New Orleans Chaos was media hype

[Sycophant]

There's an interesting article in The Independent, After the storm, US media held to account for exaggerated tales of Katrina chaos

It seems that some of the most widely-told tales of lawlessness and chaos in New Orleans had no basis in fact.

Some of the distortions were due to the collapse of communications and the sense of horror at what was unfolding. Some were the hallmark of an over-eager, under-informed news media - who, six years ago, managed to get wrong almost all the basic details of the shootings at Columbine High School in Colorado.

This, in my opinion, is one of the biggest failures of 24-hour cable news. In events like this, they are expected to deliver wall-to-wall coverage, but they simply don't have enough actual details and facts to fill the time, so the presenters and corrospondants start to fill in with their assumptions, rumours they've heard and random guesses about what might be happening. It creates a whole lot of disinformation. And they end up playing 'chinese whispers' or 'telephone' between the various reporters and news networks.

 

[BeautyForAshes]

Good Morning America did a story on this topic this morning. It was very interesting to say the least. If nothing else, the "hype" exposed the ugliness in our society towards the disenfranchised - especially those that hide it behind a "nice face".

 

[Arnold_Philips]

So what do we do?

 

[MichaelFJF]

What do we do? We realize that breaking news isn't always accurate. I took a journalism class about a million years ago and they talked about a time and distance phenomena. Basically the news you get in Time magazine a month later is a whole lot more accurate than the news you get from the TV guy standing in the middle of it. If we want CNN cameras right there, we just have to realize that they're reporting what they see, hear and think at the time. Reporters that phoney up stories just for ratings, etc. should lose their jobs. Reporters that get caught up.....eh - they're just doing the best they can most of the time.
I have to draw a distinction though. The report I saw recently about this presented an interesting question. The TV guy talked about all the false stories floating around during the worst of it. Cut to an evacuee saying "You got people gettin' killed, people gettin' raped in the Superdome....." Then the TV guy says "WE only reported what we actually saw." OK fine - but if that network put the evacuee on, they're just as responsible for the false stories as the guy who actually says it. You can't hide behind "He said it, not us" if you put it on the air.

 

[Alarum]

But similarly you can't hide behind a "He said it, not us" when you've talked about the chaos in New Orleans being a symptom of the modern welfare state, prime evidence for the destruction of society, and "what we always predicted would happen." Seriously, if the grand evidence for the falure of the "welfare state" was New Orleans it looks like it was actually working relatively well.

Probably not the conclusion the people who pointed to New Orleans would like drawn. Anyone want to start the pool on how many months it is before someone dismisses the evidence from New Orleans that the welfare state works as "irrelevent?"

FTR: My position always was that it's irrelevent. That hasn't changed. Welfare doesn't have a huge influence on human behavior.

 

[m33]

I've never heard the numbers of how many died in New Orleans. I'd also like to know what the city's usual death rate was.

 

[Sycophant]

I've never heard the numbers of how many died in New Orleans. I'd also like to know what the city's usual death rate was.

The article says the number of murders for the week was four, "about average for one of America's most crime-ridden metropolitan areas"

 

[Oblivious]

The media hypes a situation? No....you're kidding!

Good hype = great ratings.

 

[PorcelainHeart]

Hype is what the media does. When Rita was hitting, this guy was freaking out saying the Kemah Board Walk is going to fall apart, in the end the board walk only lost two boards and wasn't hurt at all. The Media did soften up the highways though, it was alot more awful then what they said.

 

[JPPT1974]

The media hypes a situation? No....you're kidding!

Good hype = great ratings.

Yeah great hype makes good ratings and media attention to go along with it.

 

[Niemand3D]

Just throw your TV's out. The bad outways the good of them.

 

[MichaelFJF]

Just throw your TV's out. The bad outways the good of them.

(rant) Do people take English classes in school any more?????


That being said, with all the fault we're finding with the media reporting in New Orleans, on their own turf, in their own country, why on earth would you EVER believe anything that comes out of Iraq?


Whew - I feel so much better now.

 

[Sycophant]

That being said, with all the fault we're finding with the media reporting in New Orleans, on their own turf, in their own country, why on earth would you EVER believe anything that comes out of Iraq?

Well it depends on what that 'anything' is.

The distance issue as mentioned before comes into play - 'the media' seldom fill their screens with breathless wall-to-wall live Iraq coverage, but if they did I would expect their reports to be far more hyperbolic than they probably are where they are shot-edited-filed stories.

 

[ACougar]

Blaming all the confusion on media hype is one way to let everyone off the hook. Personally, if it's me stranded on a New Orleans rooftop 10 days after the hurricane passed dying from thirst I would want the media hyping all they could. We know that people have died because they were forced to drink the nasty floodwater days after thier drinking water ran out.

The problem (IMO) was caused by a disconnect between what we expected would happen and what we were capable of doing.

We thought we could rush in and rescue a 10's of thousands of people in a few days, instead it took a couple weeks.

We all knew that this could happen, and we assumed that City, State, & Federal government had worked out all the details to make rescue and recovery a relatively smooth operation. It seems that never took place.

We hadn't seriously considered that things like hurricanes, earthquakes and volcanoes were not only more likely than terrorism but that they could also be just as devastating.

We are just starting to go through a period of global change which I believe humanity has accelerated. I don't know if the next thing to hit is going to be plauge, super-volcanoes or a dirty-bomb, whatever it is... perhaps we should insure we are somewhat prepared for the top 10 scenarios. As an aside, DHS had rated a CAT 5 hurricane hiting New Orleans as one of the top 3. There is simply no excuse.

 

[Alpine]

I know someone who took part in rescue operations from the time the hurricane hit and is still helping with clean up. He let me know early on a lot we were hearing was not true, and in in time we would know the truth. Well, turns out he was right.

 

[ACougar]

There are millions of perspectives regarding the whole matter, I'd like to hope that some people actually got to observe things happening the way they should.

I know someone who took part in rescue operations from the time the hurricane hit and is still helping with clean up. He let me know early on a lot we were hearing was not true, and in in time we would know the truth. Well, turns out he was right.

 

[praying]

Good Morning America did a story on this topic this morning. It was very interesting to say the least. If nothing else, the "hype" exposed the ugliness in our society towards the disenfranchised - especially those that hide it behind a "nice face".

I find it interesting that everyone is blaming the media for this and I am sure some fault lies in their camp but most of the reports I saw had some NO official stating the exact thing the media was saying, it was mayhem at the convention center and superdome. The police chief had a press conference daily reenforcing this perception.

What I also find very telling is how willing people were to buy into the idea that the majoirty of those poeple trapped in those places took part in it. In my view it exposed the perceptions people have of race in our society.


Just cruise the Katrina Discussion thread at the top of the page and you will see it rearing its' ugly head.

 

[MichaelFJF]

I find it interesting that everyone is blaming the media for this and I am sure some fault lies in their camp but most of the reports I saw had some NO official stating the exact thing the media was saying, it was mayhem at the convention center and superdome. The police chief had a press conference daily reenforcing this perception.

It's the media's job to get it right - not just repeat/report whatever's out there. If some "official" in your city got up and said the mall is unsafe because of all the rapes, no one would check it out?

What I also find very telling is how willing people were to buy into the idea that the majoirty of those poeple trapped in those places took part in it. In my view it exposed the perceptions people have of race in our society.

Speak for yourself. The first reaction of everyone here was "C'mon, you're BSing me right?"

 

[praying]

It's the media's job to get it right - not just repeat/report whatever's out there. If some "official" in your city got up and said the mall is unsafe because of all the rapes, no one would check it out?

They do have a repsonsibility to check out stories, but not to put themslef in hamrs way but that is why the mayor/police to press conferences to dispel myths and disseminate information. Are you saying they should have relaized that officials were part of the myth making, though we know that happens; "Brownie you are doing a heck of a job" (obligatory Bush bash )

Speak for yourself. The first reaction of everyone here was "C'mon, you're BSing me right?"

No that was not the first reaction of many.

 

[NothingButTheBlood]

I hate to say it but the only responcible journalist down there was Oprah. She went and spoke to people from the dome and convention center and stated that though officals were saying there were rapes and shootings that she found not a single person who could back it up. I don't think anyone is doubting that supplies didn't get there fast enough but the race card was the media.