An eye on 'Mismanagement'
Alumnus produces first segment of PBS series
about investigative reporting By Dru Riley Evarts
Ohio University journalism alumnus Tom Jennings is the producer/writer of the first segment of a new series that will run on the PBS network this year.
Jennings, MS '93, who now resides in New York City, headed the team that prepared "Disaster Mismanagement," the first PBS program in the new series "America's Investigative Reports," which will run on WOUB-TV at 9:30 p.m. on Fridays. The first segment, which Jennings produced, will air Friday, Sept. 1.
"Disaster Mismanagement" deals with the mismanagement of the Federal Emergency Management Agency under Michael Brown a year before Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans last summer. It follows the investigative journalism work of three reporters with the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.
This investigative reporting team of two women and one man wrote a series of 70 stories about FEMA and Brown's mismanagement of it, Jennings says. Using computer-assisted reporting, they centered on the aftermath of Hurricane Frances, which hit well north of Palm Beach, Fla., in 2004. However, FEMA directed $30 million in disaster aid to Dade County, where Miami is located and where very little serious damage occurred, rather than to the area most affected by the hurricane. Other mismanagement also was documented.
The Sun-Sentinel series won the Investigative Reporters and Editors Award and the Associated Press Managing Editors Award, among others, and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.
For his work as an independent documentary maker, Jennings has won the Columbia University dePont Award, the Edward R. Murrow Award, an Emmy Award and other awards at various film festivals. He is the son of Eugene Jennings, professor emeritus of music (piano), and Lucile Jennings, associate professor emerita of music (harp).
Dru Riley Evarts, BSJ '51, MS '73 and PHD '77, a longtime professor in the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism, now serves as university editor in the Office of the Provost.
Posted 8-30-06 |
