The curse of prescience: covering a disaster in a city that belongs to all of us.(Hurricane Katrina, 2005)

American Journalism Review,  October, 2005  by Kunkel, Thomas

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A late-summer hurricane was barreling toward New Orleans, and the front page carried a story so full of apocalyptic visions that one could be forgiven for thinking this was the Book of Revelations instead of the Washington Post.

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I was teaching a class on writing news features, and as it happened we were just starting to explore how to use quotation effectively. The piece, written by Michael Grunwald and Manuel Roig-Franzia and detailing what awaited New Orleans if it took a direct hit from a Category 4 or 5 hurricane, was punctuated with so many vivid ...

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