Hurricane Katrina and the Media

Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans and caused widespread devastation. Undisputed by me or anyone else for that matter. It was a disaster. And, unfortunately, those things happen. Nature tends to do those things from time to time...earthquakes, floods, tsunamis, tornadoes, hurricanes, avalanches, volcanoes, etc. All disasterous in their own way...all causing human suffering beyond our imagination.

But, the one thing that really striked me after Hurricane Katrina was the doomsday that the media predicted. 25,000 dead. A minimum of 6-months just to get the water out of the city. An uninhabitable wasteland after the water was removed. Those evacuated to the Superdome were in a war zone with hundreds, if not thousands, of evacuees dead in the subsection of the stadium with pillaging and plundering everywhere. To read it or see it on TV, New Orleans was the equivilant of Ethiopia or worse.

Well, an amazing thing happened within a couple weeks of the hurricane...all this was proven to be WRONG. There were about 1,000 dead...a tragedy but hardly 25,000. The water was removed most more quickly than predicted and New Orleans is already rebuilding. There weren't nearly the problems in the Superdome that the media portrayed...it was not a nice place to be but there were 4 dead inside...not hundreds. But, have you seen the media say they were wrong? No. Has the media apologized for their reporting? No.

The "press" in this country is given a free pass to LIE. They LIE. They make up the news with no basis whatsoever and put it out for the world to see. And when it's wrong, they don't do anything to rectify it. Irresponsible journalism is the real story of Hurricane Katrina. The fact that it takes a full month to get a real story out of New Orleans is unaccepatable. To take rumor and innuendo and report it as "the news" is intolerable. The LIES about the dead, the LIES about the Superdome, the LIES about the response is unacceptable. The response to Katrina was much better than the media reported...as evidenced by the lower number of dead and by the lower number of homeless. Up until today, it was reported that 600,000 people were still in hotels. The truth, the number is 200,000 or lower. Once again, irresponsible journalism used to incite the American public.

But, when the media is wrong, such as in Rathergate where Dan Rather used forged documents to make up a story, the media turns a blind eye and pretends they might have been right. "It's the substance of the story" is what Rather said. Nevermind the fact the story is completely fabricated. Where are the journalists apologies for lying to the American public?

Which brings me to this...Iraq voted to approve a constitution over the weekend. Women were allowed to vote for the first time ever in that country. Over 60% of the eligible voters voted...a huge feat for that country. Where was the media for that? No where...why? Because they would have to admit that Iraq is moving forward and maybe, just maybe, the mission there is turning out to be successful. But that would mean the media has been lying again over the course of this action. And lord forbid the media ever admit they are WRONG.