Changing the conversation on Haiti
Reported over 13 years "An Unnatural Disaster," Long Lead's latest feature, documents the journey of thousands of earthquake-displaced Haitians and their struggle to build a new city from scratch.
As soon as I read the pitch, I knew it was a Long Lead feature. “After an earthquake destroyed Haiti’s capital, a new city was born on an empty plot of land at the edge of a graveyard,” Jacob Kushner’s email read. Within months, hundreds of thousands of survivors had flocked there and set upon building a new home. But as the city had sprouted from rubble, its country’s government began to collapse. What would become of the people of Canaan? We explore that and more in “An Unnatural Disaster,” the latest from Long Lead.
It was a fascinating concept born out of 13 years of reporting: The rise and fall of one of the world’s newest cities — and what it means in an increasingly nationless world. In the moment I read that email and in the months after, the piece promised global relevance. In recent years, fragile states from Afghanistan to Somalia have collapsed or teetered on the verge of it. Even stable nations like Germany and Canada had people storming their parliament buildings. And, of course, there was rioting in the capital of the free world, Washington, D.C., on January 6, 2021. How would Americans react if their government had failed like Haiti’s?
But first, what is a Long Lead feature? Our fledgling outlet recently passed its third anniversary, and our body of work tells the power of journalism’s impact. Our first-ever production, “Long Shadow: 9/11’s Lingering Questions” rocketed to the top of Apple Podcasts’ history charts within days, and served as an annual reminder for people who swore they’d “never forget.” Our next, the multimedia profile “The Depths She’ll Reach” explored the darkness of personal trauma and depression with a world champion freediver. The feature was read worldwide, took top honors from the Webby Awards, Longreads, Longform, and others, and provided both perspective and a respite from the pandemic.
Over the past few years, Long Lead’s journalism has shone a light on issues as varied as disinformation to gun violence, reaching millions of people with the highest-quality editorial possible. We call it “journalism without compromise,” and the result has not only been piles of awards, but impact. Our features have given a voice to victims of warfare, police violence, and gender discrimination.
For instance, weeks after the release of “Long Shadow: In Guns We Trust,” our podcast made in collaboration with The Trace, the U.S. Surgeon General declared gun violence a public health crisis. And after we published “Home of the Brave” — a multimedia feature on Los Angeles’ homeless veterans crisis — a federal judge ruled that the VA had been discriminating against vets for decades and ordered it to build vets housing. The first sentence of his ruling echoed the first line of our feature.
Long Lead features make a dent in the world, and that’s exactly what journalism needs to do in this moment. Over the past year, as we produced this feature on Haiti, we never altered its focus: Haitians, desperate to save their country, built a city from the rubble of an apocalyptic earthquake only to risk their lives against an even bigger danger: the long, slow, violent collapse of their national government.
“An Unnatural Disaster,” written by Kushner, is a heartbreaking feature that’s destined to change the conversation America has been having about Haitians during this toxic presidential election news cycle. Brought to life by dozens of photos by Allison Shelley, it shows Haiti’s beauty and chaos, the hope of its people, and the dire straits of their plight. For years, the two reported on Haiti concurrently under grants from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, cultivating deep, enduring relationships with the sources who appear in the feature. Long Lead is honored to bring their experience to you now, when it’s needed most.
And we have more impactful journalism and big initiatives in the pipeline. The best way to support our work is by sharing it with your networks — whether that means posting our features to your social media or forwarding our newsletters to your friends. (You should definitely subscribe to our other newsletter, Depth Perception, if you haven’t already.) We’ll be especially grateful for you to get the word out about ”An Unnatural Disaster,” a feature more than a decade in the making that was made for exactly this moment.
So long for now,
John Patrick Pullen
Founding Editor, Long Lead