Ethnic Media Put Experience into Coverage of Emergencies

In a compelling piece of online audio reporting, New America Media’s Odette Keeley explores the role of ethnic media as emergency responders. Vu Than Thuy, CEO and host of Radio Saigon Houston 900 AM KREH had experienced Hurricane Katrina and armed with that experience managed to continue broadcasting during Hurricane Ike. She even resorted to using candlelight when power was down to continue reaching the station’s more than 160,000 listeners in Houston and Galveston. Hiram Soto, a multimedia reporter for the Spanish-language paper Enlace (San Diego) had learned from earlier wild fires both what to expect as well as the importance of relationships with other Spanish-language media in the area. When wild fires hit the area on a Sunday evening last year, by Monday he was recording and posting video and by Tuesday a special edition of Enlace had hit the streets with information on what was going on, what to do, where to go, etc. Listen to this piece at http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=969ec31cf7cfc605cfdefccc8232a3aa.