Posted on 09/27/2005 6:24:16 AM PDT by smonk
Katrina Takes a Toll on Truth, News Accuracy
Rumors supplanted accurate information and media magnified the problem. Rapes, violence and estimates of the dead were wrong.
BATON ROUGE, La. — Maj. Ed Bush recalled how he stood in the bed of a pickup truck in the days after Hurricane Katrina, struggling to help the crowd outside the Louisiana Superdome separate fact from fiction. Armed only with a megaphone and scant information, he might have been shouting into, well, a hurricane.
The National Guard spokesman's accounts about rescue efforts, water supplies and first aid all but disappeared amid the roar of a 24-hour rumor mill at New Orleans' main evacuation shelter. Then a frenzied media recycled and amplified many of the unverified reports.
"It just morphed into this mythical place where the most unthinkable deeds were being done," Bush said Monday of the Superdome.
His assessment is one of several in recent days to conclude that newspapers and television exaggerated criminal behavior in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, particularly at the overcrowded Superdome and Convention Center.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
And yet one of the criticisms leveled against President Bush, as well as FEMA officials, is that they weren't watching the TV coverage. Imagine if they had been watching TV, and acting on what they saw!
Welcome to the club. I've been kicked off (or quit) most "Ping" lists for introducing factual information contradicting religiously held misinformation. I should shut up, but then I do come here to FR to argue.
Times-Picayune Editor Jim Amoss cited telephone breakdowns as a primary cause of reporting errors, but said the fact that most evacuees were poor African Americans also played a part. . . "If the dome and Convention Center had harbored large numbers of middle class white people," Amoss said, "it would not have been a fertile ground for this kind of rumor-mongering."
Gee, why on Earth would people believe that poor African Americans might be more criminal and violent? Experience perhaps? Not only did local black leaders believe these rumors, so did the blacks on the street and in the shelters. They have even more experience with the phenomenon than the general public. This is a good example of not only the white-hating racism of the mass media but of its totalitarianism and dishonesty. And the totalitarianism, the goose-stepping, politically correct, sea-to-shining-sea uniformity is worse than the dishonesty. A nation cannot survive as a free nation with a totalitarian press, a press that will always lie about critical subjects that need to be openly discussed. This is one of the main reasons we are witnessing the demise of Western civilization today.
That is absolutely a key point at the "news" that the MSM was utterly incomptetent and irresponsible with their katrina coverage; it turns out their criticism of the president was equally incomptetent and irresponsible.
The MSM abhors a news vacuum. in this case, they chose to fill the void with baseless rumors.
With all due respect, I think your opinion of journalism in the past is a shade on the romantic. General Sherman, during the Civil War, considered all reporters to be "spies". I don't think that matters have changed much other than the press have a harder time getting away with lying. I have never considered journalism to be a profession as much as it is a vice.
In the aftermath of Katrina, the MSM showed a high level of hysteria and paranoia. They reported on stories that weren't true. Pure fabrication. The feds aren't blameless, but the major responsibility lies with Blanco and Nagin. Not with Bush, Chertoff and Brown. Blanco and Nagin didn't do their jobs. Period.
Darn well said!
. . "If the dome and Convention Center had harbored large numbers of middle class white people," Amoss said, "it would not have been a fertile ground for this kind of rumor-mongering."
Is this an expression of the editor, Jim Amoss' own, "bigotry of lowered expectations"? I think so.
Ah, yes, but Public Interest nevertheless. Wrong but accurate.
Yes the MSM is responsible for falsely reporting stories that contributed to the hysteria which probably cost some people their lives, but the leadership inside New Orleans was confirming all the rumors.
It turns out the law enforcement and mayor and governor could not be trusted to give accurate information, and that is a story itself.
Why isn't MSM reporting that the mayor of NO was clearly not informed during the worst of times?
bump that!
Great piece.
Thanks for posting.
Looks like the Left Angeles Times may just be starting to do some "honest" reporting.
Thanks for posting.
Looks like the Left Angeles Times may just be starting to do some "honest" reporting. ---
I thought it was worthwhile, too.
I picked it up from National Review Online.
Maybe the Times should keep that guy "Vacant" who's holding down the managing editor's job. LOL
I canceled my subscription to the Times years ago.
I wrote John Carroll months ago(before he was later fired) and told him that if he didn't get the op-ed off the front pages and start doing some honest journalism and hire a couple of conservatives to balance out the op-ed page that he might be out of a job...I guess I was correct.
serves him right for not listening to you ;)
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