What a media blackout revealed
Neighbors had to relearn old ways of knowing what was happening — and what wasn’t.
The New York Times Magazine
August 17, 2025

On the print cover this week: Trevor Quirk on how Hurricane Helene disconnected his community around Asheville, North Carolina from modern communication. ‘‘Thinking clearly about information is difficult precisely because it has become so inescapable and ubiquitous,’’ Quirk says. ‘‘By disconnecting a vast swath of the United States from modern information networks, Helene allowed many of those it affected, myself included, to reconsider our relationship to this immaterial substance — and perhaps reach surprising conclusions about it.’’

Photograph by Erin Brethauer

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