Katrina mess: bunch of lies by media

[dhurandhar]

Columns When Will Mainstream Media Apologize for Katrina Goofs?
Oct 15, 2005
by Mark Tapscott ( bio | archive | contact )

Email to a friend Print this page Text size: A A Remember all those politicians and reporters warning folks to avoid at all costs the deadly mixture of chemicals, gasoline, human and animal waste and decaying bodies floating through New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina?

Guess what? Katrina left town Aug. 30, but it was not until Oct. 13 that The Washington Post got around to reporting that the “toxic soup” never showed up. The Post could possibly be forgiven, though, because there have been so many other mainstream media Katrina myths being debunked in recent weeks.

Remember those horrifying stories of rampaging gangs of murderous rapists in the New Orleans Convention Center and Superdome? Not true. Remember the stacks of bodies of people killed in those locations during five days of hell before help arrived? Not true. Remember the dead seven-year-old girl with the slashed throated and raped soul lying in the freezer? Not true.

Incredibly, there are more myths. Remember New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagins’ uncritically reported prediction that 10,000 people were dead? Not even close. Remember the snipers supposedly firing at rescue helicopters trying to save people from rooftops and hospitals? Didn’t happen. Remember the little babies being raped. No. The well-armed gangs pillaging block after block while dueling with hopelessly out-gunned cops? More myth.


Perhaps the height of sensationalist mainstream media myth-making was FOX News’ Geraldo Rivera intoning that "yesterday the sun set on a scene of terror, chaos, confusion, anarchy, violence, rapes, murders, dead babies, dead people."

Tragically, false reporting can be deadly, as documented by Townhall.com columnist Michael Fumento who noted that CNN’s Dr. Sanja Gupta’s report that two patients died while waiting for those evacuation helicopters grounded for a day by the false reports of sniper fire. “The inability to get people out of these hospitals is frightening,” said Gupta, according to Fumento.

Here’s something else that’s frightening: In the first few weeks after Katrina, we witnessed an orgy of self-congratulation among mainstream media journalists who allegedly discovered in the storm’s aftermath a new courage to challenge President Bush and the White House for being so slow to respond to the desperate plight of the mostly Black, mostly poor victims of New Orleans.

Now that the truth about the incredibly flawed reportage is public, when do we start hearing apologies from the ink-stained wretches of the daily newspaper newsrooms and the stiff-haired anchors of broadcast news?

Where are the wise professors from the hallowed schools of journalism at places like Columbia University and the University of Missouri intoning about the decline of standards and honesty that allowed so much rumor and outright falsehood to be reported as fact in the midst of the greatest natural disaster in American history?

How long before the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press assembles an esteemed commission of respected editors and producers, public officials, disaster experts and journalism ombudsmen for a searching and candid in-depth report on why it happened and how it can be prevented in the future?

No, I’m not holding my breath waiting for those things to happen either. One reason why I’m not is the utter lack of intellectual diversity among the vast majority of journalism professors, many of whom are former practicing journalists.

Why is intellectual diversity so important? Because it essential to continually challengings your assumptions, constantly inducing you to reexamine why you think you know what you think you know – what used to be called “critical thinking.” It is a key factor in the make-up of the truly independent journalist.

David Horowitz and Joseph Light of the Center for the Study of Popular Culture recently surveyed the party affiliations of the faculties at nine of the nation’s top journalism schools. At Columbia, the ratio of registered Democrats among the faculty to registered Republicans is 15-1. At Southern Cal, the ratio is 13-1. At Berkeley, it’s 10-1.

Even in the conservative South at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill the ratio of Democrats to Republicans is 5-1. Of the nine schools studied, only the University of Kansas journalism faculty displays a genuine intellectual diversity, with 10 registered Republicans and eight registered Democrats.

What this imbalance means is aspiring journalists rarely hear a vigorous presentation of well-thought-out conflicting perspectives in the classroom or the campus newsroom. No wonder survey after survey has found over-whelming majorities of journalists vote Democrat and support liberal positions on major issues.

Is it any wonder that we journalists have lost the public’s trust?

Think who benefitted from all this lies?

http://www.townhall.com/opinion/colu...15/171465.html

[echarcha]

The same media left no chances to blame Pres. BUsh when the local and state officials were first to be blamed held accountable.

[dhurandhar]

Originally Posted by echarcha

The same media left no chances to blame Pres. BUsh when the local and state officials were first to be blamed held accountable.

Yaar cha pai....re-read the last part of the posted article...most bloody journalist brains are formatted by liberal profs...

[Agastya]

Originally Posted by dhurandhar

Yaar cha pai....re-read the last part of the posted article...most bloody journalist brains are formatted by liberal profs...

yar for a minute i was stunned......
i had a hazy memory , from a spat between sutradhar and phati-G, that dhurandhar is one of the exposed duplicate id of G-samudar. laga ki sala ek din mein hriday parivartan kaise ho gaya .Sorry yar i got mixed up about dhurandhar bhatt and dhurandhar . kucch log sale dulicate id bhi original nahin dhoond sakte

[UMA]

Perhaps the height of sensationalist mainstream media myth-making was FOX News’ Geraldo Rivera intoning that "yesterday the sun set on a scene of terror, chaos, confusion, anarchy, violence, rapes, murders, dead babies, dead people."

wow ... FOX too

[echarcha]

The latest news - as relayed on several shows like Jay Leno and HOward and others - say that some of the evacuees relocated to Cape Cod were given 2000 dollars as aid money. GUess what they did with it? An undercover investigation by a newspaper showed that many went to strip clubs and many went to liquor stores and partied!! Someone please provide a link.. It was on many talk shows and I dont think its false.

Now why are my tax dollars going to these folks? Why can't they get back to New Orleans and work on rebuilding their city? What the able bodied from New Orleans need is to pick up a shovel and help rebuild. Government aid can be given as a salary to these folks who help in actual rebuilidng.

[echarcha]

Originally Posted by UMA

wow ... FOX too

UMA,
FOX just pretends to be conservative. They decided to behave like President Bush - a Republican by office but a Liberal in reality trying to woo the Democrat vote bank.

[tapasvi]

Originally Posted by echarcha

UMA,
FOX just pretends to be conservative. They decided to behave like President Bush - a Republican by office but a Liberal in reality trying to woo the Democrat vote bank.

Yaar, I find all of US media deceitful and cheating . They never present neutral opinions or never report news as its happening. They always have biased analysis over it, biased in favor of the party they are aligned to or if its international news then biased towards US. FOX news is the worst I mostly gather news from BBC or Indian websites. But unfortunately have to turn to the US media channals/sites for local news..prefer msnbc for that..used to like cnn but its is not that good any more