Racist Katrina Reporters

Golden Carp Awards ^ | Oct 3, 2005 | Steve Nash

[PolishProud]

DR Bill Bennett is being excoriated for his alleged racist comment, while the racist press coverage of Katrina has gone unreported.

The question is whether the press believed rumors of rapes, murders and thuggery because New Orleans residents were mostly black? Did reporters not confirm reports of crimes in the Superdome because it's what they expected from a black New Orleans population - where the murder rate is ten times that of New York City?

The press lied -- they should be vilified for their exaggerated reports .

The Los Angeles Times story, "Katrina Takes a Toll on Truth, News Accuracy," flatly declares that "a frenzied media recycled and amplified many of the unverified reports," and "[h]yperbolic reporting spread through much of the media." At this point there is no disputing that media hysteria overwhelmed most of the mainstream media's talking heads and even their old school newspaper reporters and editors. The only question is whether the mainstream media will admit that it suffered another pratfall in full public view.

The press not only lied about what was happening -- they drove a wedge into the always tenuous relationship between races. Polls reported that 6 out of 10 African Americans believed that a racist administration intentionally delayed help -- while 8 of 10 white people felt there was no racism in the government's reaction to Katrina. And the divisive rumor reporting was driven home by the blogger like histrionics of Anderson Cooper, CNN; Shepard Smith, Fox; and Brian Williams, NBC.

Surprisingly their emoting was lauded by Howard Kurtz and other media critiques. Kurtz opined, "For once, reporters were acting like concerned citizens, not passive observers. . . Maybe, just maybe, journalism needs to bring more passion to the table -- and not just when cable shows are obsessing on the latest missing white woman." [WP] CNN's Anderson Cooper is defending his Katrina reports. He claims he received information from local and state officials, and, because there was no working telephones, he could not confirm those reports.

Thus he reported unsubstantiated rumors passed to him by sources whose object it was to garner as much help as possible, as fast as possible -- and a report about a 7 year old girl raped and murdered in the Superdome would speed help along. Where was his journalistic skepticism? An editorial in the Arizona Republic opines as follows:

Journalists have a saying, "If your mother says she loves you, check it out."' It's an affirmation of one prized journalistic skill: skepticism. We saw few skeptical reporters covering Katrina. As the stories grew more ghastly, journalists should have remembered to exercise that skepticism and to attempt to separate verifiable fact from unfounded speculation or rumor. That's every bit as important to hurricane coverage as the reporter hanging on to the lamppost as the wind howls

The press's Bush bashing template also applied. Political opportunist trumpeted Bush bungling as chaos allegedly reined. The press gave race hustlers Jackson, Farrakhan and Rangel a stage upon which to rant their vitriol. They compounded the false reports of rapes and murders to bolster their fading stars and to brand the administration as racist.

It was a perfect storm of press malfeesance.

[GSlob]

There is an Italian expression, something like [spelling doubtful]: e non e vero, e ben trovato - even if not true, it is well invented...

[wayoverontheright]

The bedrock principle of liberal ideology USED to be that blacks are victims of whites. Libs cannot buy votes if this myth is shattered.

The author is right, the Katrina reporting exposed the leftist media as being quite racist, mostly in its knee-jerk acceptance of blacks as lawless and fully capable of the atrocities they reported, readily accepted as true. They didn't feel they had to check these stories, it made complete sense to them.

Conservatives, on the other hand, believe that blacks can succeed if removed from the intravenous tubing that is welfare. Lack of faith in blacks' abilities is exclusively liberal territory.