American RadioWorks and Marketplace Present "Rebuilding Biloxi: One Year After Katrina"
Contact: Brad Robideau
(651) 290-1113
brobideau@americanpublicmedia.org
www.americanpublicmedia.org
American RadioWorks and Marketplace Present "Rebuilding Biloxi: One Year After Katrina"
Documentary Gives Listeners a Personal Look at Hurricane Katrina's Survivors
(St. Paul, Minn.) August 24, 2006—American RadioWorks,® the award-winning documentary unit of American Public Media,™ and Marketplace,® American Public Media's award-winning daily business and economics news program, have produced a new radio and Internet documentary, "Rebuilding Biloxi: One Year After Katrina," that tells the stories of four families determined to rebuild their lives in Biloxi, Mississippi, after losing everything to Katrina. Over the past year, a series of installments from this project aired on Marketplace.
Hurricane Katrina devastated the lives of thousands of Mississippi Gulf Coast residents. While much of the national attention has focused on New Orleans, "Rebuilding Biloxi: One Year After Katrina" reveals a very different story—though equally dramatic, complicated and important—just 90 miles away. Set to broadcast on the one-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, the documentary provides a very personal look at crucial factors determining how—and whether—people are able to rebuild their lives on the Gulf Coast. These include: economic inequality, personal drive and resourcefulness and plain luck.
"Rebuilding Biloxi: One Year After Katrina" was written and produced by American RadioWorks' Stephen Smith and Kate Ellis.
"It has been extraordinary to see and hear how people responded to the devastation of the storm and its aftermath," said Smith. "We found that in many ways the storm was a social equalizer. Rich and poor alike suffered the near complete loss of their homes in hurricane Katrina, along with their jobs and businesses. This documentary will take listeners on the individual journeys of four separate families, and show why some people prevail over the catastrophe, and others just barely hang on."
TUNE IN: Hosted by Marketplace's Kai Ryssdal, "Rebuilding Biloxi: One Year after Katrina" will air on public radio stations nationwide in August.
WEB SITE: The transcript and audio of the documentary, along with photos and extended interviews with Biloxi residents, are available at:http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/biloxi/index.html.
Major funding for "Rebuilding Biloxi: One Year After Katrina" comes from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the Open Society Institute and the Tides Foundation.
American RadioWorks
Based in St. Paul, Minnesota, American RadioWorks is public radio's largest documentary production unit. It creates documentaries, series projects, and investigative reports for the public radio system and the Internet. American RadioWorks has staff journalists in Washington, DC, Duluth, MN, San Francisco, CA, and Durham, NC. Major funding for American RadioWorks is provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
Marketplace
Marketplace is a portfolio of programs that includes the Marketplace weekday afternoon program, the weekday Marketplace Morning Report and Marketplace Money, an hour-long weekend program focusing on personal finance. In its 18th year, Los Angeles-based Marketplace has won numerous awards, including the Alfred I. duPont-Columbia Silver Baton and a George Foster Peabody award. Marketplace segments revolve around money and business, people, local economies and the world with the signature Marketplace sound and wit.
Stephen Smith
Stephen Smith reports on wide range of international and domestic issues, including international human rights, science and health, race relations and American history. He is the winner of broadcast journalism's most prestigious honor, the 1999-2000 duPont-Columbia University Gold Baton, as well as many other national journalism awards.
Kate Ellis
Kate Ellis has co-produced several documentaries for American RadioWorks, including: Thurgood Marshall Before the Court — which won the 2005 Silver Gavel Award from the American Bar Association. Ellis co-edited the book/CD set, Say it Plain. She holds a Ph.D. in anthropology from Columbia University.