• by Lydia Loizides , Op-Ed Contributor, August 22, 2008

Now I say this up front -- this week's article isn't about ad metrics, ad-buys, CPMs, technologies that syndicate in or out, or anything else that occupies our daily professional lives. This is about how television showed us history in the making and how film is now able to remind us of those moments and to shed light on a powerful story that was buried in a video camera.

Last night I had the privilege of attending a screening of a an extremely powerful documentary called "Trouble the Water."  The long and short of it: you have never and will never see a story told about Katrina like this anywhere else. The heroine, Kimberly Roberts, lived in the 9th Ward and documents not only the destruction of her physical world but the indignities that she, her husband, family, and friends had to endure in the aftermath. I simply cannot say enough about how this is not just another disaster documentary but a story that illuminates what is wrong, and right, in America today.

In the Q&A, a well-known celebrity asked the simple question of, "Now what?" Meaning: when people leave the theater and are so emotionally charged, where will they go? What will they do? Will there be someone for them to talk to? To connect with? And with that came the answer that seems to be the norm -- there are partnerships in place with organizations, but it is going to have to be a grassroots effort. So, to that end, here is my grassroots effort to help get the word out -- anyone that can help, I ask that you take the initiative to use your connections, your power, your capabilities and put them to good use. Katrina may have happened August 29th, 2005 and CNN did a great job covering it, but people are still subsisting in the aftermath three years later.