Media Blame the Victims

September 2nd, 2005 - by: danny

How do you rate the coverage of the calamity?

It was ABC’s night. Prime Time devoted an hour to gripping reports, incuding an airing of the racial dimension. The longer segments told some powerful stories in a way that the quickie news flashes couldn’t. All praises due to Nightline for blending on-the-ground reporting from New Orleans and Houston and an angry confrontation between Ted Koppel and Michael Brown, the head of FEMA.

Koppel showed how out-of-touch federal officials were as he contrasted what they knew about what was happening in places like New Orleans’ convention center (where years ago I attended several NAPTE TV program fair) with what was really going on. He pounded at their poor planning and late delivery of services. Brown was practically in tears, but Ted did not let up. This type of fire has been missing for quite awhile.

The program also showed the gap between real TV journalists and producers and the cable news soundbyte and stand-up crowd, which relies on live reports with little digging. Let’s give credit where credit is due.

BIAS AND INSENSITIVITY

Dahni-El Giles writes to his “friends in the news:”

” I hope this is brief message is worth your time. If possible, I am hoping to get attention of someone who has ready access to news outlets.

“There are two pictures being spun of people ravaging for food in theaftermath of Hurricane Katrina. In the attached document are pictures from Associated Press at the Yahoo News. In the document, a picture of a ‘white’ couple is shown wading in the water having foraged forfood and supplies in a grocery store. There is also a picture of a ‘black’ couple shown wading in the water after having ‘looted’ a store.

“Fact: I am unaware of the basis of either party’s venture to the store. Within the captions, there is no discernible difference between the two trips except for the word ‘loot.’ With no other information provided about the pictures, how are they different? In my opinion, the connotations of the captions under are serious. In a time of extreme emergency, a story should not be spun in this manner.

“If this struggle for survival is being depicted falsely, we cannot allow this to occur. Global and local sympathy should not be curtailed by misrepresenting the intentions of people fighting for their lives. Obviously, if the situation was depicted accurately, we would hope that sympathy of the audience would not wain for the many people in need due to the actions of a few.”

These captions have been widely discussed and apparently changed — after the fact.

INTERNATIONAL WORLD TELEVISON

Hurricane Katrina and Global Warming: IWT, International World Television, asks: Is there a link?

“Hurricane Katrina’s humanitarian tragedy has many asking about the potential link between severe weather and global warming. The issue underscores the need for real environmental reporting and science-based debate — like the kind you’ll find on IWTnews. Add your voice to the debate happening on our blog:

http://click.iwtnews.com/t?ctl=ED24AF:3F47BF9

NPR INTERVIEWS CHERTOFF

Nancy Morgan writes about what she was listening to:

“I was driving home from work today and NPR was doing an interview with Michael Chertoff, Director of Homeland Security who is supposed to be in charge of the hurricane relief effort. Whenever the interviewer would ask what about those thousands, an NPR reporter on the phone was on the scene and reported two thousand people)who are stuck at the New Orleans Convention Center and have been there for up to four days without any food, water, or directions about where to go or what to do. People are literally dying on the scene. Well, this zero, Chertoff, insisted everything was going along fine, and they should go to the nearest ‘staging’ area to get food and water, and he even said he didn’t think it was wise to spread rumors and he had not heard of those people. The reporter persisted, but Chertoff was a total jerk!! He’s great for Bush because he denies reality and then gets pissed when someone has the audacity to challenge him, just like Bush. Bush’s speech yesterday was an abomination – he read his script in the way he does, but then tried to talk off the cuff, and said inane things, like ‘America will be stronger for this.’ This guy needs to be plunked down in the middle of New Orleans and left there for four days without food and water. Oh, I forgot, his kind don’t do hardship. Oh, and Scottie today at the White House briefing said, in response to a question about funds being cut for hurricane preparedness and to shore up the levees, that now is not the time to start finger pointing because there are people who need help. God, have they no shame?”

Andrius Kulikauskas also was listening to NPR, too:

“National Public Radio — http://www.npr.org — is providing a lot of coverage, although just listening to the radio its hard to comprehend the full scope of this catastrophe. I suppose that is something this hurricane has in common with the tsunami. It’s much worse than so many earlier emergencies. NPR has a hurricane Katrina blog —
http://www.npr.org/news/specials/hurricane/katrina/blog_090105.html — and also a list of web links —

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4827634

GAWKER.COM OFFERS THIS

“The president, finally, has decided that the hurricane is a problem. He claims yesterday at 5pm, finally, that he’s going to be devoting his entire administration to saving the lives of the people currently dying in this growing national disaster. And what does a top member of his cabinet do? She goes to a Broadway comedy and today is buying multi-thousand-dollar shoes on 5th Avenue at the same time CNN is showing dead grandmothers in wheelchairs abandoned on the streets of New Orleans.

“This is more than just a cheap shot at Condi. What in the blazes is this woman doing at a Broadway show in the middle of a national emergency? This is akin to going to a Broadway show in the middle of September 11. Don’t we expect the Secretary of State to work past 5pm on a day an entire American city is being wiped off the face of the planet? And shouldn’t she be doing something else today than shopping at filthy rich stores on 5th Avenue? Could she be — oh, I don’t know — working with foreign leaders, like the Mexicans, to see what immediate assistance they can offer to the neighbor?

“New Orleans is ceasing to exist. What in God’s name is Bush doing letting his secretary of state go on vacation in the middle of this?

“Message: ‘I don’t care.’”

SPANISH-SPEAKING RADIO

David Honig of the Minority Media Council notes:

“New Orleans has almost 100,000 Hispanics, many of whom speak little or no English. There’s only one Spanish language radio station (and no TVs) — KGLA(AM). I don’t understand why the feds didn’t designate KGLA as an emergency station, since it’s the only Spanish language daily media. Our media brokerage represents the owner of KGLA, Ernesto Schweikert. Before the hurricane, Ernesto literally moved himself into KGLA and broadcast, day and night, fulltime announcements to evacuate, probably saving hundreds of lives in the process. Now the only radio station left on the air is WWL(AM) — which is broadcasting in English only. (Ernesto had to evacuate, and none of us in D.C. who work with him can find him. We’re really worried.)

“Good news – a minute after I sent this, we heard from Ernesto. He and his family are safe in Houston. He’ll be going back as soon as he can to assess the damage and try to get KGLA back on the air.”

IN PRAISE OF ANDERSON COOPER

Linda Milazzo writes:

“Please write CNN to express your thanks to reporter Anderson Cooper, for directly, powerfully and emotionally challenging Louisiana’s Senator Landrieu for the ineffectual government response to the Katrina disaster.

“When Senator Landrieu began to reel off a list of ‘thank you’s’ to fellow politicians for the GREAT WORK they’ve done, Cooper charged back with a battering exchange: ‘excuse me, Senator, but people here are really suffering and they get angry in these times when politicians come out and thank each other publicly for the great work they do!’ Cooper continued to challenge the governor until the interview was through.”

COMMUNICATIONS BREAKDOWN FUELS CHAOS

The Washington Post reported:

“Victims of Hurricane Katrina struggled to communicate with each other and the rest of the world yesterday, using everything from text messages to ham radio as most telephone service in New Orleans and coastal Mississippi remained devastated.

“The near-blackout left outsiders desperate for news about loved ones, and in some cases created life-and-death situations as aid workers struggled to get information about people stranded by rising floodwaters in New Orleans.

“Phone companies had trouble even comprehending the extent of damage to their systems because they could not get into some parts of the region. One telephone executive said the storm might have caused unprecedented damage to a communications infrastructure that people have come to take for granted. ”

The News Dissector