Wednesday 28 September 2005
New Orleans reports grossly exaggerated
CNN's Aaron Brown and Anderson Cooper are my two favourite news presenters on American televison. I'm watching them now and still the main focus is New Orleans.
What has not been so widely reported is the media's complete over-reaction to Hurricane Katrina. Sure millions of people were displaced and many towns and villages with people's homes inside them have been destroyed and thousands of families face an uncertain future. It did cause me to shake my head this morning watching one family on NBC's Today Show thank god for their predicament. I don't get it but I admire their faith.
What is becoming clear was that media reports of bloodshed on the streets of the city were grossly inaccurate. Encouraged by officials, journalists spoke of more than "10,000 deaths", in fact it will be closer to 1,000 (986 is current count). Dead bodies were said to be floating along high streets, 200 were said to be dead in a freezer at the Louisiana Superdome (the total was in fact six, of those, four died of natural causes, one overdosed and another jumped to his death in an apparent suicide).
We were told of sexual attacks and rapes in the Superdome (not one case has been reported to police), rampant mobs were supposed to have killed at least 40 people, carjackings, shootings in the Convention Center....
While President Bush still looks for a photo opportunity, people are carrying cans. First up is former FEMA director Michael Brown and yesterday 47-year old Police Chief Eddie Compass resigned to go on "in another direction that God has for me."
Admittedly Compass in front of TV camera's made the statement that "babies were getting raped" but he looks like he has taken the bullet.
Chief Compass stood by whilst up to 70% of his New Orleans force went AWOL, two committed suicide (apparently friends of the police chief) and what is unbelievable, uniformed officers joined in the looting.
That leaves Mayor Ray Nagin. He was prone to hysteria during the early days of Katrina "There have been in that frickin' Superdome for five days watching dead bodies, watching hooligans killing people, raping people."
Blaming everything and everyone apart from himself and then trying to get people back into the city as Hurricane Rita bore down, as people like Eddie Compass shield him from blame, he will eventually run out of foot soldiers.
Update 10.10pm. CNN's Brown & Cooper run story on the Facts and Fiction of New Orleans. ¶ 22:59
What has not been so widely reported is the media's complete over-reaction to Hurricane Katrina. Sure millions of people were displaced and many towns and villages with people's homes inside them have been destroyed and thousands of families face an uncertain future. It did cause me to shake my head this morning watching one family on NBC's Today Show thank god for their predicament. I don't get it but I admire their faith.
What is becoming clear was that media reports of bloodshed on the streets of the city were grossly inaccurate. Encouraged by officials, journalists spoke of more than "10,000 deaths", in fact it will be closer to 1,000 (986 is current count). Dead bodies were said to be floating along high streets, 200 were said to be dead in a freezer at the Louisiana Superdome (the total was in fact six, of those, four died of natural causes, one overdosed and another jumped to his death in an apparent suicide).
We were told of sexual attacks and rapes in the Superdome (not one case has been reported to police), rampant mobs were supposed to have killed at least 40 people, carjackings, shootings in the Convention Center....
While President Bush still looks for a photo opportunity, people are carrying cans. First up is former FEMA director Michael Brown and yesterday 47-year old Police Chief Eddie Compass resigned to go on "in another direction that God has for me."
Admittedly Compass in front of TV camera's made the statement that "babies were getting raped" but he looks like he has taken the bullet.
Chief Compass stood by whilst up to 70% of his New Orleans force went AWOL, two committed suicide (apparently friends of the police chief) and what is unbelievable, uniformed officers joined in the looting.
That leaves Mayor Ray Nagin. He was prone to hysteria during the early days of Katrina "There have been in that frickin' Superdome for five days watching dead bodies, watching hooligans killing people, raping people."
Blaming everything and everyone apart from himself and then trying to get people back into the city as Hurricane Rita bore down, as people like Eddie Compass shield him from blame, he will eventually run out of foot soldiers.
Update 10.10pm. CNN's Brown & Cooper run story on the Facts and Fiction of New Orleans. ¶ 22:59
