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Katrina’s Aftermathnot just because, day after day, we’reforced to write about conditions thatcould destroy us, such as weak leveesand the receding coastal buffer zone.Everyone in the newsroom has beenforced to confront questions that havefaced everyone who has returned toNew Orleans, especially people whosehomes were ruined. Rebuild or demolish?Stay or move?There are no right answers, norwrong ones. But each choice involves—and creates—stress. Two policemenkilled themselves, as did the brotherof a colleague whose pediatric practicehad, literally, washed away afterhis little patients evacuated with theirparents. Mental health counselors arebusy, and prescriptions for anti-anxietyand anti-depression medications haverisen significantly throughout the area.They have become so commonplace inpost-Katrina New Orleans that the relativemerits of such drugs as Wellbutrin,Cymbalta and Xanax are discussed asroutinely—and openly—as the fortunesof the New Orleans Saints, ourpro-football team.But sometimes, for some people,everything can become too much. JohnMcCusker, one of our photographerswho had stayed behind in New Orleansto chronicle the destruction of hishometown, was deeply troubled. Hishouse had been ruined, and insurersrefused to give him the reimbursementhe needed. One night in August 2006,McCusker snapped. He led police on awild, careening chase through UptownNew Orleans and finally begged themto shoot him after he pinned an officerbeneath his car. After being broughtdown with a Taser, McCusker was ledoff in handcuffs to jail and, later, toone of the city’s few remaining psychiatricbeds.McCusker, who is back at work, discussedhis stress in an interview witha Brown University student: “Somenights … just in despair you lay in yourbed, and like you’re a three-year-oldand you just lay there and say, ‘Oh, myGod. I want to go home.’ And you can’tgo home.” McCusker’s desperation hithard because it forced us to realize thatwe were all still coping with a lot ofthe same pressure.Yet we keep at our jobs, surroundedin our newsroom by desks once occupiedby colleagues who have movedaway. Some desks have new occupants,talented young journalists who aredrawn by the story of a lifetime. AsNew Orleans struggles to rebuild, wehave to keep documenting what happens.As we do so, we walk a tightrope,trying to remain professional withoutseeming cold. Ours is a sacred obligation,and it’s nowhere near over. I tooksome wry satisfaction from an editorof a Hiroshima paper—one of a longprocession of journalistic visitors to ournewsroom—who said his city, whichan atomic bomb had leveled in August1945, was thriving.That’s good to know, but will ourrecovery take 60 years?Supportive spouses, friends andcolleagues are invaluable. Through ourwork, strong ties have been formedthat more than one colleague likenedto the bonds that soldiers form incombat. That’s an apt comparison, butthere’s a difference. People who fightwars—or cover them—usually havesafe, comfortable homes to return to.Our war came to us, and it’s nowherenear over. John Pope is a reporter for The Times-Picayune.A Forceful Voice About a City’s SurvivalWith the ‘transformative power of anger, I was converted into a full-time columnistwho took on the serious work of defending a city.’By Jarvis DeBerryAjournalist given a new beat orassigned a new topic is expectedto be an instant expert, an authorityon a subject that’s somewhatunfamiliar. A good journalist, therefore,must be a quick study. “It doesn’tmatter how long you’ve known it,” I’veheard some of my colleagues say. “Whatmatters is that you know it.”When the subject is New Orleans,however, the honest journalist willadmit that instant expertise is impossibleto attain. It is a place that oftenseems impossible to figure out if onlybecause of its many contradictions. Forexample, New Orleans is a city heavilyinfluenced by France and West Africaand Spain and Haiti and, to some extent,even America, and yet maintainsan attitude that it doesn’t want to beinfluenced by outsiders.New Orleans takes some gettingused to.It is a place where the people sing,even when all they’re doing is talking.It is a place where “Baby” is not onlywhat the waitress calls you when she’stopping off your coffee, but is also howone grown man might refer to anotherwithout the suspicion that either oneis gay. It is home to accents that arenever conveyed accurately in the moviesand to grammatical constructions32 Nieman Reports / Fall 2007