Overby is chief executive officer of the Newseum. He oversaw the general management of the “Covering Katrina” exhibit, which is on display through September 2011.
What was the inspiration behind showcasing the exhibit?
The fifth anniversary of [Hurricane] Katrina provided a good platform and we don’t have a lot in the Newseum about Katrina. So we saw this as an opportunity to use the anniversary to add exhibits and interesting material about this very important news event.
What are some of the highlights of the exhibit?
We have about 60 artifacts from the Katrina disaster, including bicycles and a kayak that reporters used to cover it. … [We] have a video, a very poignant video, of the news coverage and people desperate for help, calling on the news media in the country to send help.
What do you hope visitors will take away from the exhibit?
I hope that they will realize how difficult it is to cover a disaster and how important the media are in getting information out, both on a local basis and a national basis. And the other thing is five years later we now understand and appreciate the resilience of the people who continue to live in New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast.
How is this exhibit different from other ones that focus on national disasters?
We have front pages from around the world that tell the story day-by-day of Katrina. It really was not a one-day story, or even a two-day story, the way a lot of hurricanes are, but an unfolding, gripping story for a week or more. And we tell that story a lot of different ways, but one of the ways is using front pages from around the nation and the world that show how that first draft of history was written. It turns out that first draft holds up pretty well. – Anna Waugh
