which I've promised to explore in an outside web site katrinaroadhome.org . We've been having some technical difficulties migrating the site from the workshop to the server where it will live because it contains a huge amount of data, but hopefully that will get fixed by the weekend. Stay tuned.
An interview with shock jock Mancow Muller reaffirmed this idea. Mancow lambasted me on air for not putting the camera down to help Mr. Gettridge, then never offereed me the chance to respond while he went on for the next three minutes playing a punch of sound effects meant to denigrate the people of New Orleans and particularly it mayor, C. Ray Nagin (who unfortunately presents an inviting target); but, here's the thing: Mancow assumed that the only way I could help Mr. G would have been by putting down the camera and picking up a hammer. He didn't know because he didn't ask, how often I brought food and beverages to a man living without a stove or refrigeration; he didn't know, because he didn't ask, whether Mr. G's electricity - and the ensuing outrageous electric bill for time he had no power - might have been mitigated by Frontline's persistent phone calls; he didn't know, because he didn't ask, whether the family's Road Home payments came through as a result of our inquiries.
My online chat with the Washington Post was way more encouraging. The questions I was asked by the online community were way smarter and interesting than many I received from MSM, and I had a chance to get into some topics that hadn't been included in the film. One of those is the insurance industry, which I've promised to explore in an outside web site katrinaroadhome.org . We've been having some technical difficulties migrating the site from the workshop to the server where it will live because it contains a huge amount of data, but hopefully that will get fixed by the weekend. Stay tuned.
Friday, January 2, 2009
Walking to New Orleans
It's four days till my New Orleans doc, which I've been working on about as long as the city has been trying to rebuild, airs on Frontline. I've been working on this documentary for so long I've lost perspective: I've become friends with the family who's featured; developed a point of view about what I think is happening in the city (it's a mess, and the mess now needs to be laid squarely at the feet of Mayor C. Ray Nagin); and I'm a walking compendium of trivia facts about the culture, history, and conundrum of the city.
I was doing an interview with KMOX radio in St. Louis today and the moderator asked me whether the problem was whether "the residents of the lower ninth ward needs some help" decoding the systemic bureaucracy they're facing. Implied in that question was that somehow folks just weren't smart enough or sophisticated enough to figure out how to navigate the bureaucracy. They're plenty smart; and they're not the only ones trying to figure out how to navigate the bureaucracy. The family featured in the film, the Gettridges, are African-American - and (for the record) college-educated, but there are plenty of white New Orleanians who've also lost homes, husbands, and their net worth, who have given up because the tidal wave of obstructions just seemed too much. Look at the figures in this Brookings Institution report: those who are moving in are not the same people who moved out.
I was doing an interview with KMOX radio in St. Louis today and the moderator asked me whether the problem was whether "the residents of the lower ninth ward needs some help" decoding the systemic bureaucracy they're facing. Implied in that question was that somehow folks just weren't smart enough or sophisticated enough to figure out how to navigate the bureaucracy. They're plenty smart; and they're not the only ones trying to figure out how to navigate the bureaucracy. The family featured in the film, the Gettridges, are African-American - and (for the record) college-educated, but there are plenty of white New Orleanians who've also lost homes, husbands, and their net worth, who have given up because the tidal wave of obstructions just seemed too much. Look at the figures in this Brookings Institution report: those who are moving in are not the same people who moved out.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
