Lebell

Can we all please take this as a lesson that we shouldn't be quite as reactionary as I saw many people be after Katrina?

Yeah, it was bad.

Yeah, it could have been done much better.

But apparently it wasn't as bad as the media (and the NO city officials) led us all to believe.

I think alot of you owe Bush an appology.



http://www.latimes.com/news/nationwo...home-headlines

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.

By Susannah Rosenblatt and James Rainey, Times Staff Writers


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.

The New Orleans Times-Picayune on Monday described inflated body counts, unverified "rapes," and unconfirmed sniper attacks as among examples of "scores of myths about the dome and Convention Center treated as fact by evacuees, the media and even some of New Orleans' top officials."

Indeed, Mayor C. Ray Nagin told a national television audience on "Oprah" three weeks ago of people "in that frickin' Superdome for five days watching dead bodies, watching hooligans killing people, raping people."

Journalists and officials who have reviewed the Katrina disaster blamed the inaccurate reporting in large measure on the breakdown of telephone service, which prevented dissemination of accurate reports to those most in need of the information. Race may have also played a factor.

The wild rumors filled the vacuum and seemed to gain credence with each retelling — that an infant's body had been found in a trash can, that sharks from Lake Pontchartrain were swimming through the business district, that hundreds of bodies had been stacked in the Superdome basement.

"It doesn't take anything to start a rumor around here," Louisiana National Guard 2nd Lt. Lance Cagnolatti said at the height of the Superdome relief effort. "There's 20,000 people in here. Think when you were in high school. You whisper something in someone's ear. By the end of the day, everyone in school knows the rumor — and the rumor isn't the same thing it was when you started it."

Follow-up reporting has discredited reports of a 7-year-old being raped and murdered at the Superdome, roving bands of armed gang members attacking the helpless, and dozens of bodies being shoved into a freezer at the Convention Center.

Hyperbolic reporting spread through much of the media.

Fox News, a day before the major evacuation of the Superdome began, issued an "alert" as talk show host Alan Colmes reiterated reports of "robberies, rapes, carjackings, riots and murder. Violent gangs are roaming the streets at night, hidden by the cover of darkness."

The Los Angeles Times adopted a breathless tone the next day in its lead news story, reporting that National Guard troops "took positions on rooftops, scanning for snipers and armed mobs as seething crowds of refugees milled below, desperate to flee. Gunfire crackled in the distance."

The New York Times repeated some of the reports of violence and unrest, but the newspaper usually was more careful to note that the information could not be verified.

The tabloid Ottawa Sun reported unverified accounts of "a man seeking help gunned down by a National Guard soldier" and "a young man run down and then shot by a New Orleans police officer."

London's Evening Standard invoked the future-world fantasy film "Mad Max" to describe the scene and threw in a "Lord of the Flies" allusion for good measure.

Televised images and photographs affirmed the widespread devastation in one of America's most celebrated cities.

"I don't think you can overstate how big of a disaster New Orleans is," said Kelly McBride, ethics group leader at the Poynter Institute, a Florida school for professional journalists. "But you can imprecisely state the nature of the disaster. … Then you draw attention away from the real story, the magnitude of the destruction, and you kind of undermine the media's credibility."

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."

Some of the hesitation that journalists might have had about using the more sordid reports from the evacuation centers probably fell away when New Orleans' top officials seemed to confirm the accounts.

Nagin and Police Chief Eddie Compass appeared on "Oprah" a few days after trouble at the Superdome had peaked.

Compass told of "the little babies getting raped" at the Superdome. And Nagin made his claim about hooligans raping and killing.

State officials this week said their counts of the dead at the city's two largest evacuation points fell far short of early rumors and news reports. Ten bodies were recovered from the Superdome and four from the Convention Center, said Bob Johannessen, spokesman for the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals.

(National Guard officials put the body count at the Superdome at six, saying the other four bodies came from the area around the stadium.)

Of the 841 recorded hurricane-related deaths in Louisiana, four are identified as gunshot victims, Johannessen said. One victim was found in the Superdome but was believed to have been brought there, and one was found at the Convention Center, he added.

Relief workers said that while the media hyped criminal activity, plenty of real suffering did occur at the Katrina relief centers.

"The hurricane had just passed, you had massive trauma to the city," said Lt. Col. Pete Schneider of the Louisiana National Guard.

"No air conditioning, no sewage … it was not a nice place to be. All those people just in there, they were frustrated, they were hot. Out of all that chaos, all of these rumors start flying."

Louisiana National Guard Col. Thomas Beron, who headed security at the Superdome, said that for every complaint, "49 other people said, 'Thank you, God bless you.' "

The media inaccuracies had consequences in the disaster zone.

Bush, of the National Guard, said that reports of corpses at the Superdome filtered back to the facility via AM radio, undermining his struggle to keep morale up and maintain order.

"We had to convince people this was still the best place to be," Bush said. "What I saw in the Superdome was just tremendous amounts of people helping people."

But, Bush said, those stories received scant attention in newspapers or on television.

Times staff writer Scott Gold contributed to this report.

__________________
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." – C. S. Lewis

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JumpinJesus

I saw this on the evening news. And the media wonders why no one trusts them. There are far too many cases of the news not checking their stories before running with them. As long as their focus is on sensationalism and not on actual reporting, they will never regain the trust they've lost.


I call bs on this. The blame lies with the media not checking their stories before running with them.

__________________
"I can normally tell how intelligent a man is by how stupid he thinks I am" - Cormac McCarthy, All The Pretty Horses

j8ear

I saw this too. Got a kick out of it myself. If it wasn't for the black and poor the "media" would have never gotten so hysterical about all the misinformation they repeated.

Funny, doesn't that make them insentive to the plight of the less fortunate, and unmitigated hate filled racial bigots?

Nah...that can't be.

This also gave me a big chuckle. I have these visions of the hell I don't believe in freezing over, right next to the image in my mind of the hard corps leftists on this board lining up to even comtemplate this

Finally, there is no question in my mind that we could have done better. We have scant and rare successes from the government 'fixing' anything, and the repeated chants and cry's of the irrelevant left for further government to solve ANYTHING...astounds me. We need to be MORE SELF reliant. Not more reliant on an entity ill-equipped to handle anything, especially when you don't even contribute to the re-election campaigns....i.e...the poor and less-fortunate.

Think about it.

-bear

__________________
It's alot easier to ask for forgiveness then it is to ask for permission.

pan6467

All depends on whom you choose to believe the media and the people who first came out and were there or the government spin meisters who pointed fingers and refused to own up to their own inadequacies and have much to lose.

I choose to believe the truth lies somewhere in the middle and more toward the media.

__________________
I just love people who use the excuse "I use/do this because I LOVE the feeling/joy/happiness it brings me" and expect you to be ok with that as you watch them destroy their life blindly following. My response is, "I like to put forks in an eletrical socket, just LOVE that feeling, can't ever get enough of it, so will you let me put this copper fork in that electric socket?"

samcol

First off, no one owes Bush anything. How dare we criticize our fearless leader.

Now, what are we supposed to belive? Articles that have come out weeks after the fact saying things went OK and the government didn't mess up that bad?

Or am I supposed to believe the live footage of people starving to death and new reporters in tears (and you can tell when someone is being genuine or acting). Let not forget about the foreign troops that have been invited into NO and the gun confiscations. Not to mention Haliburton already got a contract for reconstruction. I'd venture to say things are actually worse than what has been widely reported on.

j8ear

You saw footage of people starving to death? Are you sure about that? After 3-5 days STARVING TO DEATH.

You're a member of the media aren't you? Carry-on...please continue with your hysterics and hyperbole.

-bear

__________________
It's alot easier to ask for forgiveness then it is to ask for permission.

samcol

I think you know what I meant. Dehydration, heat exaustion, lack of medical supplies, pure distress.

Apparently you defeated my whole argument by pointing that out?

aberkok

Can I be the first in line please?

Seriously, I won't apologize to Bush because I never really blamed him in the first place. Were I to be the President I might have cut my vacation short to go help, but other than that I never saw his personal involvement as that important to the effort.

As far as the accuracy in the media, I posted a link to the Guardian about a month ago which called BS on many of the reports of rape and murder so it's not news to me:
http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpos...6&postcount=71


Lebell, the hopefully fruitful discussion that your posted article will initiate is likely to be interrupted by those who would answer to your taunt (quoted above). I think it was a mistake to include it.

__________________
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j8ear

Indeed I do...you meant hyperbole and hysterics, and followed it up nicely with your clarification. Just like the media.

Your words.

-bear

__________________
It's alot easier to ask for forgiveness then it is to ask for permission.

pan6467

I did see live footage of the events, i also remember how the governor and city ordered everyone to evacuate 2 days before the hit.

Blaming and accusations and trying to downplay this tragedy does no justice to the true devestation and deaths.

This is nothing but partisan bullshit and pathetic cover your ass, hope people forget yesterday's news and will believe today's spin idiocy.

I'm sure if enough people buy this, in 2-3 months the president's spin meisters will say there weren't any deaths and that all the devestation was just the liberal press hype.

Meanwhile, nothing is being resolved and we have a president sending billions upon billions in to Halliburton, who has overcharged our military and not sent in equipment we taxpayers have paid them for......

Let's not admit that we will be finding bodies for months, that there may actually have been many go down river and find graves at the Gulf's bottom.... that no diseases are going to spring up, that no one truly starved or died of thirst or lack of medicines.

Let's sit there and take this fucking Right winged bullshit stance that everything was exagerated by the press, while we still point fingers at the local and state governments for how horrid they were...... and yet, if things weren't that "bad" how can you point fingers at anyone??????????????

If all was as the Right wing says, does that not mean that the local and state governments actually did better and should recieve kudos? Oh wait..... there's still finger pointing we have left to do, isn't there?

__________________
I just love people who use the excuse "I use/do this because I LOVE the feeling/joy/happiness it brings me" and expect you to be ok with that as you watch them destroy their life blindly following. My response is, "I like to put forks in an eletrical socket, just LOVE that feeling, can't ever get enough of it, so will you let me put this copper fork in that electric socket?"

JumpinJesus

I'm no fan of Pres. Bush, sam, trust me. I am also no fan of the media either. As much as I would love to believe that the media got their stories straight, I have researched enough to realize that the media is not always the bearer of truth. They get taken all the time because they don't always check their facts before running a story.

No one is denying that the situation in New Orleans was/is beyond horrendous, but it now seems apparent that the stories of marauding gangs of gun-toting rapists and murderers were just not true. Remember the story of the rescue helicopter being shot at? Not one Coast Guard or Nat'l Guard helicopter reported anything of the sort. Had the media contacted either agency to confirm these reports they would have realized this. Instead, the media ran with the unconfirmed story and we all got riled up over something that never occurred.

__________________
"I can normally tell how intelligent a man is by how stupid he thinks I am" - Cormac McCarthy, All The Pretty Horses

powerclown

Wait...didn't Karl Rove have NOLA deliberately flooded to test the nation’s ability to deal with a nuclear strike?
What's this about a hurricane??

/channeling Howard Dean

j8ear

I not sure anyone said or even implied that things weren't that bad. You said some people did, but your angry and disappointed by the false hyperbole that you have fed into.

It's also quite clear that everything ~was~ exagerated by the press. You call it right winged bullshit. Most of us seem to see it as reality.

I hope if nothing else we all learn that government IS NOT, never has been and never will be the arbitor of your safety ot survival. Step up to the plate and take responsibility for your self, your loved ones and your nieghbors. Especially in the face of overwhelming obstacles.

-bear

__________________
It's alot easier to ask for forgiveness then it is to ask for permission.

martinguerre

While this is certainly a relief, and i did express some doubt concerning some of the worst of the worst stories...

This is the best apology i can come up with.

Dear President Bush:

In light of recent reports, it seems the NOLA area did not descend into as much chaos as was originally reported. This was never the sole (or even important) basis of my criticism of your inadequate response and therefore changes nothing. It still appears that planning, evacuation, response for major disasters was totally insufficient. Your appointees, Brown and Chertoff, displayed a total lack of imagination in preparing for this disaster, even when it was widely known to be a possibility. Command and control of relief efforts are still reported to have been chaotic at best. Under your watch, FEMA was gutted from being one of the strongest assets this nation had to being a disgrace. I personally watched efforts in the floods in the Midwest and felt great pride at the care this nation took for those in danger. I now fear this nation is less safe than ever, less capable of preventing or recovering from major disaster or attack.

Sincerly,

Martin Guerre

Is that what you had in mind?

__________________
For God so loved creation, that God sent God's only Son that whosoever believed should not perish, but have everlasting life.

-John 3:16

pan6467

I see..... so the government, that I PAY taxes to I shouldn't expect to be there to help me????? But they can give places of faith millions?????

Didn't say things weren't exagerated..... I believe I ampointing out that there are exagerations on BOTH sides and to point fingers at one side or the other is still not getting anyone anywhere in preparing for the next disaster .......

But believe me to be fully 1 sided that's ok coming from someone who blieves the Right is 100% shit don't smell .... media is all BS I'll take it as a compliment because I owe my soul to NOONE and I can speak out and believe how I want, and see what I want and expect and fight for the changes I believe we need no matter which side's toes I step on.

By the way, a question to you, do you not see the hypocrasy in yourself when you are saying don't look to government for help, yet support a party that tried to fry the local and state governments for doing what you say we should not expect them to do?

__________________
I just love people who use the excuse "I use/do this because I LOVE the feeling/joy/happiness it brings me" and expect you to be ok with that as you watch them destroy their life blindly following. My response is, "I like to put forks in an eletrical socket, just LOVE that feeling, can't ever get enough of it, so will you let me put this copper fork in that electric socket?"

pan6467

And of course, the GOP machine is perfect and 100% truthful..... where are those weapons of mass destruction again, I seem to have forgotten?

__________________
I just love people who use the excuse "I use/do this because I LOVE the feeling/joy/happiness it brings me" and expect you to be ok with that as you watch them destroy their life blindly following. My response is, "I like to put forks in an eletrical socket, just LOVE that feeling, can't ever get enough of it, so will you let me put this copper fork in that electric socket?"

Ustwo

Even if it was as bad as the press claimed, he shouldn't have been blamed in the first place, so I doubt those who did will be appologizing anytime soon.

__________________
Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host

Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps.

flstf

The two things in this article that surprise me the most are the claim by the Times-Picayune Editor that the false rumors would not have been as bad if the people were white. I just don't get this at all.
And the other thing is that only 6 people died at the Superdome and 4 at the Convention Center. From the news reports I saw with the reporters' and mayor's claims of rape/murders and starvation, etc... I thought the death toll there would be in the hundreds.

flstf

I don't want to get into the Right/Left wing thing, but it does appear that the local officials by getting the people to go to the Superdome and Convention Center saved a lot of lives. I imagine hundreds or even thousands may have perished in the flood had they stayed in the low lying areas.

docbungle

Owe Bush an apology? For what? Listening to the news? Did he get his feelings hurt? If someone reported something that was false, then they should apologize to all of us, not just Bush. But how in the hell does the media exagerating something (never heard of that happening before) translate into GWB being owed an apology from me? He hasn't apologized for misleading us into war, and that also hurt the feelings of a lot of people.

I don't dislike Bush entirely, and I don't blame any one person for the hurricane response, but this whole 'we owe him an apology' business is ridiculous.

__________________
Bad Luck City

Locobot

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.

host

Lebell, I think that I correctly perceive what you are trying to accomplish here, and I don't think that it will work....because it doesn't change anything. Bush marketed himself, along with Cheney, as the "war president", the "if you vote for Kerry, we'll get hit", ADMINISTRATION. (Insert whatever threat most alarms you, after the word "hit".... another anthrax attack, bin Laden, Al Qaeda, Zarqawi....whatever.

The hurricane blew away Bush's facade. Exagerated "reports" of crimes that allegedly took place in NOLA, a few days after Katrina and the levee failures won't change that. While we were at war....the nation finally is discovering that it was "business as usual" at the Bush white house, incompetent crony appointments to responsible positions that potentially impacted the safety of our citizens, insider profiteering while we are a "nation at war", and the news of a thirty percent poverty rate in the area affected by Katrina, left Bush with the lowest approval rating of his presidency, as the flood waters receded. People may have "bought" Bush and Rice's "no one could have predicted that highjackers would fly airliners into buildings", pronouncements, four years ago, but Bush's attempt to use the same "no one could have known that the levees.....blah blah blah" diversion, did not seem as convincing this time......

I don't owe Bush an apology. He should resign, or at least appoint a non-partisan investigative body to make an honest assessment of the failure to provide timely federal relief, that he and the officials that he appointed, presided over, and that he supposedly accepted responsibility for.
It's already been attempted....the discrediting of news reporting from the right, by the right....and it isn't working. Here's a lame example:
Are you accusing the BBC of "Bush bashing"? Do they owe Bush, "an apology" for this NOLA report? Do you think that their editors had some sort of an agenda that included a goal of distorting their reporting to somehow make Bush "look bad" ? How do reports this week that there were exaggerated press reports of violent crime in NOLA, around Sept.2 , influence a conclusion that vindicates Bush?

Since then, we've learned that the white house appointee in charge of FEMA disaster spending oversight, is an indicted suspect, accused of lying to GSA investigators and has strong ties to indicted lobbyist, Jack Abramoff. We've seen reports that a Bush appointee who sat a few offices away from the president, in the white house, Susan Ralston, who held the title of special assisatant to both Bush and Karl Rove, Bush's most influential political and policy advisor, screened all of Rove's calls, and submitted the names of Rove's callers to a non-government republican party official, Grover Norquist, also involved in questionable business deals with Abramoff, and that before her appointment by Bush, in 2001, she was a key assistant to Abramoff himself, and that she testified before the grand jury investigating the Plame CIA leak.

We've read news reports that a Mr. Flanigan, a former key white house associate who reported to then white house Alberto Gonzales, is nominated for the number 2 position in the justice dept., and that he authorized payment of large sums to Abramoff, when Flanigan recently worked for TYCO, because of Abramoff's influence with high ranking white house and other powerful Republican politicians. The latest on the Flanigan appointment:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...092701593.html
It should also be noted that as assistant Atty General of the US, Flanigan would oversee Plame leak investigator Patrick Fitzgerald, and he would have the authority to fire Fitzgerald, because Gonzales has recused himself.
The following are three more Fox News produced segments that reinforce my point that the American news network that inarguably is most sympathetic and supportive of the Bush administration, the network whose news reporting was endorsed by VP Cheney for it's "accuracy"....could not avoid reporting how "bad it was", because it was "that bad".
The BBC and Fox had no agenda other than to report about the aftermath of hurricane Katrina, in NOLA. Bush is not somehow vindicated to the point that he deserves an apology. The MSM reports show that he stacked top FEMA management with unqualified political appointees, that he is still making appointments of unqualified or of persons of questionable character to key postions, (Flanigan as asst. atty general, and Julie Myers, niece of Gen. Myers, as director of immigration and naturalization) and that Bush and Rove have ties to indicted former lobbyist Abramoff that include appointing his former key assistant, Susan Ralston, to a position with duties that include sharing the names of callers to Karl Rove, with Norquist, who has no security clearance and is not a government official. Please provide full disclosure, Mr. Bush, or resign immediately. Our country cannot take too many more of your appointees, or your policy judgment and your "leadership".

highthief

So, I don't get it. They found "only" 10 bodies at the Superdome instead of 20? "Only" a couple of people died of gunshots (no mention of any other forms of trauma, not sure if that means everyone else died of heart attacks or if some people were knifed or something) at the Superdome and Convention Centre instead of 7 or 8 ... I dunno, in my books, that's still pretty bad.

I don't think the specific incidents were Bush's fault, or indeed, any single person's fault, but every level of government messed this up to one degree or another, and even Bush admits this.

__________________
Si vis pacem parabellum.

Charlatan

I don't owe Bush an apology.

I think if you check what I wrote I felt he was wrong because he and his handlers completely fucked up. No Bush didn't need to be on the ground filling sandbags or personally hauling in water for those without BUT his well oiled PR machine fell flat on its face. As a leader he should have at least looked like one.

The fact that fewer people died than was reported or that raping wasn't "rampant" doesn't change the fact that a major disaster occured in NO. Yes the municiple and state authorities messed up but Bush appeared to be fiddling while Rome burned.

Clearly his PR people are back on message as was seen with Rita. Bush was on CNN having "personal" chats with those coordinating the rescue efforts, he had photo ops and press conferences at least making it look like he was doing something.

I think there is plenty of blame to go around and Bush is just one cog in the machine that worked like a POS. Unfortunately as the guy at the top he is going to get asked why did this happen. And when people see that FEMA, a once excellent resource, had been gutted, they are inevitably going to ask him "why".

__________________
"My hands are on fire. Hands are on fire. Ain't got no more time for all you charlatans and liars."
- Old Man Luedecke

flstf

There is no doubt in my mind that the city, state, and federal response to the 30 to 50 thousand gathered at the Superdome, Convention Center, and freeway overpasses could have and should have been faster. Even though General Honore said that he was in place after the storm and couldn't get there any sooner and that first responders were becoming victims themselves. I hesitate to second guess the commander at the scene but maybe he was wrong and just needed some crews to clear the roads for him or something.

After watching the news reports on CNN, MSNBC and FOX, one would get the impression that the loss of life was much greater. I am surprised that the survival rate of this disaster was as high as it is. I saw a report that they were sending something like 30,000 body bags to N.O. amid reports that people were dying in droves from lack of water and medical attention. The final fatality number is still coming in but it appears that there are less than 1000 dead in the entire region with 10 fatalities total from the Superdome and Convention Center. I think one reason so many were saved is because of the job the Coast Guard, etc was doing picking people up from rooftops etc..

My family is originally from Louisiana and I am retired so I had a lot of time to watch the major news reports during this disaster aftermath. My impression from these news reports was that there would be tens of thousands of fatalities. The reporters were going out of their way to make the situation look worse than it was by repeating false rumors and embellishing their reports. I hate to say it but I think they were doing this because it makes for good television and higher ratings.

There is also no doubt in my mind that there would have been far fewer fatalities if the city/state officials had evacuated people ahead of the storm. Maybe the feds should have provided assistance with this since so many people had no transportation. Now that we have had time to evaluate what really happened I have the following observations:

- The people who made it to the Superdome and CC were very fortunate even though help took so long to reach them. The city should have had provisions for them there.

- The job that the local/state does prior to the disaster saves many more lives than anything the feds can do later.

- The feds should anticipate the local breakdown in police support during the aftermath and plan accordingly. I am surprised that so many officers abandoned ship.

- The national response to the victims of this disaster is tremendous.

Poppinjay

Disclosure: I am a member of the media. I am a member of the media in a hurricane prone area. I filed some national reports right before Katrina hit about storm swell and how that works. The week after, we were hit by Ophelia.

When Katrina was hitting, I had a feed from NOLA police scanners. I heard the first report of a broken levee three hours after the storm hit. Suddenly there was this great hue and cry about "reactionary" reports of levees breaking.

In the superdome, I don't know about other media, but we had nothing on the air claiming that many were dying. In fact, for most of the week, our network said, "two deaths, and old man and woman".

If the supposed left wing media was generating hysteria, then Shep Smith and Bill O'Reilly were the number "liberals", followed by Diane Sawyer. How much of a loony left winger is Sawyer? Why, she's so liberal she worked for that left wing Nixon!

The official count means nothing, though it is the largest modern day loss of life. It means nothing because hundreds more are missing. The volume of children missing is - for our modern, up to date country - earth shattering.

I applaud Bush for firing Brownie. But I don't apologize for one thing our staff of educated, award winning professionals reported. There is not one damn thing that was not factual.

Keep in mind, when you bash the media, you bash the system that will give you the information you need when devestation is at YOUR door. Critique, but don't bash just because you're a hater.

__________________
I think the Apocalypse is happening all around us. We go on eating desserts and watching TV. I know I do. I wish we were more capable of sustained passion and sustained resistance. We should be screaming and what we do is gossip. -Lydia Millet

maximusveritas

How does that article in any way absolve Bush?
That article just puts to rest some of the crazy rumors that were being spread at the time. I never believed most of that anyway.
Perhaps Bush got hurt more than he should have because of those rumors and the panic that ensued, but that doesn't mean he deserves an apology from anyone, much less "alot" of the people here.

hannukah harry

so if all of the horridness that was reported turned out to be false, we're supposed to apologize to bush? so if people were not shooting at rescue helicopters, we're now supposed to apologize to bush for a national response that seems even more inept than before?

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shabbat shalom, mother fucker! - the hebrew hammer

flstf

I thought the Trade Center collapse in NY was the largest modern day loss of life?

Also what does the term missing children mean? Last week one of the news stations reported over 4000 missing and displayed rotating pictures of them. My wife and I were wondering if it means that their mothers lost them in the shuffle and really cannot find them or are they lost in the flood somewhere?

I guess some of the reporting is a result of statements made by city officials and others.

Elphaba

Compass has resigned and it is speculated that his carrying "tales" back to Nagin was the cause.

aswo

It does strike me as incredibly irrespoinsible of the governor, to report false information or exxagerated claims, could u imagine nagin the mayor of nyc during 9/11

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Grey2000

Ok, so lets have the links to your reporting.

It'll be be nice to see some 'entirely factual' reporting for a change.

Oh, and education and awards ? Meaningless, utterly meaningless.

Education doesn't prevent bias, and awards are simply the industry loving itself.

The real determining factor is the content they produced.

I suppose its possible that your organization was the shining exception who didn't editorialize or sensationalize, if so let's have some of your reports.

pan6467

You know a conspiracist would say that the pressis making itself unreliable so that when we truly need them to open eyes no one will believe them. Or the politicians are destroying the press so that they can control it. Or something along those lines.

Some credibility in that.

But me personally, I believe that people heard this that or the other thing (as rumors do tend to get exaggerated, then officials are told these exagerations and can't truly be ther to see what is going on but wanting their 15 minutes of national attention, wanting help and not wanting to appear that they are as in the dark as anyone, they went on record passing the exaggerations they heard and the press ate it up because in all honesty, do you think there would have been all these great fundraisers and attention paid if the "truth" were known and reported? I seriously doubt it, using other recent horrid hurricanes as an example, there weren't these televised fundraisers on every network, no ex-presidents out there setting up funds (well maybe Carter but he does that if a snowball hits a house and breaks a window, God Bless him).

So in the end, was it right? Was it wrong? I can't answer that, it got our attention, sold papers, raised ratings and got donations to pour in.

Was everything the press reported lies? NO.

Is the guard and all these "new truthful findings" more accurate than the press? Perhaps.

There are still many missing, there were still many deaths and the loss was horrendous, but for anyone to downplay what has happened down there and that is what is being done now, is pathetic and political grandstanding.If the GOP can make it sound like over reaction they take the heat off themselves. But in reality they truly show how they care more about their power than the people.

"YOU OWE BUSH AN APOLOGY"..... yeah, well he owes me one for lying about WMD's and sending friends, neighbors and relatives off to a war with no true end in sight.

Bush lied to get a war..... the press and people there "lied" to get help and results. I'll take the press's lies anyday over those of Bush.

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I just love people who use the excuse "I use/do this because I LOVE the feeling/joy/happiness it brings me" and expect you to be ok with that as you watch them destroy their life blindly following. My response is, "I like to put forks in an eletrical socket, just LOVE that feeling, can't ever get enough of it, so will you let me put this copper fork in that electric socket?"

Cynthetiq

being in another country and listening to people discuss what is happening in America from a totally different perspective.

a few points:

people here were surprised to see fat poor people. walk around manila and see poor people they are truly poor, are skinnier than poles and kids constantly go to school hungry that they cannot learn.

how stupid americans are because they build matchstick houses in areas where they are susceptible to hurricanes (typhoons here) here they build them out of concrete. while it costs more the buildings last for generations.

a story going around food stores being sent by europeans being sent back as unfit for human consumption ( i have to corroborate that story as an inbox hoax)

they were amazed that a country that seems to be able to help everyone else cannot seem to help itself.

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shakran

In this country anyway, cheap food is generally far more fattening than expensive food. It's a lot cheaper to eat Ramen and Coke all day than it is to get the ingredients for a healthy salad. So poor people tend to have more trouble with weight because of the diet that's forced on them.


Hurricanes hell. Let's build 'em all out of stronger stuff. Less tornado damage, less environmental wear and tear. . . .


So am I. It's just another example of the incompetence of our current government. Be glad you do not have a Bush leading your country.

Grey2000

Of course for you its an example of Federal government incompetence, even though it is now virtually incontravertible that most of the glaring problems were due to local government failure.

Gimme George Bush any day over our politically-correct, ostrich-headed clowns who pretend that the cause of terrorism is fighting it, and don't offer a thing to the people of the states when they need help, even though our military has extensive experience in flood-rescue.

pan6467

I answered that best in another thread but will repeat it here as this warrants it.

All I have to say is it took the press hours to get into places that it took FEMA 4 days to get into. (Say what you will about how they reported it, they were there far faster than FEMA.)

Something is wrong with that picture.

Plus, you can not truly hold responsible or expect local First Responders to be doing the job to the best of their abilities, that is why FEMA should be one of our better programs.

I defy anyone on here to say in all honesty that if you were police or fire and as a disaster hit your family was in serious jeopardy, that you would stay on duty and do the best job with total focus on the job at hand and not having it stray. It's impossible, so with FEMA you have first responders that most likely have no family there and will be able to give that 100% focus on the job at hand.

Added for this thread: you can argue the press knew the story was coming and prepared for it by sending people in ahead of the storm..... well if that is the case why did FEMA not send people in? To keep pointing fingers at the locals only and not face the fact that Bush and FEMA fucked up also is fucking partisan bullshit and shows a true lack of wanting to make sure FEMA does a better job next time.

I pray no one hear has to go through the Hell these people did only to hear the press and partisans talk about how the press exaggerated and how the locals were all fucked up while FEMA took 4 days and had an incompetent Arabian Horse judge political appointee with no experience for the job, as its leader.

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I just love people who use the excuse "I use/do this because I LOVE the feeling/joy/happiness it brings me" and expect you to be ok with that as you watch them destroy their life blindly following. My response is, "I like to put forks in an eletrical socket, just LOVE that feeling, can't ever get enough of it, so will you let me put this copper fork in that electric socket?"

Cynthetiq

actually I'm just here visiting... I'll be leaving Manila in a few hours and onto Dehli....

the Philippines has it's own issues as I've been researching family history here and have discovered some interesting events that had been circling this country for decades even centuries.

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I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist, either you're an asshole or you're not.

Elphaba

I'm hoping that you will share your discoveries when you return. I am intrigued.

Good luck in your travels,
Pen

Redlemon

Not entirely false: I think that is based on the article <a href="http://www.montereyherald.com/mld/montereyherald/living/health/12704999.htm">British rations held over made cow fears</a>:

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