Just when you thought the national media had all but abandoned New Orleans' post-Katrina story, The New York Times has announced it is sending a full-time correspondent back to the Crescent City, filling a post that has been vacant since April. From The Times Picayune:
Campbell Robertson, a native of Montevallo, Ala., will fill the job held most recently by Adam Nossiter, who left to supervise the newspaper's coverage of West Africa. Robertson had been stationed in recent months in Iraq, though he spent some time in New Orleans immediately after Katrina. He will arrive in New Orleans this month.
The announcement by the nation's most prestigious newspaper seems to signal that the narrative of New Orleans' laborious effort to rebuild itself from the ruin wrought by Katrina remains a story of national interest four years after the storm.
While a host of national and international news operations set up shop in New Orleans in the chaos after the storm, most decamped within a few months. The only newspapers that still have a full-time reporter posted to New Orleans are the Times and USA Today.
And even though editors at both papers say they remain committed to chronicling the city's recovery, it's worth noting that both papers now devote fewer resources to Katrina than they did in the first couple of years after the storm.