Backgrounder: Joshua Norman
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In April 2006, the Biloxi Sun Herald newspaper received the Pulitzer Prize for its exhaustive coverage of Hurricane Katrina. The gold medal for Public Service was awarded to the entire staff, but it may have meant the most to 27-year old reporter Joshua Norman, who was only months out of journalism school when the massive storm hit.
Norman was born in Trenton, NJ in 1978. His father, Michael, was a reporter and columnist at The New York Times and gave the younger Norman his first glimpse of the profession. “My father was a journalist,” Norman told this reporter in a September 2006 phone interview. “I’ve been around writing all my life. At first that was a turn-off; I realized later that that was in fact what I wanted to do.”
This realization had not yet hit Norman in 2000 when he graduated from NYU and joined the Peace Corps with the idea of becoming a development worker. After a two-year stint as an aid worker in Toga, West Africa, however, Norman discovered that this wasn’t his calling. He says he has no regrets about his time in the Corps, because it prepared him for his chosen career in journalism. In September 2006, Norman told the US Federal News Service: “Peace Corps can teach you just how little you really know about any new place or person, which is an important frame of mind to have in journalism.”
When Norman returned home from Togo, he moved to Washington, D.C. where he worked as a news aide at The Washington Post. “I did everything that nobody else wanted to do,” he told this reporter. There are a lot of small jobs at such a big paper,” he told this reporter.
With this experience under his belt, Norman began a 1-year program at the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University. Upon graduating, he took a job as a metro reporter for the Sun Herald in Biloxi, Mississippi. After just a month at the paper, Hurricane Katrina made landfall. Norman and four other reporters chose to stay and report, instead of evacuating the city. Despite being forced to sleep in the newsroom, they worked diligently, covering regional updates, personal tales from survivors, and offering residents a forum to reach out to loved ones with messages.
During this time, Norman and fellow Sun Herald reporter and Columbia graduate, Mike Keller, started a weblog called The Eye of the Storm. While Norman wrote more objective stories for the paper, he filled the blog primarily with personal reflections and photographs of the afflicted areas. In one post, he reflected on the events: “The first week of reporting after the storm was an experience unto itself. No phone, hardly any internet. 2 p.m. deadlines. I’d have to wake up at 5:30 to get a story done in time. Thank goodness that is over.”
It’s been over a year since Katrina hit and the city has begun to rebuild. Norman is still a metro reporter for the Sun Herald, and while Katrina has left him with the life experiences of a more seasoned journalist, he seems ready to close that chapter of his life. On his blog, he wrote, “Our loyal readers have made this worth it. Thank you profoundly for reading. Our Dance with Katrina is done.”
SOURCES
Norman, Joshua. “Storm Takes Baby, Husband From Pass Woman.” Sun Herald. 31 Aug. 2005. 16 Sept. 2006. http://www.pulitzer.org/year/2006/public-service/works/biloxi06.html
Norman, Joshua. “A People of the Sea.” Sun Herald. 20 Nov. 2006. 16 Sept. 2006. http://www.pulitzer.org/year/2006/public-service/works/biloxi18.html
Norman, Joshua. “Eye of the Storm.” November 2005. 16. Sept. 2006 http://dancingwithkatrina.blogspot.com/2005_11_01_dancingwithkatrina_archive.html
Norman, Joshua. Telephone Interview. 27 September 2006.
Strupp, Joe. “Writers on the Storm.” Editor & Publisher October 2005. 18 Sept. 2006. http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=910288531&sid=2&Fmt=3&clientId=9269&RQT=309&VName=PQD
“Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Wins Pulitzer Prize for Hurricane Katrina Coverage.” US Federal News Service, Including US State News. 23 May 2006. 18 Sept. 2006. http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=1041118311&sid=2&Fmt=3&clientId=9269&RQT=309&VName=PQD