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It's weird, up until this point everything I've seen criticizing the media response to Katrina was based on the media ignoring it and NOT making a big deal of it. I remember the Monday after the Hurricane watching the news and being told how New Orleans dodged a bullet and things weren't nearly as bad as expected. Then a few days later when I turned on the radio it was all "dead bodies in the street, anarchy, looting, gangs of rapists etc."
I think it is true that the press overreacted to initially missing the story by giving air to any and every rumor that came their way. Also the press gave too much space, as always, to the most sensational aspects of what was rumored to be happening: gangs of rapists, shots fired at rescue workers, violent looters etc.
Make no doubt about it though, Katrina is a major disaster, millions of people are still displaced, hundreds of billions in property damage, hundreds of people killed, commerce disrupted on a national level. I suspect this will mean little to the "u be p'wned" set (I'm embarassed to point out that it's "pwned" not "p'wned") whose brains function only as a low wattage on/off switch. If the press was errant on inconsequential details then the entire disaster is negated? Come on, I expect a slightly higher level of discourse.
I have to say this is the most pathetic in a series of pathetic attempts by the Right to control the narrative of this story for their own wellbeing. First we heard a number of pundits and people on this very board display themselves to be worthless partisan hacks by somehow attributing all blame for relief mishaps on Democratic leadership. We've since had that narrative completely discredited by the taped conference calls, played on NPR, between the Governor, Mayor, and FEMA (Brown) leading up to and following the hurricane. Now we have to watch the President's grandstanding over hurricane Rita relief. That's great Mr. Bush, but you (and the state and local government) still fucked up a month ago and nothing you do now can change that.
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