MONDAY AM BUZZ: Put together a plan of action before a disaster strikes your region

Having spent the majority of the past few weeks covering the devastation left behind from the May 22 tornado in Joplin, Mo., I thought I would share a few lessons learned from witnessing such a major disaster from a media perspective.

1) Have a plan in place: As a newsroom, think about how you would react if a major disaster (tornado, hurricane, earthquake, mass shooting, ice storm, etc) struck your community. How would you get all your reporters mobilized? What would everyone's responsibilities be? Spend a meeting every six months talking about a plan, and update it.

2) Website top priority: There is no question when major breaking news strikes, such as the Joplin, Mo., tornado, a newspaper's website becomes top priority for the newsroom because the news is changing every minute. Get updates from the field and online as soon and as much as possible. I thought the Carthage (Mo.) Press — www.carthagepress.com — did a great job with their website in the hours and days after the storm. They even dedicated a webpage on their site to all tornado coverage — www.carthagepress.com/joplintornado. The print product should be a culmination of the best website coverage in a tidy, clean package.

3) Use social media to get/give news: The Joplin tornado proved the major role social media plays in our lives. In the days after the tornado hit, several Facebook pages were started by residents to funnel information to the masses. Newspapers need to make sure and protect their turf, and use their own Facebook pages to funnel residents to updates on their website. Also, social media is a great tool to get story suggestions and ideas on how to cover the news as it happens.

4) Photos, photos, photos: In the days after the tornado hit, thousands of photos could be found online, taken by residents, through Facebook, Flickr and other sources. Again, this proves the fact that citizen journalism is alive and well in 2011. Make sure your website is updated several times throughout the day with photos from the field.

5) And finally... give back to a community that is hurting: As a newspaper, you play a very vital role in the healing process of a community after a tragedy. Make sure your newspaper is doing its job to help the community recover from the tragedy. In the days after the storm, several area newspapers set up donation drives for needed goods. This was great to see.

Thanks for reading!