Third Party & Independents: Archives

Rhinehod,
Why do you think that there is a movement to stop Bloggers? While the main stream media is running around like lap dogs to our elected officials, more and more average citizens are hooking up to the Internet and taking a few seconds to tell everybody else what is going on.

What Katrina exposed was this problem in the media over the last five years or so. Can you tell me when was the last time that a Reporter broke a story by investigating it on their own? Maybe through the AP they got their information, but I can’t recall the last time a news reporter did it on their on and was allowed to bring it on TV.

However, you do bring up a good point and if the Major Media oulets want to keep on top they better get with the program.

Rhinehold, great article.

One aspect of what happened is that reporters were reporting what they were being told by folks on the ground. This does not explain all the false stories, but it does account for some that were generated by days of idleness and stress and the incumbent rumormill that would occur as a natural consequence of such conditions. One reporter reports that a person in dome said there were dead bodies in there and they could hear threats and screams. Another reporter picks up the storie and embellishes with a changed word or two, and so on.

I would like to know if the Red Cross was involved in the evacuation of the SuperDome and Convention center and whether they can confirm claims coming from either the media or the officials conducting the evacuations. I am still waiting for more corroboration of what was true and what wasn’t. It is obvious however, that your article is dead on in covering the media’s negligence in reporting without corroboration of what was being reported.

One thing about the media today, if they are locked out, they will conjecture what is going on. There are times when that is a positive thing as often authorities fear the media’s conjecture more than the their reporting of the facts. As a result, the media is let in on some events which they otherwise might not be.

Rhinehold,
Take a bow. This is such an excellent article.
I think you are really hitting on something here — something that I personally have found very disturbing and unsettling for quite a long time now.
Just yesterday, I was describing to jbod in another thread a segment I saw on CNN where it was reported by the citizens of NO that it was the cops who were doing some of the terrorising and looting in their city following the hurricane and flooding.
I wound up believing what these people were saying — not because of what pertinent questions were being asked by the reporters, but because of what the citizens themselves were voluntarily offering up in the absence of the kind of questions I consider to be indicative of real investigative journalism.
Also, the way they were saying it made me believe that they were telling nothing but the truth — looking straight at the camera, outraged, emphatically describing how it had been some of their own police force who had decided to take advantage of their chaotic and totally frightening situation(s).
Furthermore, one of the people interviewed was a hotel owner who was able to show proof of some of the looted goods that these rogue cops had left behind in some of the rooms they’d commandeered for their little crime spree during the city’s darkest hours. At the very end of the segment, he admitted that he was in the process of filing charges — not locally (knowing he’d only be punished) but with the state — hoping he’d be able to somehow prove what they’d been up to.
Now, it is frustrating me that I haven’t been able to find a link to this story on the CNN website! I have no idea why it wouldn’t be there, since it is definitely a story well worth reporting on, and getting to the bottom of, by all the major and cable media organizations.
Most especially since what these people were saying seems to be directly linked (in my mind, anyway) with how the citizens of NO were being treated after the hurricane by all the people who were supposed to be emergency responders intent on helping people who were in dire need.

I agree wholeheartedly with what you are saying in your article here — the media seems to be failing to do it’s job in a real and concrete way, and therefore, they are failing We the People, who deserve to know the Truth. And I agree that the internet seems much more likely these days to go out on that limb to give us the Truth than they are — despite their enormous budgets and their close proximity to our leaders in government.

Good article, Rhinehold. I agree that for the most part, the media is definitely out to boost ratings with sensationalistic stories.

On the other hand, I don’t remember reading about 200 corpses on ice or children being raped. I live outside the US, but I watch CNN International and BBC World, and read the Washington Post, New York Times, and my Reuters and AP newsfeeds online. I don’t remember any of them reporting those stories as facts, and neither you nor the article you link to mentions any specific media reports.

Like I said, there’s no doubt that the media is out to sell ad space, but your article would be more effective if you actually gave some examples of irresponsible, over-sensationalized reporting.

Rhinehold,
Right on the head!! I was planning to address this very same article in the Time-Picayune. I just returned from Bogalusa, Louisianna last night. I was asked to join a group (1 doctor, 2 nurses and 1 social worker-which was me)to provide medical care, via a mobile clinic to victims of Katrina. I was there since September 20th.
After providing proof of credentials to “command / communication central” in Baton Rouge, we explained we were there to relieve a team that had been there for 3 weeks prior to our arrival and were in “region 9”, Bogalusa. In addition to Bogalusa, we also provided care to the towns of Pine and Angie.

(Although I am just bursting to tell of my experiences there, I will keep it short.)
While there, I was never worried about violence, theft, or any or the things being reported by the different media outlets I saw from Home. Of Course, I was not present at the Superdome, but was present at several different shelters.
Instead, what I saw was the poorest of the poor, banded together, some pp staying in tents on what was left of other’s homes and property. I saw families sharing what meager resources they had with others to the point where they would not have anything left for their own families. The attitude was “we are in this together”.

I saw NO violence the entire time I was there. However, the response by the government on all levels from local to federal WAS and remains seriously inadequate. There are plenty of relief workers present, and resources available. The problem is there is no organization for those providing the relief. There is no streamlined process for cutting through all the red tape involved in distributing the resources.

Sorry for straying from the original topic, (as a soc.wrkr. I just can’t help myself sometimes)

The media did focus on all the negative aspects and from what I read while in LA, the reports of violence and death in the astrodome was seriously overstated without confirming facts. I also read in one of the local newspapers (From Bogalusa)the story of a rescue helicoptor being shot at. The paper reported that those involved have repeatedly stated they were trying to signal the helicoptor to alert the rescuers to their desperate situation on the ground and to direct them to their location. (I’ll get you a link to the story when I get home and see exactly which paper had the article)

Thanks, sassyliberal

A doctor I know personally who worked in Jefferson Parish said that there was shooting in his backyard and throughout his neighborhood, and that he feared for his life.

A good friend of mine whose car overheated in gridlock traffic, and was forced to evacuate to the Superdome, said she personally saw women getting raped there. I’ll ask her if she saw anyone die.

The Rita evacuation, I think, progressed about the same as the Katrina evacuation, it was just better covered by the news. There was insane gridlock ot of Lousiana. Many poor were evacuated, but not all of them (As the Texas governor said, they had buses for 60%of the poor in the path of Rita, and the rest would just have to figure it out) The difference between Rita and Katrina is that Texas didn’t offer shelter to the poor, and everyone knew that they would have to fend for themselves for 5 days, and Rita was only a category 3. If it had been stronger, I wonder if we would have seen the same outcome as Lousiana.

Greater new Orleans has 1.5 million citizens, and roughly 30,000 were in shelters. That ratio seems about what Texas would have had with its “superior” evacuation plan. I know several people who couldn’t get out of Houston because of the traffic.

Henry Schlatman
What Katrina exposed was this problem in the media over the last five years or so.

It’s been going on alot longer than the last five years. The liberial side of the media (Anything that aint FOX) has been doing it for the last 30 to 40 years. I’ not defending FOX any, but I cann’t critize them either as I don’t get FOX here.

Can you tell me when was the last time that a Reporter broke a story by investigating it on their own?

About 30 - 40 years ago.

Maybe through the AP they got their information, but I can’t recall the last time a news reporter did it on their on and was allowed to bring it on TV.

I’ll bet they wouldn’t know how.

However, you do bring up a good point and if the Major Media oulets want to keep on top they better get with the program.

I doubt they will.

American Pundit,
You’ve stated serval times you live outside the US. Where do you live? Just courious.

Good post, Rhinehold. I think a major cause of this problem can be traced back to the point at which news gathering & reporting came to be viewed as a profit-center instead of as a public service. So the news orgnanizations realized that it was in their best interests (in terms of ratings/circulation/ad revenue) to report on things that would cause higher ratings (and therefore higher profits) instead of on things that were more newsworthy. So Paris Hilton (I thought she was a hotel until my wife told me otherwise) is, unfortunately, now more newsworthy than almost ANY real news story. Whether we like it or not, until the ratings/circulation figures/ad sales start to drop for the news organizations that emphasize fluff, they’re going to continue to do it.

Another side efect of being a profit center is that news organizations are constantly looking to cut costs. And one way to do that has resulted in an increasing dependence on outside sources for news gathering. For example, organizations will subscribe to an AP feed instead of paying a reporter. The result of that is that single mistakes are more widely seen. One good example of this is the Florida vote count projections in the 2000 elections.

IMO, another reason is that the news media has been intimidated into not reporting on government and politics like it used to. Whether one agrees with the right wing mantra of “liberal bias” in the news, it has had a chiling affect on news coverage of politics and government in general - news organizations are afraid to report on something that will offend a large number of viewers/readers/listeners.

Ron,
I was trying to be nice to the main media. However, I do recall a few (very few) reporters in the late 80’s and early 90’s that would go out and dig up some information on their own. Yet, I also remember the rest of the media calling these reporters “Liberals” or “Right Wing Nuts” depending on who they were exposing.

Nevertheless, it wasn’t until 2000 that the entire main stream media and their 24/7 Entertainment News took over that just started repeating the same story over and over and over … again.

Elliotbay:
“IMO, another reason is that the news media has been intimidated into not reporting on government and politics like it used to.”

And some of them are beginning to admit they’ve been really lax with this administration. Brian Williams is calling it “the 9/11 syndrome”: Media figures admit they have been easy on Bush White House since 9-11
But it seems that after Hurricane Katrina, they were finally shaken from their frightened stupor.

I’d say what went wrong is pretty plain. What we have is a news industry run by people who expect it to always run a high profit, and who would rather get information off of wire services, or out of articles in newspapers than originate the material themselves.

Why? Because from a purely financial point of view, it’s inefficient. It’s more profitable to be information middleman than to actually do the homework.

This is just another modern example of where people have confused being cheap with the news with being efficient with it.

Additionally, of course, people are working off of the idea of pushing the sensational, getting people scared. The truth of the matter is, our media leads what bleeds, instead of giving us the real news. They get their news cameras there, and show us crime scene footage.

My journalism professor up at Baylor relayed to us that a person on TV is ten times more likely to be a victim of crime than a person in real life. It doesn’t seem that way, but that’s the reality.

I think the Katrina coverage and the reaction of people to NOLA residents is indicative of the fear of poor, inner city folk that’s been stoked in suburban folks as a result of this imbalance. Folks assumed that these folks were rioters, assumed they were descending into bestial behavior, assumed that they were morally lacking without checking the facts first. I guess the media coverage of Katrina is what you could call force of habit.

There is too much agreement here, so I will add some partisan rancor.

Most of the time you are right that journalists just didn’t check up. But some of the distortion came from local officials (The mayors talking about 12K bodies etc). Some of the distortion was to blame the Bush administration.
The story line was, “things have gone seriously wrong and it is Bush’s fault”. If it turns out that serious civil disturbance did not break out, that thousands of people did not die in the streets, there is a lot less to criticize about the response. It looks more and more like a normal response to a big storm with much less blame to be distributed.

Back on the non-partisan side, I have witnessed several events reported prominently in the media. On none of the occasions have the reports been right in all respects and they all erred systematically in the sense of making conflicts and bizarre personalities look more important than they were. Journalists have in mind a kind of a story. They fit events into that story. The real story is usually more complicated. Life is usually more boring. People are usually more reasonable and the villains and heroes are usually less well defined.

Ron, I’m in Singapore. Thomas Friedman wrote the place up in a few articles recently.