news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4214516.stm
Printable version Viewpoint: Has Katrina saved US media? By Matt Wells BBC News, Los Angeles As President Bush scurries back to the Gulf Coast, it is clear that this is the greatest challenge to politics-as-usual in America since the fall of Richard Nixon in the 1970s. President George W Bush Mr Bush's famed "folksy" style has failed to impress in this crisis Then as now, good reporting lies at the heart of what is changing. But unlike Watergate, "Katrinagate" was public service journalism ruthles sly exposing the truth on a live and continuous basis. Instead of secretive "Deep Throat" meetings in car-parks, cameras capture d the immediate reality of what was happening at the New Orleans Convent ion Center, making a mockery of the stalling and excuses being put forwa rd by those in power. Amidst the horror, American broadcast journalism just might have grown it s spine back, thanks to Katrina. National politics reporters and anchors here come largely from the same r ace and class as the people they are supposed to be holding to account. They live in the same suburbs, go to the same parties, and they are in de bt to the same huge business interests. Giant corporations own the networks, and Washington politicians rely on t hem and their executives to fund their re-election campaigns across the 50 states. It is a perfect recipe for a timid and self-censoring journalistic cultur e that is no match for the masterfully aggressive spin-surgeons of the B ush administration. A Chinook helicopter hovers near the Louisiana Superdome Images of the military in a US city have shocked many Americans The most spectacular example came last Friday night on Fox News, the cabl e network that has become the darling of the Republican heartland. This highly successful Murdoch-owned station sets itself up in opposition to the "mainstream liberal media elite". But with the sick and the dying forced to sit in their own excrement behi nd him in New Orleans, its early-evening anchor Shepard Smith declared c ivil war against the studio-driven notion that the biggest problem was s till stopping the looters. On other networks like NBC, CNN and ABC it was the authority figures, who are so used to an easy ride at press conferences, that felt the full fo rce of reporters finally determined to ditch the deference. As the heads of the Homeland Security department and the Federal Emergenc y Management Agency (Fema) appeared for network interviews, their defens ive remarks about where aid was arriving to, and when, were exposed imme diately as either downright lies or breath-taking ignorance. And you did not need a degree in journalism to know it either. Just watch ing TV for the previous few hours would have sufficed. Iraq concern When the back-slapping president told the Fema boss on Friday morning tha t he was doing "a heck of a job" and spent most of his first live news c onference in the stricken area praising all the politicians and chiefs w ho had failed so clearly, it beggared belief. The president looked affronted when a reporter covering his Mississippi w alkabout had the temerity to suggest that having a third of the National Guard from the affected states on duty in Iraq might be a factor. New Orleans residents wading through floodwaters Thousands were forced to wait days for food and shelter It is something I suspect he is going to have to get used to from now on: the list of follow-up questions is too long to ignore or bury. And it is not only on TV and radio where the gloves have come off. The most artful supporter of the administration on the staff of the New Y ork Times, columnist David Brooks, has also had enough. He and others are calling the debacle the "anti 9-11": "The first rule of the social fabric - that in times of crisis you protect the vulnerable - was trampled," he wrote on Sunday. "Leaving the poor in New Orleans was the moral equivalent of leaving the injured on the battlefield." Media emboldened It is way too early to tell whether this really will become "Katrinagate" for President Bush, but how he and his huge retinue of politically-appo inted bureaucrats react in the weeks ahead will be decisive. Government has been thrown into disrepute, and many Americans have realis ed, for the first time, that the collapsed, rotten flood defences of New Orleans are a symbol of failed infrastructure across the nation. Blaming the state and city officials, as the president is already trying to do over Katrina, will not wash.
Viewpoint: US shamed Beyond the immediate challenge of re-housing the evacuees and getting 200 ,000-plus children into new schools, there will have to be a Katrina Com mission, that a newly-emboldened media will scrutinise obsessively. The dithering and incompetence that will be exposed will not spare the co mmander-in-chief, or the sunny, faith-based propaganda that he was still spouting as he left New Orleans airport last Friday, saying it was all going to turn out fine. People were still trapped, hungry and dying on his watch, less than a mil e away. Black America will not forget the government failures, nor will the Gulf Coast region. Tens of thousands of voters whose lives have been so devastated will cast their mid-term ballots in Texas next year - the president's adopted hom e state. The final word belongs to the historic newspaper at the centre of the hur ricane - The New Orleans Times-Picayune. At the weekend, this now-homele ss institution published an open letter: "We're angry, Mr President, and we'll be angry long after our beloved city and surrounding parishes hav e been pumped dry. Do you agree or disagree, send your comments on the story using the form below. The travesty of the Bush government's response to the catastrophe in New Orleans has shamed this nation before the eyes of the world. How is it t hat we can muster the resources to invade and occupy Iraq, but yet canno t effectively confront a natural disaster on our own shores? Congression al hearings should be held immediately to assign responsibility and insu re that such a thing can never happen again. Tim Barrett, Three Rivers, USA I don't understand why people think that one person (George Bush) would b e responsible for any slow response to this tragedy. First of all, it is arguable that response rests in the hands of a government. Individuals and organisations of individuals (not necessarily government funded) can and did rush into help. Secondly, the New Orleans mayor, and state gove rnor, if anyone in government, should be blamed for slow response. Mobil isation to tragedy absolutely needs to begin at the local level. Paul Perrone, Crozet, VA I think it's entirely too bad that so many thousands of people have to di e from disaster on American soil before the mainstream media starts payi ng attention to citizens' anger and telling the truth. I wish they had h ad this kind of integrity and truth in reporting when Bush sent American troops to Iraq to wreak havoc on thousands of THEIR citizens. Susan, Madison, WI, USA I hope that coverage like this continues even after the "novelty" of our demise has worn off. We have watched ou r fair city crumble, we have watched people die, we have listened to the ego-driven denial spew from our president's mouth and it is evil. We ma y have lost everything but I hope that this is what the rest of this cou ntry needs to realise the danger we are in with our current administrati on. It's time we take back American politics and demand change. I grieve for the loss of life in New Orleans and the rest of the Gulf Coast, I g rieve for the city that will never be the same. But, I challenge those w ho are ready to move on to the next big story to please not let this one go. We were rejected on a federal level and people died, homes were los t and sickness will ensue. Joey Erwin, New Orleans, La I completely agree with this article, the media seems to be criticizing t he administration here, or at least to a certain extent. The fact remain s that the government has grossly failed its own citizens. Aldo Gonzalez, San Diego, California I agree completely. It is tragic that it has needed such a catastrophe to reveal the Bush regim...
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