PressThink: From Deference to Outrage: Katrina and the Press

From Deference to Outrage: Katrina and the Press

Spine is always good, rage is sometimes needed, and empathy can often reveal the story. But there's no substitute for being able to think. What is the difference between a “blame game” and real accountability? If you’ve never really thought it about it, your outrage can easily misfire.

I was away from blogging when Hurricane Katrina hit and New Orleans went down, but people kept sending me stuff. The article most often sent to me was a commentary by Matt Wells of the BBC, “Has Katrina saved US media?” Possibly it has, he said: “Amidst the horror, American broadcast journalism just might have grown its spine back, thanks to Katrina.”

The “timid and self-censoring journalistic culture” in the U.S. is normally “no match for the masterfully aggressive spin-surgeons of the Bush administration,” Wells wrote. “But last week the complacency stopped, and the moral indignation against inadequate government began to flow, from slick anchors who spend most of their time glued to desks in New York and Washington.”

Other observers made the same point: national journalism was awakening after a period of intimidation, and finding its voice by voicing its anger. Typical was this Agence France Presse report: “In the emotional aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, US television’s often deferential treatment of government officials has been replaced by fiercely combative interviews and scathing commentary.”

In the New York Times, a review of TV coverage by Alessandra Stanley was headlined: “Reporters Turn From Deference to Outrage.” Tim Goodman of the San Francisco Chronicle remarked on it:

Bush and his administration have come under withering attack not only from a lengthy and bipartisan list of other politicians but also from anchors on nearly every channel — opinion-makers in the heat of the moment — whose voices abandoned objectivity and rose up in questioning tones as they took Bush and federal department heads to task.

Howard Kurtz saw not just a return of backbone, but a renewal of purpose: “Journalism seems to have recovered its reason for being,” he wrote. It’s a pity he didn’t say what that reason was. But in Kurtz’s mind, the recovery of mission was connected somehow with the display of emotion, like when CNN’s Anderson Cooper interrupted Sen. Mary Landrieu as she thanked some of her fellow officials for their hard work. “Do you get the anger that is out here?” he said. Kurtz:

This kind of activist stance, which would have drawn flak had it come from American reporters in Iraq, seemed utterly appropriate when applied to the yawning gap between mounting casualties and reassuring rhetoric. For once, reporters were acting like concerned citizens, not passive observers. And they were letting their emotions show, whether it was ABC’s Robin Roberts choking up while recalling a visit to her mother on the Gulf Coast or CNN’s Jeanne Meserve crying as she described the dead and injured she had seen.

The repeal of on-air reticence was good, he said. “Maybe, just maybe, journalism needs to bring more passion to the table — and not just when cable shows are obsessing on the latest missing white woman.” Two examples of bringing it to the table: this acid commentary from Keith Olbermann, courtesy of Crooks and Liars (“Let’s hope Olbermann does more ‘op-ed’ type segments on his show from now on”) and this more measured one from CBS’s Bob Schieffer on Face the Nation.

Alessandra Stanley said the renewed aggression is a reflection of public outrage, “but it is buoyed by a rare sense of righteous indignation by a news media that is usually on the defensive.” In this it made a difference that journalists were doing a demonstrably better job than government. “Viewers could see that as late as Thursday, television news crews could travel freely back and forth from the convention center, but water trucks, ambulances and officials from the Federal Emergency Management Agency could not.”

Stanley’s colleague David Carr, media columnist for the business section of the Times, also saw a promising switch in direction. In his imagery, the press had hit a low point recently, and was now on the rise.

Mr. Cooper’s well-shaded outrage—he stopped just this short of editorializing—elicited the kind of anger that has been mostly missing from a toothless press. After a couple of years on the run from the government, public skepticism and self-inflicted wounds, the press corps felt its toes touch bottom in the Gulf Coast and came up big.

Big like it used to be, back in the day. Peter Johnson in USA Today: “Some observers say that Katrina’s media legacy may be a return to a post-Watergate-like era of tougher scrutiny of the federal government and public policy issues.” Gal Beckerman at CJR Daily wasn’t one of those observers. “What happened last week wasn’t anything like [Watergate]; it was a lot of agitated, incredulous reporters channeling the anger of the stranded people they were among, and delivering it to those who deserved to hear it.”

From the direction of the political left, the story was not the “recovery of backbone” but how could it take so long? Salon’s Eric Boehlert: “For years, frustrated news consumers have wondered what it would take to finally awaken the press from its perpetual, lazy slumber. Now we know the answer: one ravaged American city and a few thousand dead civilians.” The coverage was timid at first, he said. “Eventually, though, the pictures from New Orleans became too ghastly to ignore and reporters turned angry.”

“We sometimes find ourselves at a loss as to whether we should be more appalled at the Bush Administration’s ideological obsession, its incompetence, its arrogance, its anti-intellectualism, or its dishonesty,” wrote Eric Alterman at his MSNBC perch. “In New Orleans, we see all of these forces at work in a manner that the mainstream media finally finds itself unable to ignore.”

Both Josh Marshall and Arianna Huffington pointed away from backbone recovery to ask how the Washington Post allowed itself to be used by a nameless Bush official peddling the “fact” that as of Sep. 3rd, Lousiana Governor Kathleen Babineaux Blanco still had not declared a state of emergency. (Newsweek also had it.) This turned out to be wrong. She declared an emergency on Aug. 26.

“The unquestioning regurgitation of administration spin through the use of anonymous sources is the fault line of modern American journalism,” said Huffington. “It’s time for the media to get back to doing their job and stop being the principal weapon in Team Bush’s damage control arsenal.” It is indeed inexplicable that a false fact from an off-the-record source—charging a dereliction of duty in the opposite party—gets into the Washington Post. That sounds like the behavior of a palace press.

Meanwhile, in the Media Blog at National Review Online, Stephen Spruiell said he expected to see “a lot of these stories about how journalism has ‘gotten its spine back’— by which they mean that journalists are acting like a bunch of know-it-alls to whom the solution to every problem was obvious all along.” In his view, a pre-existing inclination to “blame Bush” was simply allowed more room to express itself.

Spruiell thought it was a highlight that “reporters put a lot of passion into their stories and brought the drama right into your living room.” But then the lowlight: “The reporters put a lot of anti-administration animosity into their analysis, failing to provide the context of state, local and federal failures and settling on the easy story: Blame Bush.”

Why did Giuliani get the credit in New York after 9/11, while Bush gets the blame in New Orleans? That’s what righty Hugh Hewitt wanted to know: “Who is in charge when bad things happen to big cities?”

The MSM’s answer seems to be: Cities, when things go right and the mayor is courageous and telegenic; the President when the locals are in way over their heads. Not a very satisfactory answer, but MSM is hardly searching for answers, only ratings.

“In the wake of a mortifyingly slow government response to the Gulf Coast disaster, the press is demanding answers from the White House with unprecedented vigor,” wrote Dan Froomkin in his White House Briefing column. (See the Tuesday and Wednesday sessions with Scott McClellan.) The “post-Katrina press awakening,” as he called it, “is not the result of reporters expressing their personal or political opinions so much as it is about their asking tough questions based on what they, and others, have seen with their own eyes.” He continues:

Bush and his aides are finding it impossible to wave off the incontrovertible facts and heart-rending images emerging from the lake that was once a great American city. They’re finding it harder to set the news agenda. And the scathing criticism is becoming increasingly bipartisan, freeing reporters from the obligation to make every White House story sound like one with two sides equally based in reality.

A good example is former House Speaker Newt Gingrich: “As a test of the homeland-security system, this was a failure.”

In Peter Johnson’s USA article I was quoted thusly: “Journalists seem to be much more effective than the administration in representing the public’s reactions to the disaster,” Rosen says. “Clueless federal officials seem to know less about what is happening than the journalists do, and sometimes less than an average TV viewer. This tips the balance of power toward the press, which is why we see such aggressive questioning and on-air criticism close to jeering.”

A balance-of-power shift that is specific to the Katrina situation is, I think, more descriptive of what’s happened with the press than the sudden discovery of “spine,” a recovered sense of outrage, or the return of Watergate-era confidence. This part Johnson did not quote from our e-mail interview: What appears to be a struggle between the White House and the press is always a triangular relationship among journalists, the Administration and the public. Each leg—the President and the American people, the White House and the press, the press and the public—counts. If we look at two sides without reckoning with the third we’ll always go wrong.

Froomkin last week pointed to the gulf “between what [the] administration says it is doing and what the American public is watching on television.” This is the kind of explanation that makes sense to me. That visible gulf—which was as wide as it’s ever been last week—changes the balance of power. Sheelah Kolhatkar and Rebecca Dana elaborate in the New York Observer: “The combination of a sudden catastrophe, diminished communications and a lack of any authority on the ground for days to disseminate, filter or spin Katrina’s aftermath has remade the press, and its relationship to the Bush administration.”

That too is getting there. Even more to the point was this from the Observer:

“For the most part, we generally arrive at this type of story either just after or as the first responders are responding,” said David Verdi, a senior vice president for NBC News. “We’re usually standing shoulder to shoulder with the firemen or the policemen or the Marines, which allows us to record the incident. In this story, however, we were here before there was a first responder, and what made this particularly tough was that after Day 2, when it became very apparent to us that there were people in need, there were no first responders that we could see.”

The press gained back some of its missing authority because in this situation public authority was missing.

So that’s what they’re saying about the news media and the Gulf Coast crisis.

Now here is what I think. Spine is always good, outrage is sometimes needed, and empathy can often reveal the story. But there is no substitute for being able to think, and act journalistically on your conclusions. What is the difference between a “blame game” and real accountability? If you have no idea because you’ve never really thought about it, then your outrage can easily misfire. This is from Kurtz:

On television, the frustration boiled over at different times. Fox’s Shepard Smith shouted questions at a cop who refused to answer, saying: “What are you going to do with all these people? When is help coming for these people? Is there going to be help? I mean, they’re very thirsty. Do you have any idea yet? Nothing? Officer?”

PostWatch comments: “I saw that clip live, and kudos to a brave Shepard Smith for charging into the disaster. But the cop he was chasing was obviously entirely out of the loop and in no position to answer any of Smith’s questions.” Did it matter, then, if the questions were tough?

What are the proper reponsibilities for city government, state government and the national government? If you haven’t thought about it, and drawn the necessary conclusions, all the backbone in the world won’t tell you where to aim your questions. The New Yorker’s press critic is Nick Lemann, who’s from New Orleans. He observes:

The wetlands that protected the city on the south and west have been deteriorating from commercial exploitation for years, thanks to inaction by Louisiana as well as by the United States. It isn’t Washington that decided it’s O.K. to let retail establishments in New Orleans sell firearms—which are now being extensively stolen and turned to the service of increasing the chaos in the city.

What is realistic to expect in a chaotic situation like New Orleans faced in the week after the hurricane? It’s not an easy question. An intelligent and nuanced answer to that is worth a lot more to journalists than righteous indignation, because if your rage overcomes your realism you will eventually sound ridiculous even to those who share the feeling.

What are the differences in the way our political system handles a problem that is real and manifest (present to the senses) vs. a threat that is real but not manifest at all (abstract until it’s right upon us)? If you haven’t thought about it, you might find “lack of preparation” inhuman and incomprehensible. If you have, lack of preparation begins to seem all-too-human, and not to plan looks more like a policy choice.

Jeff Jarvis said anger wasn’t the best part of journalism’s performance after Katrina. “I think the best of it is that journalism knows it has not done its best. That is new.”

Last week, as the horror of it only started to rise, Aaron Brown turned his langorous gaze to the camera and tried to ask a correspondent whether we — CNN, reporters, all of journalism — yet had our hands around the story, the size of it. He didn’t get an answer — bad communications got in the way — but that didn’t matter, for the question was the answer. No, we did not nearly know what the story was.

Brown was asking his person to think.

I include in that thinking politically about the press itself. Perhaps an “activist stance” (Kurtz’s term) is a sustainable direction. (Or perhaps it isn’t.) I once asked if we were headed for an opposition press. How can it be avoided if, say, we begin to see the press locked out of New Orleans as the authorities assert control? Maybe scathing commentary should come to the forefront, in the manner of a front page editorial that becomes a permanent feature. Or maybe it’s reporters acting like concerned citizens all the time.

If you can think with the situation it doesn’t matter (for your journalism) if you break down and emote. If you can’t think, and can’t draw conclusions that influence your reporting, then bringing passion to the table isn’t going to change a damn thing. And I don’t believe Katrina has “saved” the news media from itself, either, although I agree that nola.com, by turning itself into an online forum, has been an inspiration.

Finally, the challenge for American journalism is not to recover its reason for being, but to find a stronger and better one. The world has changed. It’s not enough to be tough.

After Matter: Notes, reactions and links…

(Oct. 27, 2005) NBC’s Brian Williams in a documentary months later: “The government couldn’t tell us that things were O.K. We were there standing next to the things that were not O.K.”

“Journalism seems to have recovered its reason for being,” he wrote. It’s a pity he didn’t say what that reason was. Howard Kurtz responds in his Media Notes column (Sep. 9):

Of course being “tough” isn’t an end in and of itself. Just getting mad or yelling at people may make for good television, but it isn’t necessarily good journalism. My point (and I say this during campaigns, wars and other major stories) is that journalists must hold those in authority accountable, and demonstrate (through reporting, not opinion) when they are misleading the public, and that there’s nothing wrong with showing passion in this endeavor. This is harder and riskier than passive, he said/she said reporting. In the case of Katrina, the gap between what officials were saying and what journalists on the ground were seeing was so great that it spurred them on, but that approach need not fade with the storm’s aftermath.

The writer Nora Gallagher in the Los Angeles Times:

We got the story of what is really happening in the United States right between the eyes. We got the story of how poor people live and are treated in this country by watching them suffer and die. We got the story because it happened so fast, and right in front of our faces, and no one could put a spin on it quickly enough. We got the story because television reporters were openly outraged on camera. We got the story because reporters asked real questions and demanded real answers, rather than throwing softballs and settling for the fluff and the spin that pass for news. It was raw, it was awful, and it slid under the skin of our sleepy, numb, feel-good lives.

Bill Quick at Daily Pundit replies:

I think Jay Rosen either misses or downplays a rather obvious prediction as to the behavior of that “third leg.” Every time the media permits itself the luxury of releasing pent-up dislikes in an explosion of Bush-bashing, whether partly merited or not, the result of the over-the-top emotions on display is almost invariably a further hemmorhage of readers and viewers. Does anybody think this abrupt display of “spine,” or, as Jay would have it, a change in the balance of power, is going to do anything to reverse or even slow what seems to be the mainstream media’s inexorable downward spiral?

I did Hugh Hewitt’s radio show (Sep. 8) and we talked about this post. Transcript.

Show of hands: who thinks that United States military authorities (who already have checkpoints in place) will close to camera crews and reporters all of New Orleans, thereby taking journalists away from the story of what happened there? See Kurtz on it (Sep. 9). And see this account from a San Francisco Chroncile reporter: “It is essentially martial law in the Big Easy.”

I read several dozen media pieces about Katrina and none of them talked about what my NYU colleague Eric Klinenberg, a sociologist, talked about in Slate: news that was capable of reaching the storm’s victims, the people trapped in New Orleans.

The media coverage of Katrina has been more critical than the coverage of the Chicago heat wave. Yet little of the most valuable coverage, local radio broadcasting, is available inside New Orleans. Without TV, Internet access, newspapers, and telephones, people are depending on radios—battery-powered, in automobiles, or hand-crank—for emergency information. But as of Thursday evening, only one station, Entercom’s WWL-AM 870, had its own reporters on the air.

Klinenberg notes that Clear Channel, which dominates the market (six stations) didn’t even attempt to cover the story, putting virtually no resources into original reporting as New Orleans went down. The radio stations were the only ones who could get through, but only one tried. What does that tell us?

The AP reports as follows: (David Bauder, Sep. 9)

Thirteen radio stations owned by Clear Channel Communications and Entercom have banded together to run a single broadcast out of Baton Rouge, La., with personalities from powerful New Orleans news station WWL-AM taking the lead.
The New Orleans television station WDSU-TV, an NBC affiliate, has signed a deal with Paxson Communications to have its signal carried through next Tuesday on the Pax television station in Houston, which has absorbed many evacuees from the hurricane-stricken city.

Meanwhile, CBS affiliate WWL-TV is having its signal carried on Yahoo and on several digital cable outlets across the country.

Andrew Cline responds at Rhetorica:

Now, one might think that, being communicators of a certain sort, journalists might be pretty good at using the social network as a big brain with which to think. You’d be mistaken, at least in part. This is how I see Rosen’s complaint. I have a difficult time being too critical of journalists working “on the ground” (I hate that metaphor) in horrendous circumstances. But there exists, or should, a social network behind them…

If that interests you—a social network behind them part—you must see Doc Searls, The War on Error in the wake of Katrina. And Jeff Jarvis, Recovery 2.0.

Mark Jurkowitz, formerly of the Boston Globe, now of the Boston Phoenix, wrote a strong piece. The Media Gets its Bark Back.

Down in the hell of New Orleans — where reporters risked life and limb and were literally shocked by what they saw — they finally found the courage to believe their own eyes. CNN’s usually mild-mannered morning anchor Soledad O’Brien roasted FEMA director Mike Brown, who claimed not to know of the despair at New Orleans’s Morial Convention Center until he heard news reports.

I love that phrase: the courage to believe their own eyes. The heart of the story is yet to come, Jurkowitz says.

In the days to come, tougher questions will be asked as journalists switch from chronicling the scope of the disaster to piecing together how it happened. (The new issue of Newsweek describes a “strange paralysis” that set in at the White House, which wasted time in lengthy debates over “who was in charge.”) Even more important than the answers they find is the fact that journalists now smell blood in the waters of Bush’s troubled second term.

Paid content heads… This post also ran at the Huffington Post, which ran it as a featured post, and syndicated it to Yahoo News, where it could move on the most recommended and e-mailed lists, which are all RSS feeds.

“Unashamed to show their outrage.” Nikki Finke in the LA Weekly:

No one could have anticipated that, suddenly, TV’s two prettiest-boy anchors would be boldly and tearfully (CNN’s Anderson Cooper and FNN’s Shep Smith, to their immense credit) relating horror whenever and wherever they found it, no matter if the fault lay with Mother Nature or President Dubya. The impact was felt immediately. The depth of their reporting, along with that of other TV newscasters who were similarly unashamed to show their outrage, bested almost anything written by the most talented and experienced newspaper reporters.

Eric Alterman in The Nation:

Even the infamous media whores of cable news, caught the fever, unapologetically pointing to race and class as fundamental dimensions of the unfolding catastrophe. Perhaps they had no choice but to notice; perhaps their professional shame had grown unbearable during the years—even the post-9/11 years—of covering to death every missing little blue-eyed, blond white girl; perhaps, caught inside the tragedy, their human spirits collided with their professional selves. No matter the reason, it was a sight to behold.

Posted by Jay Rosen at September 9, 2005 1:49 AM Print

Jay,
I'm impressed with how Josh Marshall is covering this story. He's establishing a timeline and he's actively looking into the requirements of existing law. Blanco says she asked for all they had and no one told her there were more hoops to jump through. The White House apparently demanded complete control to send active duty troops rather than national guard units. There is another military official who says the laws were streamlined in August so this sort of nonsense was no longer required. Northcom could send anybody anywhere to work with local officials.

Administration invocation of the insurrection act could have been a result of ignorance of the revised laws, a trumped up political obstacle, an honest misinterpretation of the law, or an accurate reading of the law and a failure to solve the problem it posed by a combination of actors.

Figuring out what the demands of the legal and bureacratic situation were can be done without much regard for political party loyalty. It would also be a requirement of congressional oversight if we had functioning checks and balances rather than one party rule that puts party above all else.

One thing is already extremely clear. Thousands of Louisiana national guard troops being in Iraq rather than Louisiana made an enormous difference. Louisiana had 3,000 and Mississippi had 4,000 in Iraq. That is 40% of the total for Mississippi. This is the core of the crisis that the 9/11 plan didn't anticipate in Louisiana--that national guard units would not be in country.

There is a further side of the story that relates to the issue you raise about media access to New Orleans. In most circumstances outside New Orleans, media coverage of the Bush regime is irrevocably biased along partissan lines THAT ARE LARGELY OUT OF THE MEDIA'S CONTROL:

The Bush administration's systematic refusal to grant the public (including the media) access to relevant data about what they are actually doing (regardless of relation to security) makes sober assessment of administration performance extraordinarily difficult. To do it well, the press would essentially have to recreate the bureaucratic branches of government whose reports the administration so predictably quashes or has rewritten by media advisors. The administration's consistent cooking of statistics, benchmarks, and scientific research has irrevocably undermined the credibility of anything they release absent confirmation from less predictably distorted sources.

There is NO attitude adjustment on the part of the press that will give them access to the facts about administration behavior and results absent the Bush administration behaving more like a representative democratic government and less like a military dictatorship in the name of responding to the emergencies the disaster president keeps creating for us.

Absent Seymour Hersh type leaks, accurate treatment of a one party state that refuses to reveal what it is actually doing is impossible by definition. Accuracy and facts are the enemy of incompetent totalitarians. So of course the press is their enemy, regardless of how much they toady up to the administration and blithely repeat bald-faced, counterfactual spin from "anonymous White House sources" without consequence.

One way out of the media bias cage is to point out as you do that the administration is one leg of the triangle and when one leg of the triangle is a an entire government increasingly run on the model of the Office of Special Plans because they don't require the minimal and nearly inoperative democratic oversight exercised over the CIA (contracting in Iraq and New Orleans perfectly adhering to the top secret no-competition model), effective news coverage would call for counterintelligence operations rather than an unbiased, fair press. The Bush admininstration has declared the people of the United States to be their enemy and currently conducts disinformation and special ops against us, sometimes through press channels like Judy Miller, sometimes against the press as well as the people.
The first step to restoring responsible and thoughtful press coverage to the nation would be restoring constitutional checks and balances and transparency that might potentially challenge the tyranny of the one party state. Just as the press success of Watergate required state cooperation at some level, the disastrous collapse of democratic pretense under the Bush administration has radically undermined any role the press might play in public life under the Bush administration. The press can't really work well again until the government works again. The goal of Bush administration policy is to prove that government doesn't work (by privatizing tax dollars as gifts to their friends who don't really offer services to anyone outside the Republican party), so don't expect much before 2008.

Posted by: Mark Anderson at September 9, 2005 3:50 PM | Permalink

This is what I wrote up Sunday nite for my blog ohile thinking of this discussion, Sept. 11 and watching Control Room:

I've been thinking for the last day about dead bodies and whether it is ever appropriate for them to be shown on television or on newspapers.

But let me back up.

I have been thinking about 9/11, the war of Iraq, Katrina and issues raised in a current discussion at Press Think.

There were several comments in the discussion I want to go back and comment on but right now I just want to try to convey a thought and it is this:

Sometimes a dead body IS the story.

This seemingly gruesome topic and issue arose after FEMA issued a directive/order/request that the news media not show dead bodies from Katrina. Some were offended and insulted by the request while others pointed out how terrible it would be for someone to see a relative on a screen or newspaper before they knew they were did.

There is something to be said for both sides.

Over at PressThink, Kilgore Trout made a decent point:

"I don't know anyone who is for FEMA suppressing photos of dead people, but I think the government is correct if it believes that the MSM is too immature to use the photos wisely.

Again, let me say I am NOT for the suppression of photos of the Katrina flood victims, but I certainly understand the paranoia the government must feel. Also, I have many relatives in the NO area, who thankfully got out OK, but I'm not sure how I'd feel about a photo of my Uncle Don floating in sewer water beamed all over the universe, and the subsequent hosannahs for the photographer who took the picture and won the Pulitzer (or whatever photojournalists win). All this is more complex than what journalists "want" and "need". Sorry, it needed to be said."

Jenny D, who is quickly becoming one of my favorite posters (plus, she too has switched from journalism to education) wrote this response:

"I think that showing victims needs some kind of more general approach.

For example, should you show victims whose families might not know they are dead, and might find out through TV?

Is there a level of gruesomeness that is acceptable?

On the History Channel you can see the terrible film from the first soldiers to arrive at Dachau, in which bodies are piled like cord wood. That is powerful footage, and the point was to illustrate the horror and cruelty of the Nazis.

Would the point of showing victims be to demonstrated the killing power of a hurricane? Or to show that the Bush Administration sucks? Or to embarrass the mayor and governor who couldn't protect citizens? Or is to sell papers or get people to watch a cable news channel?

I don't know the answer. I'm curious what people think."

Posted by: JennyD at September 8, 2005 04:52

And therein lies the debate.

Let me toss out one other great comment from that discussion:

"Absent Seymour Hersh type leaks, accurate treatment of a one party state that refuses to reveal what it is actually doing is impossible by definition. Accuracy and facts are the enemy of incompetent totalitarians. So of course the press is their enemy, regardless of how much they toady up to the administration and blithely repeat bald-faced, counterfactual spin from "anonymous White House sources" without consequence."

Most of the newspapers I worked for had policies against showing dead bodies, especially any that were easily identifiable.

And that makes sense and seems fair.

And yet I've been thinking about this and thought back to some past events:

Who can forget the images of the soldier in Somalia dragged around on the ground? Some have suggested that footage is what ultimately led to the American departure.

When I think of all the footage of 9/11 it's the people jumping out windows and landing.. well, those are some of the most disturbing lasting images of that terrible day.

And with Katrina the image that to me most crystalized how destructive the force was, how life in New Orleans had changed so dramatically, that proved that even the simplest kindnesses had been tossed out the window because of the chaos, was the image of a woman, dead, lying in a wheelchair. I think it was outside the convention center or the stadium.

The next day I read that she still sat there.

And I remember thinking, "Wow! If they can't even move that woman to a temporary morgue, if she is just sitting there like that, then this really is such an unreal situation there."

Was there something tasteless and unseemly about taking and/or publishing those images? Maybe.

But were those images ones that spoke volumes about the situation? Definitely.

There is a scene in Control Room - which I just finished leading a discussion on - in which Al Jazeera is criticized for showing images of injured America POW's and injured and dead Iraqi civilians.

An Al Jazeera representative explained that war is not simple and clean and sometimes it is needed to show just how bloody the consequences can be. And as gross and tasteless and offensive as those images may be the logic makes some sense.

We need to be reminded sometimes of the ugliness of the human condition, of the consequences of our actions, as well as those of Mother Nature's.

I don't know that there can be a rule established for when it is and isn't appropriate, which is why FEMA's interference in the issue rightly raises hackles.

Maybe it's like the famous description of pornography: "I know it when I see it."

I think some press critics are bothered at such a subjective matter being left in the hands of others but sometimes that's the way it has to work.

Words seem inadequate for this topic - or maybe it's the cold medication I'm on - so let me end with a post by Lex from the PressThink discussion, responding to Jenny D's question:

"To answer JennyD's question directly: At bottom, the dead bodies ARE the story of this hurricane. Government (at all levels) performed ineffectually and/or corruptly -- for whatever reason, less well than we had been led to believe it would perform -- and PEOPLE DIED AS A DIRECT RESULT.

Simple accountability -- hell, simple justice -- dictates that you show the pictures. Doing this story without pictures would be like talking about 9/11 and not talking about death."

One final thought:

Speaking of death....

On a day when many are remembering loved ones killed on this terrible day my thoughts keep returning to my father, who died from melanoma cancer about six years ago. I miss him so damn much sometimes and now is one of those times.

I keep thinking about something he did that said so much about who he was and how he thought.

He took the idea of "knowledge is power" to a new level when - after using magazines, newspapers and books all his life to help make difficult decisions, be it choosing a car or whatever.

And so what did he do when he found out he had melanoma cancer? He got books from the library and learned all he could about that which could kill him.

But that time all the information in the world couldn't stop cancer, that vicious bastard, from taking him prematurely from us.

Sometimes life is just so unfair, be it due to cancer, Katrina, terrorists or whatever.

Posted by: Scott Butki at September 13, 2005 4:24 PM | Permalink

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Bloggers vs. Journalists is Over: "Here is one advantage bloggers have in the struggle for reputation-- for the user's trust. They are closer to the transaction where trust gets built up on the Web. There's a big difference between tapping a built-up asset, like the St. Pete Times 'brand,' and creating it from scratch." More...

"Where's the Business Model for News, People?" "It’s remarkable to me how many accomplished producers of those goods the future production of which is in doubt are still at the stage of asking other people, “How are we going to pay our reporters if you guys don’t want to pay for our news?'" More...

National Explainer: A Job for Journalists on the Demand Side of News This American Life's great mortgage crisis explainer, The Giant Pool of Money, suggests that "information" and "explanation" ought to be reversed in our order of thought. Especially as we contemplate new news systems. More...

The Beast Without a Brain: Why Horse Race Journalism Works for Journalists and Fails Us. "Just so you know, 'the media' has no mind. It cannot make decisions. Which means it does not 'get behind' candidates. It does not decide to oppose your guy… or gal. It is a beast without a brain. Most of the time, it doesn’t know what it’s doing.." More...

They're Not in Your Club but They Are in Your League: Firedoglake at the Libby Trial: "I’m just advising Newsroom Joe and Jill: make room for FDL in your own ideas about what’s coming on, news-wise. Don’t let your own formula (blog=opinion) fake you out. A conspiracy of the like minded to find out what happened when the national news media isn’t inclined to tell us might be way more practical than you think." More...

Twilight of the Curmudgeon Class: "We’re at the twilight of the curmudgeon class in newsrooms and J-schools. (Though they can still do a lot of damage.) You know they’re giving up when they no longer bother to inform themselves about what they themselves say is happening." More...

Getting the Politics of the Press Right: Walter Pincus Rips into Newsroom Neutrality "The important thing is to show integrity-- not to be a neuter, politically. And having good facts that hold up is a bigger advantage than claiming to reflect all sides equally well." More...

A Most Useful Definition of Citizen Journalism "It's mine, but it should be yours. Can we take the quote marks off now? Can we remove the 'so-called' from in front? With video!." More...

The Master Narrative in Journalism: "Were 'winning' to somehow be removed or retired as the operating system for news, campaign reporting would immediately become harder to do, not because there would be no news, but rather no common, repeatable instructions for deciding what is a key development in the story, a turning point, a surprise, a trend. Master narratives are thus harder to alter than they are to apprehend. For how do you keep the story running while a switch is made?" More...

He Said, She Said Journalism: Lame Formula in the Land of the Active User "Any good blogger, competing journalist or alert press critic can spot and publicize false balance and the lame acceptance of fact-free spin. Do users really want to be left helpless in sorting out who's faking it more? The he said, she said form says they do, but I say decline has set in." More...

Users-Know-More-than-We-Do Journalism: "It's a "put up or shut up" moment for open source methods in public interest reporting. Can we take good ideas like... distributed knowledge, social networks, collaborative editing, the wisdom of crowds, citizen journalism, pro-am reporting... and put them to work to break news?" More...

Introducing NewAssignment.Net: "Enterprise reporting goes pro-am. Assignments are open sourced. They begin online. Reporters working with smart users and blogging editors get the story the pack wouldn't, couldn't or didn't." More...

What I Learned from Assignment Zero "Here are my coordinates for the territory we need to be searching. I got them from doing a distributed trend story with Wired.com and thinking through the results." More...

If Bloggers Had No Ethics Blogging Would Have Failed, But it Didn't. So Let's Get a Clue: "Those in journalism who want to bring ethics to blogging ought to start with why people trust (some) bloggers, not with an ethics template made for a prior platform operating as a closed system in a one-to-many world." More...

The View From Nowhere: "Occupy the reasonable middle between two markers for 'vocal critic,' and critics look ridiculous charging you with bias. Their symmetrical existence feels like proof of an underlying hysteria. Their mutually incompatible charges seem to cancel each other out. The minute evidence they marshall even shows a touch of fanaticism." More...

Rollback: "This White House doesn't settle for managing the news--what used to be called 'feeding the beast'--because there is a larger aim: to roll back the press as a player within the executive branch, to make it less important in running the White House and governing the country." More...

Retreat from Empiricism: On Ron Suskind's Scoop: ""Realist, a classic term in foreign policy debates, and reality-based, which is not a classic term but more of an instant classic, are different ideas. We shouldn't fuzz them up. The press is capable of doing that because it never came to terms with what Suskind reported in 2004." More...

Karl Rove and the Religion of the Washington Press: "Savviness--that quality of being shrewd, practical, well-informed, perceptive, ironic, 'with it,' and unsentimental in all things political--is, in a sense, their professional religion. They make a cult of it. And it was this cult that Karl Rove understood and exploited for political gain." More...

Journalism Is Itself a Religion: "We're headed, I think, for schism, tumult and divide as the religion of the American press meets the upheavals in global politics and public media that are well underway. Changing around us are the terms on which authority can be established by journalists. The Net is opening things up, shifting the power to publish around. Consumers are becoming producers, readers can be writers." More...

News Turns from a Lecture to a Conversation: "Some of the pressure the blogs are putting on journalists shows up, then, in the demand for "news as conversation," more of a back-and-forth, less of a pronouncement. This is an idea with long roots in academic journalism that suddenly (as in this year) jumped the track to become part of the news industry's internal dialogue." More...

Two Washington Posts May Be Better Than One: "They're not equals, but Washington and Arlington have their own spheres. Over the newspaper and reporting beats Len Downie is king. Over the website Jim Brady is sovereign. Over the userï¿½s experience no one has total control. There's tension because there's supposed to be tension." More...

Laying the Newspaper Gently Down to Die: "An industry that won't move until it is certain of days as good as its golden past is effectively dead, from a strategic point of view. Besides, there is an alternative if you don't have the faith or will or courage needed to accept reality and deal. The alternative is to drive the property to a profitable demise." More...

Grokking Woodward: "Woodward and Bernstein of 1972-74 didn't have such access, and this probably influenced--for the better--their view of what Nixon and his men were capable of. Watergate wasn't broken by reporters who had entree to the inner corridors of power. It was two guys on the Metro Desk." More...

Maybe Media Bias Has Become a Dumb Debate: "This here is a post for practically everyone in the game of seizing on media bias and denouncing it, which is part of our popular culture, and of course a loud part of our politics. And this is especially for the 'we're fair and balanced, you're not' crowd, wherever I may have located you." More...

Bill O'Reilly and the Paranoid Style in News: "O'Reilly feeds off his own resentments--the establishment sneering at Inside Edition--and like Howard Beale, the 'mad prophet of the airwaves,' his resentments are enlarged by the medium into public grievances among a mass of Americans unfairly denied voice." More...

Thoughts on the Killing of a Young Correspondent: "Among foreign correspondents, there is a phrase: 'parachuting in.' That's when a reporter drops into foreign territory during an emergency, without much preparation, staying only as long as the story remains big. The high profile people who might parachute in are called Bigfoots in the jargon of network news. The problem with being a Bigfoot, of course, is that it's hard to walk in other people's shoes." More...

The News From Iraq is Not Too Negative. But it is Too Narrow: "The bias charges are getting more serious lately as the stakes rise in Iraq and the election. But there is something lacking in press coverage, and it may be time for wise journalists to assess it. The re-building story has gone missing. And without it, how can we judge the job Bush is doing?." More...

The Abyss of Observation Alone. "There are hidden moral hazards in the ethic of neutral observation and the belief in a professional 'role' that transcends other loyalties. I think there is an abyss to observation alone. And I feel it has something to do with why more people don't trust journalists. They don't trust that abyss." More...

"Find Some New Information and Put it Into Your Post." Standards for Pro-Am Journalism at OffTheBus: "Opinion based on information 'everyone' has is less valuable than opinion journalism based on information that you dug up, originated, or pieced together. So it’s not important to us that contributors keep opinion out. What’s important is that they put new information in. More...

Out in the Great Wide Open: Maybe you heard about the implosion of Wide Open, a political blog started by the Cleveland Plain Dealer with four "outside" voices brought in from the ranks of Ohio bloggers: two left, two right. Twelve points you may not have seen elsewhere." More...

Some Bloggers Meet the Bosses From Big Media: "What capacity for product development do news organizations show? Zip. How are they on nurturing innovation? Terrible. Is there an entreprenurial spirit in newsrooms? No. Do smart young people ever come in and overturn everything? Never." More...

Notes and Comment on BlogHer 2005 "I think the happiest conference goers at BlogHer were probably the newbies, people who want to start blogging or just did. They got a lot of good information and advice. Some of the best information was actually dispensed in response to the fears provoked by blogging, which shouldnï¿½t be avoided, the sages said, but examined, turned around, defused, and creatively shrunk.." More...

Top Ten List: What's Radical About the Weblog Form in Journalism? "The weblog comes out of the gift economy, whereas most of today's journalism comes out of the market economy." More...

A Second Top Ten List: What's Conservative About the Weblog Form in Journalism? "The quality of any weblog in journalism depends greatly on its fidelity to age old newsroom commandments like check facts, check links, spell things correctly, be accurate, be timely, quote fairly." More...

Blogging is About Making and Changing Minds: "Sure, weblogs are good for making statements, big and small. But they also force re-statement. Yes, they're opinion forming. But they are equally good at unforming opinion, breaking it down, stretching it out." More...

The Weblog: An Extremely Democratic Form in Journalism "It's pirate radio, legalized; it's public access coming closer to life. Inside the borders of Blogistan (a real place with all the problems of a real place) we're closer to a vision of 'producer democracy' than we are to any of the consumerist views that long ago took hold in the mass media, including much of the journalism presented on that platform." More...

No One Owns Journalism: "And Big Media doesn't entirely own the press, because if it did then the First Amendment, which mentions the press, would belong to Big Media. And it doesn't. These things were always true. The weblog doesn't change them. It just opens up an outlet to the sea. Which in turn extends 'the press' to the desk in the bedroom of the suburban mom, where she blogs at night." More...

Brain Food for BloggerCon: Journalism and Weblogging in Their Corrected Fullness "Blogging is one universe. Its standard unit is the post, its strengths are the link and the low costs of entry, which means lots of voices. Jounalism is another universe. Its standard unit is "the story." Its strengths are in reporting, verification and access-- as in getting your calls returned." More...

Dispatches From the Un-Journalists: "Journalists think good information leads to opinion and argument. It's a logical sequence. Bloggers think that good argument and strong opinion cause people to seek information, an equally logical sequence. What do the bloggers bring to this? My short answer to the press is: everything you have removed."More...

Political Jihad and the American Blog: Chris Satullo Raises the Stakes "Journalists, you can stop worrying about bloggers 'replacing' the traditional news media. We're grist for their mill, says Satullo, a mill that doesn't run without us. Bloggers consume and extend the shelf life of our reporting, and they scrutinize it at a new level of intensity.."More...

Raze Spin Alley, That Strange Creation of the Press: "Spin Alley, an invention of the American press and politicos, shows that the system we have is in certain ways a partnership between the press and insiders in politics. They come together to mount the ritual. An intelligent nation is entitled to ask if the partners are engaged in public service when they bring to life their invention... Alternative thesis: they are in a pact of mutual convenience that serves no intelligible public good." More...

Horse Race Now! Horse Race Tomorrow! Horse Race Forever!: "How is it you know you're the press? Because you have a pass that says PRESS, and people open the gate. The locker room doors admit you. The story must be inside that gate; that's why they give us credentials. We get closer. We tell the fans what's going on. And if this was your logic, Bill James tried to bust it. Fellahs, said he to the baseball press, you have to realize that you are the gate." More...

Psst.... The Press is a Player: "The answer, I think, involves an open secret in political journalism that has been recognized for at least 20 years. But it is never dealt with, probably because the costs of facing it head on seem larger than the light tax on honesty any open secret demands. The secret is this: pssst... the press is a player in the campaign. And even though it knows this, as everyone knows it, the professional code of the journalist contains no instructions in what the press could or should be playing for?" More...

Die, Strategy News: "I think it's a bankrupt form. It serves no clear purpose, has no sensible rationale. The journalists who offer us strategy news do not know what public service they are providing, why they are providing it, for whom it is intended, or how we are supposed to use this strange variety of news."More...

He Said, She Said, We Said: "When journalists avoid drawing open conclusions, they are more vulnerable to charges of covert bias, of having a concealed agenda, of not being up front about their perspective, of unfairly building a case (for, against) while pretending only to report 'what happened.'" More...

If Religion Writers Rode the Campaign Bus: "Maybe irony, backstage peaking and "de-mystify the process" only get you so far, and past that point they explain nothing. Puzzling through the convention story, because I'm heading right into it myself, made me to realize that journalism's contempt for ritual was deeply involved here. Ritual is newsless; therefore it must be meaningless. But is that really true?."More...

Convention Coverage is a Failed Regime and Bloggers Have Their Credentials: "No one knows what a political convention actually is, anymore, or why it takes 15,000 people to report on it. Two successive regimes for making sense of the event have collapsed; a third has not emerged. That's a good starting point for the webloggers credentialed in Boston. No investment in the old regime and its ironizing." More...

Philip Gourevitch: Campaign Reporting as Foreign Beat: "'A presidential election is a like a gigantic moving television show,' he said. It is the extreme opposite of an overlooked event. The show takes place inside a bubble, which is a security perimeter overseen by the Secret Service. If you go outside the bubble for any reason, you become a security risk until you are screened again by hand."More...

What Time is it in Political Journalism? "Adam Gopnik argued ten years ago that the press did not know who it was within politics, or what it stood for. There was a vacuum in journalism where political argument and imagination should be. Now there are signs that this absence of thought is ending." More...

Off the Grid Journalism: “The assignment was straightforward enough,” writes Marjie Lundstrom of the Sacramento Bee, “talk to people.” When a writer dissents from it or departs from it, the master narrative is a very real thing. Here are two examples: one from politics, one from music. More...

Questions and Answers About PressThink "The Web is good for many opposite things. For quick hitting information. For clicking across a field. For talk and interaction. It's also a depth finder, a memory device, a library, an editor. Not to use a weblog for extended analysis (because most users won't pick that option) is Web dumb but media smart. What's strange is that I try to write short, snappy things, but they turn into long ones." More...

It really is difficult to have any respect for you Mr. Jay Rosen.

You've buried a one liner in a mass of bullshit. But then that's your speciality.

'Don't be rash. Think.'

Saves ink, trees and in this case electricity and bandwidth.

But even that bullshit filtered gist of your words is still bullshit. You use an example of a newsperson, Shepard Smith, chewing out a cop over something the cop apparently lacks knowledge about and is powerless to effect. I could embellish on the possible circumstances that might have brought on Smith's (what to you apparently is excessive) emotional questioning. There's no need though. Smith realized that he and the cop could leave at any time. Go back to the "truck" and get some water and a snack and go home to some relatively peaceful and secure circumstances when the shift was over. The mass of people surrounding them could not.

What was that cop doing? Was he helping those people in any way? No. Apparently that cop was doing the exact opposite. That cop was maintaining those people under circumstances that were slowly and surely killing them. No food. No water. No escape. The no escape part was likely that particular cop's job. Other cops and military were doing the job of 'no food and no water.' Get off your vacationing ass and read what has been happening. Read about the military, police and paramilitary units preventing aid from entering New Orleans and preventing victims from escaping. Then think.

And things have changed since that particular event. Now that "cop" would give Smith the butt of his rifle and probably a few boot kicks for added respect. Read about it Rosen. Think. The Mayberry Machiavellis are now controlling the military. Karl Rove is directing the military. Thousands and probably tens of thousands of people will be disappeared rather than have died due to negligence and criminal abuse. The old ghetto line that the police are an occupying army seems strikingly accurate. America is occupied by Rove's army. The "volunteer army" is now obviously a mercenary army with allegiance to the paymasters and no one else.

Think Rosen. Think about the famous scene of a man standing in front of a tank in Tiananmen Square. Rosen the analyst should recognize that there are at least three elements to that scene. The man standing in front of the tank. The man in the tank. And the man behind the camera capturing the scene. (No gender slights implied by "man".) The man in the tank would not roll over his countryman. That military man had some sense of citizen, nation and what his role as a citizen soldier was.

What was the totalitarian government's solution to the Tiananmen Square scene? Bring in military units from other areas. Units with no sense of camaraderie with the local citizens. Also, remove the man with the camera from the scene. What's happening in New Orleans right now?

Can you imagine if National Guard troops from New Orleans were on the scene and saw military or police units actually firing weapons to prevent their brethren from escaping deadly circumstances? Can you "think" of that? Can you think of those people as your own and view yourself watching military like units facilitating their deaths? Can you think of that? That's what's been happening in New Orleans. Wal-Mart tractor trailers of food and water were prevented from entering New Orleans. That's just one example. One fucking example. And escape was also prevented. Now every ugly detail of "no escape from New Orleans" will be disappeared. Rove will tell the story and where will you be?

You're a sorry excuse for a hack and your presentation of yourself as some guidebook for journalistic standards reeks worse than the rotting body and oil slicked feces filled waters of New Orleans. That's not based on emotion. It's based on a thoughtful examination of your thoughtless words.

Posted by: Amos Anan at September 8, 2005 7:57 AM | Permalink

Interesting post, but a lot more bullshit from the self-congratulatory MSM. Despite doing their "best" to make Bush look like the devil incarnate or dumber than a post (kind of mutually exclusive , but hey, who cares?), the results speak for themselves:

Gallup Poll: Who's to Blame?

38% No One
25% State/Local Officials
18% Fed. Agencies
13% Pres. Bush

People just aren't as dumb as the MSM thinks. Maybe some day you'll all wake up and see this, but it will take a thorough house cleaning and that ain't going to happen. This hurricane coverage isn't going to stop the slide, just accelerate it. You people need to look outside your little circle or your irrelavance will continue to grow.

Posted by: Mike in Colorado at September 8, 2005 9:34 AM | Permalink

Wow, Amos Anan, "America is occupied by Rove's Army." Yup, oooooooookay, I really value your opinion a lot---NOT!--- but please do keep carrying on like that because people like you are forcing us NORMAL people to stop being invisible.

Interesting post, Mr. Rosen. I've been watching and reading all the news coverage and it has been fascinating to see the way emotion has gotten in the way of truth seeking. It makes it hard to be just a simple interested news reader or watcher. All I heard the first few days was "Bush, Bush, Fema, Federal, Bush, Federal, Brown, Bush, Chertoff, Fema..." etc. But now, interestingly, we're starting to hear some coherent questions and we're getting a bigger and better picture, although it will be quite awhile before we get to the truth, if we ever will. I just wish the media would hurry up and get its act together because, man, it's really painful to sit through the Keith Olbermanns of the world. (Oh, I forgot, I don't actually have to do that anymore because I have my trusty internet for REAL news and commentary.)

And, BTW, I'll add that I'll keep reading your blog. Thanks for keeping at it.

Posted by: Kristen at September 8, 2005 10:05 AM | Permalink

Hi Jay. Welcome back. I guess you jumped into the fire.

So the first week is marked by outrage, horror, the overwhelmingness of it all. Geraldo could hold babies and weep and it was all good. I'm not sure, though, that reacting strongly to a major disaster is any great feat for the media. There seemed to be a kind of "emotion quotient" or a notion that ringing up outrage and shock and horror were good journalism by themselves.

The real work comes now. The horror recedes with the water. Now what?

The blaming is tiring already. It won't solve problems, although it will fill column inches. And it doesn't actually get to the real questions that perhaps the press should consider:

Can the government be relied on to save people in situations like this? And more to the point, SHOULD the government be relied on to save people?

What do we think is an appropriate level of risk and responsibility for individuals, and for a city? Should we fund construction of city that will inevitably be destroyed in a flood, or earthquake? Do individuals bear the risk of living in such places?

How are state, local, national governments supposed to work together?

But these issues aren't sexy. You can't weep over them holding infants. There are no "pictures." There is no horror. On the other hand, considering them seems to be much more important than showing yet another panaroma of the stinky Superdome.

Posted by: JennyD at September 8, 2005 10:37 AM | Permalink

I'm bowing out of this discussion and this forum for a while. I was in SE Louisiana for four days, returned home for a day, than made a whirlwind trip to New Orleans, courtesy of the Air Force.

Nothing I reported, nothing anyone has seen on TV or read anywhere can begin to capture the scale of the damage, the unrelenting smells and sounds of suffering and the legions of people with 1000-yard stares who have lost anything. It's bigger than our ability to recount.

It's certainly larger than another partisan pissing match or an unending screed on media bias. If this is the reaction to press coverage on Katrina, it's just too tedious for words.

It was tedious before, my words included. But now, it's past time to realize just how meaningless and trival this discussion has become.

Later.

Posted by: Dave McLemore at September 8, 2005 11:08 AM | Permalink

Steve: I added in the Gal Beckermen piece. (I said this post wasn't totally done!) Dave: I agree that nothing could be more meaningless than another bias discussion, but then I have been saying that and saying that.

Posted by: Jay Rosen at September 8, 2005 11:16 AM | Permalink

Here's an example of something I hope the press does more of in coming days. It's a story from the Washington Post about the sizable amount given to Louisiana for Army Corps projects--except local officials directed it all to spent on projects other than levee improvement.

Before the fingerpointing, maybe a little understanding what happened. That's why I like this piece--it looks beyond the ideological howling.

Posted by: JennyD at September 8, 2005 11:46 AM | Permalink

Jay:

I don't own a television and get most of my news from various sources (left, right, center and other) online as well as through NPR. I would urge everyone to listen to the "All Things Considered" interview with Secy. Chertoff by Robert Siegel from September 1 (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4828771).

It is fascinating on many levels -- the relative non-response from Chertoff to Siegel's rising dissatisfaction with the answers. Siegel does an admirable job restraining himself and luring Chertoff out in the following way: The Secretary basically confirms your earlier post wrt 'starving the beast' in deflecting (ignoring?) the stories and statistics from media personnel in the trenches, and there so well before First Responders of any sizeable kind; Chertoff takes the stance that "he won't argue" about what reporters are saying in true 'stay the course' fashion.

It seems obvious to me that Siegel says without saying that the response was inadequate, and Chertoff responds in kind without saying it -- that the Federal Gov't planned, but didn't react appropriately, and, when faced with the opportunity to do so, stonewalls the tough questions.

Sure, that's my take, but it's still illustrative. I hope you find it worthwhile as I have.

Posted by: Michael at September 8, 2005 12:13 PM | Permalink

Sorry, Jay. Should have checked back before I pulled the trigger.
To me, what was fascinating -- and different -- is that for two or three days the reporters' eye-witness accounts were unmediated by any sort of official filter, so we got not only their raw emotion, but we also got real-life scenes that our government wasn't telling us about, because our government wasn't even there.
Or, as Beckerman put it, "And, just like that, at long last, we had reporters telling the news to government, not the other way around."
We're used to one vertice of the triangle (government, press, public) informing the other two vertices.
What we're not so used to is that vertice being the press. And that speaks more to a press that had been, well before Katrina, reduced to stenography than it does to any rosier future that said press might have.
(I speak not of McLemore, of course, God bless him. He's been out doing it, while the rest of us ponder it.)

Posted by: Steve Lovelady at September 8, 2005 12:23 PM | Permalink

Shepard's Smith's questioning of a cop may (or may not) have been 'over the top', but what was not 'over the top' was his impassioned reporting about conditions in the convention center, and the fact that people were neither being allowed to leave the city nor being provided with food, water, and sanitary facilities. Smith's finest moment came when the shameless Sean Hannity tried to downplay the tragedy to "put it in perspective", and Smith shot back "this IS the perspective"....

****************

The current right-wing spin on Katrina coverage is that its all about "Bush-bashing" and "the blame game" --- which, of course, is pure nonsense. One of the other highlights of the coverage was Anderson Cooper's interview with (Democratic) Senator Mary Landrieu --- Cooper spoke for every American when he pointed out to Landrieu how pathetic,disgusting, and obscence it was that politicians like her were patting other politicians on the back for the great job they were doing when it was obvious to everyone on the scene that there was an ongoing catastrophe that was getting worse, not better, while Landrieu spouted platitudes.

Meanwhile right-wing gasbags like Max Boot lie about the coverage. Boot wrote No sooner had Hurricane Katrina roared through Louisiana and adjacent states than every blockhead with a microphone or a word processor felt compelled to spout off about What It All Means -- and, more important, Who Is to Blame when, in fact, the immediate post-hurricane coverage of New Orleans was of the "city dodges the bullet again" variety. Journalists didn't start asking tough questions until days later when they were confronted with the fact that tens of thousands of people were living in unspeakable conditions and there was no evidence of an evacuation plan or attempts to provide food, water, and sanitation)

Posted by: ami at September 8, 2005 12:47 PM | Permalink

In my opinion. the failings of FEMA pale in comparision to local a state failings. There is a ongoing human tragedy in New Orleans only because humans were in New orleans when the Hurricane struck.

1. Who decided that mandatory evacution only applied to people with the means to evacuate? There seems to be 2 classes of people - those with cars who are in terrible danger and must evacuate, and those without cars who are somehow immune to the danger.

2. Who decided not to stock several days worth of food, water and hygeine stuff at the Superdome and Convention Center?

Sure, other things went wrong at the local, state and federal level, but without number 1 and 2, there would be no massive human tragedy for journalists to be re-cutting their teeth on.

Posted by: Jeff Hartley at September 8, 2005 12:53 PM | Permalink

*******I left off last part of my above post.*****

So, why aren't these miscues at the local level a big part of the story? After all, New Orleans has person in charge of disaster preparedness. His incompetence toppled the first domino.

Posted by: Jeff Hartley at September 8, 2005 1:00 PM | Permalink

So, why aren't these miscues at the local level a big part of the story?

because the catastrophe that occured as a result of the levees being breeched AFTER Katrina had passed through was not because of inadequate disaster planning on the part of local officials, but a result of the complete failure of the Federal government to do what was necessary.

No major city in this country has the capacity to evacuate (let alone house) all of its citizens, especially its poorest citizens (and that's thanks to taxpayers like yourself, who care far less about the lives of poor people than about lower taxes.)

The "plan" for New Orleans made perfect sense --- in the event of a potential catastrophe, get as many people as reasonably possible out of the city --- and provide temporary shelter (the Superdome) for those who could not get out to "ride out the storm." If the potential catastrophe was not realized, those in the Superdome would return to their homes. If the potential catastrophe was realized, the city would depend on the state and federal government to evacuate those left behind.

Its sad to see the efforts of people like yourself to shift blame for what happened in the aftermath of Katrina. I suppose that if New Orleans had been subject to a chemical weapons attack by terrorists, you would be demanding to know why the Superdome was stocked with a couple of hundred thousand "chemical weapons suits" for the people to wear while FEMA took its time with an evacuation.....

Posted by: ami at September 8, 2005 1:29 PM | Permalink

Welcome back!

It has been a trying and telling period for the Administration, the MSM and America. It was hard not to be struck by the timidity with which the MSM dipped its toe into the waters of controversy, the temerity with which they began to question the Administration response. I had the distinct sense that Bush got off his ass only when the political storm threatened to engulf him, as he seemed content to let the natural storm run its course over the peoples of the Gulf Coast, no matter what the cost. In that sense, press coverage was critical to spur the Administration on to act.

But this Administration has alway been first about politics, specifically about message control and information suppression. In Katrina, they finally met their match. There was no way to cover it up, or to control access to the unfiltered, unembedded imagery. Of course, the Bush Administration was woefully inept at responding to the crying human need under siege in N.O., but they were also flat-footed and out-of-water in responding to the news. The story outstripped their ability to spin. Without the ability to restrict access and levee off the flow of information, they were naked and exposed in all their self-dealing ineptitude. With the Administration staggering and lurching stiffly around, the MSM were, for the first time in years, without their daily spoon-feedings and discovered they could feed themselves.

The attempted open lie about the timing of the Governor's declaration of emergency was revealing, in that its brazenness spoke to the routine and confident use of this device by the Administration in the past, but also, the ability of a sentient MSM to deflate a Big Lie. A similar attempt was made with regard to the state of Administration knowledge about the forecasts of Katrina's landfall strength, but again, that was quickly and emphatically put to the lie, rather than coated in false ambiguity. The NHC Director had the video to back him up, but even that smoking gun would have gone unheard and unseen prior to this.

You can tell the Bush people worry that this will have been a sea-change, by the way in which FEMA and DHS have tried to shut down the coverage of the recovery of the bodies. In evacuating N.O., they are also closing down the pirate station of a newly independent MSM. It will be interesting to see how the MSM responds to this challenge. The Adminstration has regained its footing enough to start spinning again, and the effort to misdirect responsibility is making headway.

Posted by: Mark J. McPherson at September 8, 2005 1:40 PM | Permalink

Jay, I particularly like the fact that Dem Gov. Blanco did declare a state of emergency; and Josh linked to it; and in Section 2 it states:
"The state of Louisiana=s emergency response and recovery program is activated under the command of the director of the state office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness to prepare for and provide emergency support services and/or to minimize the effects of the storm's damage."

I am disappointed that there is no name of this director of the state office of HS. Chertoff? Not clear.

I am disppointed, but not surprised, that your list fails to mention any outrage that Dem Mayor Nagin had hundreds of NO busses available, but unused -- and then flooded; that there was a video of the looting of a Wal Mart, including a black cop that was supposed to be maintaining law & order, but was clearly allowing the looting, and other black cops that were joining in the looting.

I haven't read much of Nagin's power, authority, and responsibility on a day by day basis; nor of Blanco's. Carl Pope of the Sierra Club has a reasonable, more subtle Bush-bashing timeline of "what could have been" -- best I've seen so far, but utterly failing at the reality of cat 4 levee break; now what.

I read that NO and LA had plans, but did not follow them. I haven't heard of tough questions by reporters about those plans, and who was responsible for implementing them, and what was followed and what not followed. (Plans are available on-line)

I read (via anti-media) that NO had no plan for the prisoners -- so let them go. Have you heard this? If true, and not widely reported, isn't that a HUGE failure of the press? (Haven't checked on it myself yet.)

It's unPC to mention the fact that so many looters are black, and so many of those who stayed behind are black, and so few of those blacks are effective at taking care of themselves.
Yet this preponderance of incompetent actions by black people has already been accompanied by attack-dog charges of racism by many of those "professional victims" -- maybe more of the facts about the worship of "victimhood" in poor black areas are about to be honestly addressed by the press (but since it doesn't fit with a Bush-bashing agenda I won't be surprised if not.)

Two weeks ago, the fact that the NO levees were rated at Cat 3, but not Cat 4, were known to all who were interested. At that time there was some probability of Katrina destroying NO. At that time the unknown future could be described by the probability of NO being flooded, and the probability of it not being flooded. The probability stayed below 50% (how to measure?) until Katrina hit Biloxi as Cat 4.

Maybe the fact that the future is uncertain, and is best described in probabilities, will get more news time. But I won't be surprised if it doesn't much. Too complex. (long. boring. Like me? at least I'm real, in an uncertainty oriented way.)

Posted by: Tom Grey - Liberty Dad at September 8, 2005 1:42 PM | Permalink

The press simply don't have the analytical framework to sustain their temporary, impassioned breakout - nowhere is that more evident in the unrelenting, noted-in-passing, but barely questioned racism which framed the entire coverage, and the statements of public officials: the characterization of anarchy among the victims - who in reality self-organized fairly well considering the circumstances - false reports of cannibalism, false reports of shots fired at helicopters, shoot-to-kill orders for "looters", the cowardice of the police, the focus on law and order, and on and on.

Posted by: boingo at September 8, 2005 2:14 PM | Permalink

Somewhere in these last several days I read a report about an amateur meteorologist in some other state who, two or three days before the hurricane hit the coast, foresaw the possible effects. (Despite far-reaching Google searches, and an attempt to mentally re-trace my online steps these past days, I haven't been able to find the article again, and can't remember on which of the many sites I visited I read it.) As far as I remember from what I read, he sent an email to the mayor of New Orleans and posted on his weather blog a warning that this storm would very likely break the levees. The young man (the meteorologist) was quoted as saying that the mayor ignored his warning to immediately warn the citizens and begin an evacuation.

This isn't directly related to this discussion about press coverage/newly recovered backbones/administration blame, but the fact that this element of the whole story is but one small, lost part amongst the thousands of swirling others makes me wonder how any journalist could up to this point grasp enough of them to present any kind of coherent picture.

I agree that retaining the ability to think coherently and cogently is critical, but in situations so horrific, how difficult is it for a journalist on the spot to quell his or her humanity and compassion enough to keep thinking? There has to be a breakdown at some point; the key, I guess, is to recover in time to take advantage of the breakdown in the administration's "spin machine" and extract the information that begins to answer the important questions.

I don't know. I haven't been there and Dave McLemore's post makes me wonder what is the point of all this. It is important in the long run, but seems trivial be discussing right now.

Posted by: Jane Richard at September 8, 2005 2:42 PM | Permalink

Jane, it's still important. This disaster isn't over by a long shot. I've seen a lot of reports calling the water in New Orleans a toxic stew, but very few asking what will happen to Lake Pontchartrain and the Gulf as that water gets pumped out of the city. I haven't seen anything at all on the Centers for Disease Control and the US EPA. So there's a lot of substance to the question of what reporters are doing and what they're thinking about, because there is a whole helluva lot to think about and do.

Posted by: weldon berger at September 8, 2005 3:05 PM | Permalink

Jane: Reading and writing press criticism blogs is trivial compared to the situation on the ground in the Gulf states, and reporting from it.

I wasn't trying to say to journalists who were struggling just to report what they saw that they should stop and "think" instead. I'm not addressing them at all. I wrote my post because nine tenths of the journalism remains to be done, and a massive act of accountability has yet to be undertaken, and there is no guarantee that it will be undertaken, but for sure it won't happen because moral indignation was suddenly okay to show on air.

What happens during a breakdown in a civil order like Katrina not going to "restore" any lost anything for the press-- whether it's spine, purpose, reason for being, courage, authority, credibility, or getting Scott McClellan to answer a question.

But there's an opportunity to think with the crisis and perhaps strengthen journalism.

Show of hands: who thinks that United States military authorities (who already have checkpoints in place) will soon close to camera crews and reporters all of New Orleans, thereby taking journalists away from the story of what happened there?

Link.

Posted by: Jay Rosen at September 8, 2005 3:35 PM | Permalink

Well Jay, after reading this (from Brian Williams NBC blog) I think my hand is going up...

While we were attempting to take pictures of the National Guard (a unit from Oklahoma) taking up positions outside a Brooks Brothers on the edge of the Quarter, the sergeant ordered us to the other side of the boulevard. The short version is: there won't be any pictures of this particular group of Guard soldiers on our newscast tonight. Rules (or I suspect in this case an order on a whim) like those do not HELP the palpable feeling that this area is somehow separate from the United States.

At that same fire scene, a police officer from out of town raised the muzzle of her weapon and aimed it at members of the media... obvious members of the media... armed only with notepads. Her actions (apparently because she thought reporters were encroaching on the scene) were over the top and she was told. There are automatic weapons and shotguns everywhere you look. It's a stance that perhaps would have been appropriate during the open lawlessness that has long since ended on most of these streets. Someone else points out on television as I post this: the fact that the National Guard now bars entry (by journalists) to the very places where people last week were barred from LEAVING (The Convention Center and Superdome) is a kind of perverse and perfectly backward postscript to this awful chapter in American history.

Posted by: ami at September 8, 2005 4:04 PM | Permalink

Personally, I don't think our national press is mature enough to handle these photographs. You'll notice the Reuters story linked Katrina Death Photos to Flag Draped Coffins. Any rational person would guess that MSM will print photos of Katrina deaths with the caption of BUSH KILLED THIS PERSON!.

But for all this hysteria, you'll notice that MSM has put a lock box on 9/11 photos with people jumping out of windows and has suppressed photos recovered last summer of Saddam Hussein's torture rooms. What is the MSM reason for suppressing those photos? Too disturbing, I guess, not like dead people floating in flood water. As usual, the press only wants us to know what they want us to know. Whatever.

I don't know anyone who is for FEMA suppressing photos of dead people, but I think the government is correct if it believes that the MSM is too immature to use the photos wisely.

Again, let me say I am NOT for the suppression of photos of the Katrina flood victims, but I certainly understand the paranoia the government must feel. Also, I have many relatives in the NO area, who thankfully got out OK, but I'm not sure how I'd feel about a photo of my Uncle Don floating in sewer water beamed all over the universe, and the subsequent hosannahs for the photographer who took the picture and won the Pulitzer (or whatever photojournalists win). All this is more complex than what journalists "want" and "need". Sorry, it needed to be said.

Posted by: kilgore trout at September 8, 2005 4:32 PM | Permalink

I think that showing victims needs some kind of more general approach.

For example, should you show victims whose families might not know they are dead, and might find out through TV?

Is there a level of gruesomeness that is acceptable?

On the History Channel you can see the terrible film from the first soldiers to arrive at Dachau, in which bodies are piled like cord wood. That is powerful footage, and the point was to illustrate the horror and cruelty of the Nazis.

Would the point of showing victims be to demonstrated the killing power of a hurricane? Or to show that the Bush Administration sucks? Or to embarrass the mayor and governor who couldn't protect citizens? Or is to sell papers or get people to watch a cable news channel?

I don't know the answer. I'm curious what people think.

Posted by: JennyD at September 8, 2005 4:52 PM | Permalink

I think that the feds will try to shut off media coverage if they think they can get away with it. Hey, call me cynical. The moonbattier segments of Blogtopia argue that this will happen for two primary rasons: 1) to protect the Administration from embarrassment; 2) to further the allocation of relief/rebuilding money to federal administration cronies (rather, I would add, than to state/local admin cronies). I buy Point 1; I'm agnostic on Point 2, absent more information.

There certainly is a lot of blame to be apportioned, to both parties at all levels of government. But as someone who has been living with hurricanes his whole life and working in them since Gloria in '85, take it from me: There are good and bad responses, and the federal response to Katrina screwed the pooch so badly my dead cat needs a cigarette. Anyone who claims otherwise is living in a different dimension, and I say that knowing full well all the important people it encompasses.

Posted by: Lex at September 8, 2005 5:08 PM | Permalink

Jay, welcome back. As I just wrote on my blog, that'll teach you to go on vacation during a holiday weekend:)
I spent much of the weekend blogging about the best and worst coverage I saw.
Steve, thanks for the link to the CJR piece. I just linked to that one too.

As for FEMA, looks like they are already spinning about the dead photos order, calling it more request than order.

Posted by: Scott Butki at September 8, 2005 5:38 PM | Permalink

"I love that phrase: the courage to believe their own eyes."

Courage may be the wrong word. Graham Greene wrote a novel called The Quiet American about a journalist who loses his sense of disengagement. He pays the backhanded compliment to another character: "he could see suffering when it was in front of his eyes."

That's no real achievement.

Posted by: martin at September 8, 2005 5:48 PM | Permalink

To answer JennyD's question directly: At bottom, the dead bodies ARE the story of this hurricane. Government (at all levels) performed ineffectually and/or corruptly -- for whatever reason, less well than we had been led to believe it would perform -- and PEOPLE DIED AS A DIRECT RESULT.

Simple accountability -- hell, simple justice -- dictates that you show the pictures. Doing this story without pictures would be like talking about 9/11 and not talking about death.

Posted by: Lex at September 8, 2005 5:54 PM | Permalink

Reporters were literally shocked?

By downed power lines? Argh.

Anyway, that's not imporant. Just: notice how the press gets the public on its side and changes the balance of power. Not by apologizing for itself, not by moving right, not by being less critical of the administration--but by reporting truthful information that government officials are not acknowledging.

Posted by: Katherine at September 8, 2005 5:59 PM | Permalink

Here's the real story of the racist response to the disaster from two paramedics who were trapped in New Orleans:

http://www.emsnetwork.org/artman/publish/article_18337.shtml

This is the ball the press is going to drop in favor of the local/federal repuglican/ democrat blame game. And it's because they won't find public support for the race/poverty angle because people are in denial that the US is a racist country waging war on the impoverished.

Posted by: boingo at September 8, 2005 7:11 PM | Permalink

Hey, Tom Grey, this is right up your alley.
Consider one Jimmy Reiss, head of the New Orleans Business Council, as quoted by the Wall Street Journal:

The new city must be something very different, Mr. Reiss says, with better services and fewer poor people. "Those who want to see this city rebuilt want to see it done in a completey different way: demographically, geographically and politically," he says. "I'm not just speaking for myself here. The way we've been living is not going to happen again, or we're out."

Perfect, isn't it ?

Reduced federal money for the Army Corps of Engineers to shore up those levees every year for four years in a row, combined with the fury of Mother Nature, have combined to eliminate thousands of those blacks "who stayed behind" and who were were so ineffective "at taking care of themselves," to use your words.
File in that "genocide" folder of yours; it fits right in.

Posted by: Steve Lovelady at September 8, 2005 8:56 PM | Permalink

ami,

the catastrophe that occured ... was not because of inadequate disaster planning on the part of local officials...

The Red Cross disagrees (watch the video.)
http://thepoliticalteen.net/2005/09/08/garretredcross/

The facts are diverging so far from the "blame bush" narrative that it would be comical in less serious circumstances. Now,it's just pathetic.

taxpayers like yourself, who care far less about the lives of poor people.

I haven't paid taxes since 2002. I don't make enough money. That makes me a poor person. That makes you an idiot.

Posted by: Jeff Hartley at September 8, 2005 9:16 PM | Permalink

"... he pointed out to Landrieu how pathetic,disgusting, and obscence it was that politicians like her were patting other politicians on the back for the great job they were doing when it was obvious to everyone on the scene that there was an ongoing catastrophe that was getting worse, not better, while Landrieu spouted platitudes."

And now many in the media follow suit.

Posted by: Rascoe at September 8, 2005 9:28 PM | Permalink

I, for one, think its funny the way media people are congratulating themselves on what they think is such a fine job, just because they've showed their biased outrage at President Bush. With the Internet, we can once again see all the information the media leaves out and their complete lack of interest and curiosty about anything that doesn't fit their template - in this case, the ongoing attempt to somehow "get" President Bush.

I don't know who gets the award for the biggest media buffoon in this. There have been so many of them. Keith Olberman I just have to turn off. All of CNN was despicable.

But Tim Russert was a complete A.. on his show this past Sunday. Holding up the Homeland Security Plan and cutting into the the head of homeland security. Well, we've all seen on the net the New Orleans and Louisana Hurricane Response Plan and it was not followed at all by the state and local officials. Russert and all his media buddies could just have easily held up that document and asked a few hard questions of Governor Blanco and Mayor Nagin. Instead, they've let these weak leaders get up there and cry on the their program and curse and generally make fools of themselves in an effort to direct all attention away from themselves and their failures and to project blame onto the federal government and President Bush.

I have the lowest opinion of the media I've ever had in my life. You never get the truth from them. They use their platform to try to "create" the perception they want people to have to suit their agenda. I wasn't amazed that the first "poll" to see if their effort was working came out only a few days into the hurricane. And when it showed that only 13% of the people blamed the President despite their best efforts, that should have been the banner headline, but of course, it wasn't. They buried that bit of information in the story and have gone right on with their gameplan.

It was interesting in the poll too that President Bush was the only specific name polled. They grouped Blanco and Nagin in as nameless "state/local" officials. What could better illustrate their agenda in the poll and their purpose for their coverage. They are so full of themselves and their own sense of importance and their own political views It's sickening.

I wonder why the media never conducts a poll to ask people what we think of them and their performance?

I also think the media themselves have can share in some of the blame for the hurricane loss of life. They go wall-to-wall with coverage of every hurricane with no context. Then when the hurricane goes somewhere else or isn't as bad as they trumped it up to be, people start to tune out the media and the warnings. I think that is why many people stayed in New Orleans. They had just heard it all before so many times.

And the media helps to create a divide in this country by the sensational and one-sided way they cover stories.

Posted by: Lisa at September 8, 2005 9:29 PM | Permalink

There are a lot of stories to tell, too bad the media has gotten just about every one of them wrong up to this point. One meme that's still going strong is the levees. I'd like to see an in-depth report that covers levee funding - who's been for it, who against. Have it start in 1977 when the blueprint was passed by Congress. Then moving forward, presnt us with the voting records of each state's Congressional delegations. Better still, given us a breakdown of media support or opposition. Somehow I think that's a story that will never see the light of day.

Posted by: MaDr at September 8, 2005 11:12 PM | Permalink

I think these two intriguing quotes are the key to placing into perspective our dominant media's indignant reporting about New Orleans, particularly when attempting to augur what it means about other (political) matters in the future:

"What appears to be a struggle between the White House and the press is always a triangular relationship among journalists, the Administration and the public. Each leg—the President and the American people, the White House and the press, the press and the public—counts. If we look at two sides without reckoning with the third we’ll always go wrong." - Jay, above.
"...the gulf “between what [the] administration says it is doing and what the American public is watching on television.” This is the kind of explanation that makes sense to me. That visible gulf—which was as wide as it’s ever been last week—changes the balance of power." - Jay, in part quoting Dan Froomkin, above.

In the case of Hurricane Katrina's aftermath in New Orleans, reporters' outrage at the lack of a well planned response to, and in some cases abdication of responsibility for, refugees' needs was fueled by reporters' proximity to the suffering. That suffering and consequent righteous outrage was communicated clearly through television to viewers (and to anchors and editors). Thus, the feelings about this matter held by many in the press was shared in large part by the public who watched (which during this spectacular rare event was most of us).

Can our dominant media say that about their feelings on most other matters of import to viewers and readers? Put another way, does the public share the ideology (i.e. how one feels about political issues) to which members of our dominant media admit they overwhelmingly adhere? The answer to that question likely determines whether media agitation about future matters will stoke commensurate feelings in the public.

For example, laudatory media coverage of gay marriage has not translated to majority public support for it - - yet. By controlling in large part (through their programming, news and otherwise) "what the American public is watching on television", our dominant media can greatly influence the (perhaps causal) relationship between press and public feelings, including political feelings. For my part, I think the more that Americans are aware of that relationship the better.

Posted by: Trained Auditor at September 8, 2005 11:52 PM | Permalink

Yes, I saw that too, and I agree--that was a fine moment for Shep; for Sean, not so much.

My main thought at PostWatch about Shepard Smith chasing that particular cop wasn't that it was "over the top" but rather, as Jay suggests, that it was pointless, since this was likely some grunt who knew nothing (and, to add more here, was likely staggering close to the end of his own endurance).

Very early in the hurricane reporting, I put up a post praising the media for the job it was doing. In my mind, the stark arrival of the storm snapped everyone to attention and forced journalists to just tell us what the heck was going on. As events turned everything into a far worse disaster, they had to tell us about that, too, and to try discovering why. But I think it's a pity now, with reporters catching their breath, that we're just going back to the default mode of partisan sniping--with most reporters definitely manning their customary anti-Bush side of the barricade. That may be merely another dreary contention of media bias, but that's what it feels like from where I sit and it definitely affects the quality of life in the public square.

Posted by: Christopher Fotos at September 9, 2005 12:23 AM | Permalink

Contrary to Jay, I think this story demonstrates the continuing evolution of the public's view of the press from "objective voice of the people" to self-interested political party. (Ie., it is not a sign that there can be better times for the press ahead.)

Jay's summation of the press-on-press coverage, I think, proves this view; the press is very concerned with how it played--how it is seen--in the living rooms of America on its coverage of this disaster. And it is looking at its coverage as a potential PR "victory." When it describes the coverage, it does not praise itself for getting the story "right" but for writing stories that stand up to Bush, for getting "spine" and challenging administration officials. That may be a great thing, but I think that would be only incidental to the true first order of business for a truth estate, which is presenting an accurate view of reality. Instead, this pride in "standing up" to Bush is the way a political party thinks, and I think the general public gets that, on some level.

Next, if you look at the polls--the vast majority of Republicans think Bush did OK on this disaster, while the vast majority of Dems think it performed horribly. Now, I am not saying Bush did a great job, but I am saying that the press's "standing up to" Bush, getting a "spine" when it comes to going after him (or whatever it means when one says the press has gotten "spine"), has not had much impact on most of the citizens of this country.

In other words, the "spine" shown toward Bush has been utterly unconvincing to one set of voters (Repubs) and has just reinforced what the other set (Dems) would have believed anyway. Quite simply, the reporting has had little to no effect on public opinion.

One would imagine that a press respected for getting the story right would move a good sized majority of the people, independent of party, toward some view. Instead, we see a partisan divide in perception as if the only information out there was partisan and one-sided and viewer's were merely self-selecting info sources that in some biased fashion reinforced what they already believed.

The press: thinking like a political party (or a couple of them) and being regarded that way.

Is this a wrong view?

Posted by: Lee Kane at September 9, 2005 12:41 AM | Permalink

Lee: My view is that the "recovery of backbone" is not the event that people in the press say it is.

But the reason it's celebrated so much has to do with a deeper tenet in newsroom religion that was there before Bush ever won elected office. It's the idea that politicians help us prove our value to the public because, as a journalists, we "hold their feet to the fire," asking tough questions and "demanding answers."

One of my points in this post, Lee, was that instead of being able to think, politically, Big Journalism has "hold their feet to the fire."

"That may be merely another dreary contention of media bias," Christopher wrote. (And thanks for dropping in, Chris.) Dreary is the day when a top media blogger (Mark Hamilton, a Canadian journalism teacher and new media hound) announces his

reluctant decision that I will no longer read the comments to Jay Rosen’s PressThink posts. It’s not that there’s no value in the comments, it’s that it has become too tiresome to struggle through the garbage to get to the gold....
There are a number of people who respond to Jay’s posts, people who care deeply about journalism, who make for a lively, interesting, sometimes combative and always thought-provoking conversation. I’ll miss them.

And then there are the others.

They use the comment section for shrill, mindless, repetitive posts that are creatures of the ugly political divide in the States. They apparently read everything as an issue of partisan politics and react to it as partisan politics, not originally or thoughtfully, but in knee-jerk manner and with phrasing that varies only with their position on the political spectrum. The same tiresome claims, arguments and wild assertations are repeated endlessly, regardless of the topic they are responding to.

It's sad.

Posted by: Jay Rosen at September 9, 2005 1:40 AM | Permalink

So Jay, that's why I ask the question about showing piles of dead bodies. What for? I think there are good reasons for doing so, and equally good reasons for not doing so.

But the reasons depend on the position and intent of the press.

Several posts above, someone noted that the laudatory coverage by the press of gay marriage had not changed public opinion. Wait a minute. Is that the goal of the press...to change public opinion? Or is the press objective, fact tellers?

Then let's think about the pictures. If the point is to impress upon the public that hurricanes are very dangerous, that's a good fact. If it's to show that FEMA blew it, or Nagin blew it, or Blanco blew it, well...I'm not sure those are objective facts.

All of this transcends the tiring ideological screeds and fingerpointing that have leaked into this thread, as usual.

I used to think an opposition press was a good thing--at least there would be transparency. But wouldn't it just throw more gasoline on this fire that consumes all public discussion. The us versus them, pinning blame. The tendency of public officials to see cooperationg as weak, despite the damage to the community.

On the other hand, objectivity is hopeless, particulary when holding up babies and stirring up emotional response is good for the media business.

I don't know. It requires looking at the press not as arm of some political party, or a cavalry that rides around on white horse. You have to look at the press as part of the larger system of public discourse. I'm not sure that's a easy or as fun as screeching about ideology.

Posted by: JennyD at September 9, 2005 7:50 AM | Permalink

"(...)Reduced federal money for the Army Corps of Engineers to shore up those levees every year for four years in a row(...)"

A: "(...)But overall, the Bush administration's funding requests for the key New Orleans flood-control projects for the past five years were slightly higher than the Clinton administration's for its past five years. Lt. Gen. Carl Strock, the chief of the Corps, has said that in any event, more money would not have prevented the drowning of the city, since its levees were designed to protect against a Category 3 storm, and the levees that failed were already completed projects. Strock has also said that the marsh-restoration project would not have done much to diminish Katrina's storm surge, which passed east of the coastal wetlands.(...)"

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/
2005/09/07/AR2005090702462.html

Largess in Louisiana
Money Flowed to Questionable Projects
State Leads in Army Corps Spending, but Millions Had Nothing to Do With Floods

By Michael Grunwald
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, September 8, 2005; Page A01

Posted by: LL at September 9, 2005 9:05 AM | Permalink

"You have to look at the press as part of the larger system of public discourse. I'm not sure that's a easy or as fun as screeching about ideology."

Exactly. And the larger discourse is shot through with racism and contempt for the poor. And since polls show that the majority of Americans believe that race had nothing to do with the failed response to Katrina, the public crutch that journos require, ongoing, to prop up the knocking knees of their recent "rebellion" will be swept away by the flood of public ignorance.

"My friends, some years ago the federal government declared war on poverty — and poverty won." - Ronald Reagan

Posted by: boingo at September 9, 2005 10:13 AM | Permalink

In case you didn't see it, Howard Kurtz answered me in his Media Notes column today, explaining his “Journalism seems to have recovered its reason for being...” observation.

Of course being "tough" isn't an end in and of itself. Just getting mad or yelling at people may make for good television, but it isn't necessarily good journalism. My point (and I say this during campaigns, wars and other major stories) is that journalists must hold those in authority accountable, and demonstrate (through reporting, not opinion) when they are misleading the public, and that there's nothing wrong with showing passion in this endeavor. This is harder and riskier than passive, he said/she said reporting. In the case of Katrina, the gap between what officials were saying and what journalists on the ground were seeing was so great that it spurred them on, but that approach need not fade with the storm's aftermath.

Also I did Hugh Hewitt's radio show and we talked about this post. Transcript. Excerpt:

JR: Well, when you say that the bureaucracy failed, I think that's too low a bar. That's a very low standard of intellect for a professional journalist.
HH: I agree.

JR: Because we have different bureaucracies, for one thing.

HH: I agree.

JR: And they are the creatures of different polities, or political communities. And so, responsibility has to be lodged in government. It also has to be lodged in the proper public.

Posted by: Jay Rosen at September 9, 2005 10:51 AM | Permalink

So how come you're not talking about the difference in the way things went down in Mississippi as opposed to Louisiana? Is there no story there for the media? Or is it because things basically went according to plan? It surely wasn't because Mississippi didn't get creamed. I can't help but think that ultimately this will all boil down to the fact that one state had a plan in place and stuck to it. The other state didn't.

Posted by: greg at September 9, 2005 12:35 PM | Permalink

It's going to be a textbook study in how government is supposed to work. Because if you don't have that understanding and you confront a mess of failures, what really are you going to see? Also, when something worked well and saved lives in Mississippi, but failed in Louisiana the effort to understand why is going to lead the investigation toward those who are responsible.

Bias hounds who think the journalistic question-asking won't go to Democratic officials and governments controlled by them are very wrong, and they misunderstand self-interest in journalism. Reporters love to indict bumbling city governments--Democrats of course included--with their reporting; given the chance, they will. It leads to prizes and reputations and the ego rewards are sky high. You think the Washington Post didn't want to nail Marion Berry?

Posted by: Jay Rosen at September 9, 2005 12:59 PM | Permalink

Sorry if I'm one of the tiresome ones, Jay.

But what happens when an important fact remains unreported by the media?
WHO is the LA director of Homeland Security? The person who was put in charge by Gov. Blanco's emergency decree? Isn't this director the person the press should be holding feet to the fire, FIRST?

Brendan Loy, the Irish Trojan, is the guy who was screaming about Katrina BEFORE it hit; with fantastic sat photos. And noting that it was always less than 50% likely to destroy N.O. Traffic overwhelmed his old site, here's his new backup.

When the press has the spine to hold the feet of powerful Dems to the fire, then I'll believe they have spine. Right now it looks more like Dem-press Bush bashing.

Yet Bush's clear imperfections are too tempting a target for those who want Unreal Perfection, and act like it's an alternative.

Steve, the FACTS will show LA got $1.9 billion from the feds (last 5 years); #2 CA got $1.4 billion -- there was plenty of money. LA / NO / Dem priorities made the choices of where that mostly-pork went.

Bush's biggest wimpiness is too MUCH tax-funded spending -- yet the Dems want to spend even more! (By punishing, er, taxing those who create jobs.)

Posted by: Tom Grey - Liberty Dad at September 9, 2005 1:09 PM | Permalink

Will FEMA etc. try to keep journalists away from embarrassing images and stories? From my own brief career in journalism and journalism education, I learned that this is the kind of question journalists find urgent.

As a FORMER journalist now doing something else, it comes across to me as a very 'in-house' question: rightfully important in a venue like PressThink, but not nearly as interesting to outsiders as it is to insiders, and a little disconnected from my own life.

Has journalism found its voice again? Another in-house question, appropriate for insiders but not particularly interesting to outsiders. Kurtz should be writing about that in PressThink or CJR (instead of Lovelady, whose leap to the language of genocide takes my respect for his work to new lows). Are American cars better now than in the eighties? I hear they are, but I wouldn't know for sure. I drive a Honda.

I watched a little TV coverage during and after Katrina (compared to none at all on a typical day), but learned very little. I spent my usual time working through a handful of well-linked blogs, generally on the right but also on the left, and learned a ton. In fact, I learned much more than my colleagues did who stuck to the usual publications and channels.

On-the-ground journalists are indispensable. High-quality analytical journalism is indispensable. But what I as a reader noticed AGAIN is how much I benefitted from my trusted 'managing editors', reporters, analysts, and ombudsmen in the blogosphere. With astonishing efficiency they continue to push the stories, ask the questions, and offer the perspective that matter most. The time I spend with them keeps reinforcing my sense that less than 1% of coverage is worth my attention, but that less-than-1% is well worth it. I have more of a desire to be informed than ever, but even less of a desire to become a regular viewer of cable news or a subscriber to a newspaper.

If my experience is representative in any way, then the implications for journalism and journalism institutions are pretty significant. How much will we pay for CrackerJacks if all we want is the little prizes inside and others are giving away just the prizes?

Journalistic practices and ethics seem to be finding homes beyond the borders of traditional journalistic institutions. Some of those new homes are stronger than many of the old ones. I don't begrudge discussions of whether Katrina turns into a coverup or catalyzes a revival of journalistic spirits, but the continuation of this trend seems to have more profound long-term consequences.

Posted by: Telford Work at September 9, 2005 2:22 PM | Permalink

what I as a reader noticed again is how much I benefitted from my trusted 'managing editors', reporters, analysts, and ombudsmen in the blogosphere...

I believe there are profound long-term consequences, and you have ID'd something important, Telford.

Top Five answers I hear back from the newsies and their crumudgeon corps, plus other skeptics:

* Well, Telford would say that--blogs inform me better than the press--because he's part of the two percent who reads blogs! Could it be he thinks blogs are superior because, like most of us, he thinks his choices are the right choices for others?

* Those blogs you depend on and trust, they link to news stories! Blogs depend on the raw information developed by the major media, they're parasitic, so what are you talking about? Come on, blogs are op-ed. How many do any reporting?

* "Yeah, but where are the ethics? Where are the standards? How do you know what you're reading? There are a lot of shady operators on the Internet, Jay. How can you trust it?"

* Bloggers won't take over. They can't afford foreign bureaus and hotel rooms and air tickets for reporters. Do you know how much it costs to have a correspondent in Baghdad?

* We're starting a blog soon. In fact there's going to be several in the newsroom. Do you have any suggestions? What should we blog about?

Posted by: Jay Rosen at September 9, 2005 2:50 PM | Permalink

Empathy and compassion, Mr. Rosen, for a moment, before journalistic professionalism.

Just for a moment, and even more, if at all possible.

Posted by: S. Harrell at September 9, 2005 3:00 PM | Permalink

Liberty Dad,
"Better than Bush" is a demand for unreal perfection?

Snort...drink went up my nose...cough...uncontrollable laughter through the tears...

Posted by: Mark Anderson at September 9, 2005 3:13 PM | Permalink

Out of curiousity, Jay, when you appeared on Hewitt's show and he said:

Again, I've got a proposition for you, because they [reporters] did not do their homework, because they did not understand the levees were the threat, they ended up killing hundreds of Americans. I'm not going to say thousands, because I don't know the number. But I know hundreds are dead, that they did not communicate the severity of this storm.

How did you keep from reaching across and throttling him? Though, by now, perhaps your inured to execrable drivel that reporters are to blame for killing thousands.

Posted by: Dave McLemore at September 9, 2005 3:49 PM | Permalink

Thanks for entertaining my question, Jay.

I think every one of those common answers from newsies, curmudgeons, and skeptics makes a valid point.

Yes, my demographic is self-selected rather than fully representative. But are we a fringe market or an emerging market? I think we are some of both, but more the latter than the former. A lot has happened in five years.

Yes, blogs depend on traditional journalism reporting. Not 100% of our sources are traditional journalists, but they dominate, and for good reason: the cream of that crop is very good, even unrivaled. But what I have started to notice is that very little of the crop is cream. This is a problem journalism institutions will need to address, because all that inferior product is very expensive to produce and irritating to audiences.

Berkshire's Warren Buffett likes businesses that have 'moats' competitors cannot cross. Journalism's moat is much wider where reporting is concerned than where analysis and commentary are concerned. There traditional journalism loses most of its advantage. Do I want to wade through the words of an army of undereducated reporters trying hard to understand the significance of an approaching hurricane before an approaching deadline, or do I want to click right to a Brendan Loy who happened to be able to connect these particular dots?

Because so much 'reporting' involves analysis, it means non-journalists are encroaching not only on editors' and editorialists' turf but on part of reporters' turf too. Their moat is narrower than it once was.

And some bloggers do gather data as well as interpret it. Much of those data are inferior; some are cream.

Yes, ethics and standards are uneven in the blog world. Quite uneven. But it is no secret to audiences that they are uneven in traditional journalism institutions as well. 'Journalism' describes alt weeklies, local television news, tendentious news magazines, cable networks, supermarket tabloids, and entertainment magazines as well as broadsheets and nightly network newscasts. These institutions have family resemblances but a wide variety of ethics and standards. Are these newsies forgetting that they themselves filter the credibility of these sources, trusting some a lot more than others? Do they really not believe that non-newsies can do the same, not only with traditional news sources but also with emerging news sources?

Yes, newsies are right that bloggers will not take over for career journalists. There is too much value in a fine journalist's career-long acquisition of skill, training, and wisdom. But this response misses my argument that the Internet has evolved a way for people like me to sift through their work and place it alongside the work of many others in ways that are superior to the old delivery systems of newscasts, newspapers, and magazines. A judiciously shaped diet of blogs and other Internet sources is less expensive, more efficient, and more informative. I think talented individual journalists still have bright futures. It is journalism institutions that are being most directly threatened.

I wonder if we are seeing a set of pressures that will force individual career journalists to reorganize themselves radically in order to support what they do. Maybe their institutions will end up looking less like a department store and more like a Costco. Or an Ebay. Who knows.

Finally, as for traditional journalism institutions starting blogs, that effort seems unlikely to succeed. It is as if Sears decided to start a 'store' on Ebay. I am more sanguine about the chances of individual career journalists, or colleges of journalists, starting successful blogs. But as this is (at best) an emerging market, there will still be too much money and audience in traditional institutions to woo many career journalists away. They will stay and do better even in declining institutions than they would otherwise. Though it is way too early to tell, I would not be surprised to see a new generation of journalists create a new set of news organizations that competes with, and might even supplant, the old ones.

No wonder your set of newsies' responses, considered together, reads as defensive rather than creative or constructive. Traditional journalism's brightest hope seems to be the possibility that I am describing a mere fringe or fad. Perhaps it is; I am not a blog triumphalist. But what if it's not? What if my way of getting the news is really better, not just for me but for a lot of news-hungry people?

Posted by: Telford Work at September 9, 2005 4:06 PM | Permalink

Telford Work:
You're coming in during the middle of this dance. The "language of genocide" isn't my hobby horse. It's Tom Grey's; I was just tweaking him on it. Tom and I go way back. He's accused me (and Jay!) of aiding and abetting genocide more than once, on other forums.

Jay: "Bias hounds who think the journalistic question-asking won't go to Democratic officials and governments controlled by them are very wrong, and they misunderstand self-interest in journalism. Reporters love to indict bumbling city governments--Democrats of course included--with their reporting; given the chance, they will. It leads to prizes and reputations and the ego rewards are sky high."

Exactly. In my years in Philadelphia, we did reporting that helped ship well over a dozen local officials -- city council members, deputy mayors, even municipal judges -- to Allenwood Federal Prison.
Because Philadelphia is Philadelphia -- voted 8-to-1 Democratic in 2004 -- every single one of those stumblebums was a Democrat.
Did we care if they were Democrats or Republicans? Not a whit. We cared that they were crooks, and proceeded accordingly.
I don't believe that our reporting ever sent a single Republican to jail -- not because Republican officeholders are especially honest, but because, in Philly, they're especially rare.

Posted by: Steve Lovelady at September 9, 2005 4:09 PM | Permalink

I didn't read the whole hysterical rant by Nora Gallagher (not wanting to subject myself to the oppressive LATimes registration process), but I do hope that Nora considers that NO and LA have been governed by Democrats since the mid-70's and will consider Democrat policies when she shrieks about how "poor people live and are treated in this country".

Posted by: paladin at September 9, 2005 4:19 PM | Permalink

Hey, aren't blogs vs. msm threads just as tiresome as bias threads?

Back on topic. Here's an excellent example of analytic mind at work:

But it took Hurricane Katrina to expose the real emptiness under the US carapace. No wonder governing Iraq was far beyond the competence of a nation so feebly governed within its own borders. How does a state where half the voters don't believe in government, run anything well? A nation ideologically and constitutionally committed to non-government is bound to crumble at the core. Rome had no doubts about governance.
What the great Louisiana catastrophe has revealed is a country that is not a country at all, but atomised, segmented individuals living parallel lives as far apart as possible, with nothing to unite them beyond the idea of a flag. The 40 million with no health insurance show the social dysfunction corroding US capacity. For the poor at the bottom of the New Orleans mud heap, there never was even the American dream to cling to. They always lived in another country.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,5281492-103390,00.html

Of course, the likelyhood that a CNN journo would use the word "carapace" is slim. Imagine if Keith Olberman had said that! As someone who lives in poverty with no health insurance and a big medical debt I think she hit the nail on the head! Fortunately I live right on the edge of the river, so when the time for my flood comes, I won't have to wait very long to be swept away. The waiting's the hardest part.

It doesn't matter if the journos can sustain their anger or not. The American public, as someone posted above, can only see suffering when it's in front of their faces. No pictures, no compassion. Now, if the media can sustain its newfound bravery in the face of public indifference to the core issues that led to this catastrophe, that would probably be different, but balancing a triangle on single vertice instead of a side probably isn't easy!

Posted by: boingo at September 9, 2005 4:28 PM | Permalink

Telford Work is so right. Those of us who rely on blogs for news knew last week what MSM only now "uncovers". Mainly, #1, GWB gave more to the Army Corp of Engineers for levee building than Bill Clinton, but for whatever reason (I hope we'll find out) LA chose to spend the money on other projects (a/k/a pork); that there are serious legal and constitutional issues we need to discuss regarding the "right" of the federal government to "invade" the states without invitation, even in an emergency.

The chain of command for a disaster like Katrina is thus: Mayor, NO Director of Homeland Security, Governor, Head of Homeland Security, POTUS.

I don't want to get into the bias wars here, because I don't believe the press has a "liberal bias", but when we see that the national press bypasses the local and state Democrats in order to bash Bush, this just feeds the beast.

The national press needs to be held accountable as to why they ignored the Constituion and basics of government and jumped to the bottom of accountability to blame POTUS.

Call me cynical, but those in the press blaming POTUS will not be punished, but probably promoted. Such is MSM today.

Posted by: kilgore trout at September 9, 2005 4:49 PM | Permalink

Steve Lovelady:

Very well. Dance the night away. Yet I read you as tweaking more than just Tom Grey, and I still suspect my original reading might be right:

So, just to be clear, "it fits right in" because the argument is as fallacious as the folder is bogus. You were being 100% ironic. You were acquitting the Bush Administration of the charge of racially motivated neglect in Louisiana. Right?

Because if you wanted to have it both ways -- to tweak the Bush Administration and Tom Grey in one stroke -- that wasn't the way to do it.

Posted by: Telford Work at September 9, 2005 5:04 PM | Permalink

How did you keep from reaching across and throttling him?

How? Well, whenever the culture war wants you to do something for truth, you do some other thing, and try to be equally truthful.

Doesn't work but then neither does any other method. In other circumstances, I would have tried to make fun of the charge. That works, if funny. But this would have meant joking about the dead in New Orleans, which I wasn't going to do.

Posted by: Jay Rosen at September 9, 2005 5:26 PM | Permalink

It ain't a tired trope, although I take your point that you are tired of hearing about it. It's a descriptive term for things that happen and have no logic other than culture war. "They ended up killing hundreds of Americans" is an example. To me that was culture war talking. It's a, "well, if you're gonna go with Bush lied, people died, why can't I say..." kinda statement. It's a low grade, ongoing, self-reproducing cycle of ugliness for which the term "war," used metaphorically, is not inaccurate. You're tired of it. But "it" doesn't care whether you get tired.

Posted by: Jay Rosen at September 9, 2005 5:54 PM | Permalink

Welcome back, Jay.

I think Jeff Jarvis statement that "“I think the best of it is that journalism knows it has not done its best. That is new.” sums it up... I am not sure how any media critic can laud journalism's performance on Katria thus far when 99 percent of the story is yet to come.

That story is not just what Jurkowitz says is "piecing together what happened", but asking the questions that you pose: what could be expected in the aftermath of such a disaster, what response should the public expect from the state, local, and federal government, what policy choices need to be made to elicit this reponse in the future?

I fear that Katrina is a singular event that posed an all too easily discernable truth (ie: nature) for journalists to hold up to rhetoric. The real test for journalism is when more time and effort are needed for sustained questioning and thinking without the immediate images of suffering to sustain it.

Posted by: Daniel Kreiss at September 9, 2005 7:51 PM | Permalink

Jay, by accepting the frame "culture war" people buy into the idea that "ideology" (the turf of the culture war) is a separate realm from proper politics. This in itself is an ideologically motivated move towards depoliticalization of the discourse. What people deride as "ideology" in the context of a "culture war" is actually its absence. That is why there is no base for analyses.

Posted by: boingo at September 9, 2005 8:50 PM | Permalink

Here's a comment from a consumer: I was not impressed by all the emotion displayed by people who evidently can't answer simple questions that viewers can think up. What happened to all the journalists who were not on the scene - back in the newsrooms? Why was it impossible for them to at least do Google or read the constitution - or for that matter, ask trenchant questions of the Governor or the Mayor (if you could find him). I quit watching after a while, wondering if my country was filled with whiners. Finally I figured out that the heros were out there saving other people while the "entitled" people stood around and chatted with the press. All the stories that will come out later will show many fewer dead because those people the Journalists couldn't find took care of themselves and other people.
No - you guys, especially Lovelady - are hopeless. I quit reading papers a year ago - now I'm off the TV too. Send some of these wonderful journalists to remedial ed to learn numeracy, constitutional law and a little history. By golly, if an old lady can look stuff up easily, I can't figure out why an entire organization can't.

Posted by: lyn at September 9, 2005 9:28 PM | Permalink

" ... but when we see that the national press bypasses the local and state Democrats in order to bash Bush, this just feeds the beast."
--Kilgore Trout

Fear not, Kilgore. As we said this afternoon on CJR Daily, after the Bush administration's own pinata, FEMA's clueless and hapless Michael Brown, was finally removed of operational authority on the ground and sent packing back to Washington:
"There's still plenty to investigate about what went wrong in the days before and after Katrina did its damage, and we trust that state and local officials will find their own culpability examined, just as FEMA's has been. From what we know so far, it's a grim story, and there aren't a lot of heroes.
"The search for accountability has only just begun; but it's been a very good beginning."

Posted by: Steve Lovelady at September 9, 2005 9:37 PM | Permalink

lyn: "Finally I figured out that the heros were out there saving other people while the 'entitled' people stood around and chatted with the press. All the stories that will come out later will show many fewer dead because those people the Journalists couldn't find took care of themselves and other people."

"Those people the journalists couldn't find" ??

lyn: Here's a clue for you: the journalists are exactly who found those people. The mayor, or the governor, or the head of FEMA, or the president sure as hell didn't "find" them. They were, each and every one of them, too busy covering their own asses.
The journailists got there far before any "first responders." (Isn't that odd ?)
If it weren't for the journalists, you wouldn't even know "those people" existed. You can bet your ass from here to Sunday that no one in charge of managing this fiasco would have told you about them.

Posted by: Steve Lovelady at September 9, 2005 10:02 PM | Permalink

Hello, hello. I am the helpless pinata of the MSM and bloggers. I don't know what's true or not. All I see are ideological warriors from various media, or different stripes.

Members of these tribes piss all over each other, and I don't know what it means. No one has offered me anything other than bile and bullshit.

I'm not alone. In fact, there are more of me than you. Yep, that means Kilgore, and Lovelady, and all of you. Wake up folks. You're losing us. This little blip after the emotional flood following Katrina is nice, but it won't boost ratings and circulation forever. You need more meat and less sizzle. And Lovelady, don't confuse steak with narcolepsy. I would care about something that mattered.

People are dead. A hurricane hit. Slap yourselves with a dose of Dixie beer and figure out what to do next. This whole spin-down-the-drain-blame-game thing is so pointless. Really.

Posted by: JennyD at September 9, 2005 10:17 PM | Permalink

Me for one.

This takes a bit; sorry. Background --

One of the things soldiers do when idle is sit around in bull sessions, and one of the most popular subjects of the bull sessions is fantasizing what they might do if they had a free hand. Nobody really expects that it will ever come to pass, and a goodly number (probably a majority) would be appalled if it did, but it's a way to while away the time. In my day it was a land invasion of North Viet Nam. Today --

My son, home on leave, tells me that the current milporn fantasy is "true for one year." That is, take all the lefty exaggerations, lies, misconstruals, and misconceptions, and really, truly make them Policy. Imperial ambitions, torturing prisoners, grabbing the oil; you know the lot. All true, for one year.

Oh, and "targeting journalists". Under "true for one year" the NYT would have a complete change of personnel within a month -- it would take that long to get around to it, after purging CNN.

I don't think you, or journalists, have any really clear idea of just how much the troops on the ground, in Iraq and Afghanistan especially, hold you in genuine contempt. And I'm quite sure you have no feel for how many people there are who have done their year in the "sandbox". I don't think George Bush much gives a damn whether you take pictures of bodies or not; it's clear that what you want is to drag the corpses into a mound, so you can kick their faces climbing up to shout "I hate George Bush!" more effectively, and he (and I) know what the reaction is likely to be. But the troops --

I find the story ami quoted quite believable, even reasonable, especially if you keep in mind that the female cop described might well have done her turn Over There, and in any case associates regularly with people who have -- the Guard and Reserves include a lot of law enforcement officers. The "federal government", the "military authorities", and Bush's appointees won't stop you from going in, but the soldiers might try. They'll get punished for it, and they know that, but they'll try anyway.

Journalists, while you're combing the suburbs of Metairie and the low terrain north of downtown searching for exactly the right combination of youth, decomposition, worms feeding, etc., to capture and use to attract that Pulitzer, I'd advise you to keep in the back of your mind that it's very likely that the young fellow in the green suit over there doesn't much distinguish between you and somebody with a raft full of plasma TVs, and may consider the bald-faced looter morally superior. He's almost certainly well-trained enough that he won't shoot you. Almost certainly.

Regards,
Ric

Posted by: Ric Locke at September 9, 2005 11:25 PM | Permalink

Between Gov. Blanco stationing her National Guard to wall off the overpass (concomitantly leading the State HS Dir. to deny the Red Cross and Salvation Army any Superdome/Conv. Ctr. relief access), and yesterday's revelation that Gretna LEOs shut down the Crescent twin bridges (the only other route out of the city), in retrospect, Pres. Bush *should* have invoked the Insurrection Act...if only to remove the Democrat hacks in Baton Rouge and Gretna that together blocked the only two means of egress for at least 100,000 people from a flooded New Orleans.

Time consistently has had a way of vindicating the President...as neither the Governor (Blanco 731,358 - Jindal 676,484) nor the Senator (Landrieu 642,974 - Terrell 603,160) can abide the loss of 100,000 'gahr-on-teed' votes. At least Houston's Mayor White can smile...the only Democrat in the region who has his act together can look forward to his next landslide on Nov. 8 increased by, oh, 100,000 votes...

Posted by: Stan at September 10, 2005 12:02 AM | Permalink

"My son, home on leave, tells me that the current milporn fantasy is "true for one year." That is, take all the lefty exaggerations, lies, misconstruals, and misconceptions, and really, truly make them Policy. Imperial ambitions, torturing prisoners, grabbing the oil; you know the lot. All true, for one year."

Like father, like son.

Posted by: boingo at September 10, 2005 12:26 AM | Permalink

This came in the mail from a reader with an edu address. I thought it was very smart.

Don't you think there's a huge psychological element in the whole issue of a respectful versus a 'checking' or 'questioning' press? If that's true, then given the law that human psychology is incredibly complex and tricky (not much of a law, I know), then other possibilities besides spine-growth suggest themselves. For instance, reporters might feel all the more comfortable going back to their old ways having demonstrated their bona fides regarding Katrina.

There was a "wow, I just held someone's feet to the fire... that felt good... I may want to do that again... In fact, I'm sure I'm going to try it again..." quality about some of the Q and A work I saw.

Posted by: Jay Rosen at September 10, 2005 12:55 AM | Permalink

Mark Anderson,

I do assure you that I knew that already.

My purpose was merely to let you know that there is a large, and growing, class of people who are active contributors rather than passive consumers, and whose direct and repeated experience of your profession is that they should be grateful when you show yourself merely clueless. In their view, on the more usual occasion you are not content to lie like a rug, preferring to lie like a dead pig, useless, noisome, obstructive, and impossible to shift or pass without Herculean effort.

The profession of journalism appears to have concluded long ago that their duty is not merely to tell "who what when where" but to explain what it all means. In recent years that last mission has come to overtop the other, and you seem well on the way to completely discarding the process of mere reporting as useless, dispensible, and beneath your dignity. Your sacred duty to lay the meaning of events before a public deemed grateful for your condescension leaves you with no need whatever to actually describe the events.

There remains the vulgar necessity of selling double-truck brassiere ads and condom commercials, because somebody has to finance your activities. Having already declared your readers and viewers to be contemptible slugs of no discernable intelligence, you conclude that that's easy: "If it bleeds, it leads". Thus your ghoulish fascination with corpses. In this case you get a twofer. Bloated rotten bodies are just bound to hold the attention of the slack-jawed, drooling idiots while you explain, in words of few syllables, just what it all means, now aren't they?

Check your circulation figures for how well the strategy is working, overall. I leave you with an aphorism: Opinions are like farts. It's the other fellow on the elevator whose emissions are intolerably disgusting.

Posted by: Ric Locke at September 10, 2005 2:53 AM | Permalink

Ric: Mark's profession is higher education. His website says: "I teach Japanese media, popular culture, and intellectual history at the University of Minnesota as my day job." Don't you think it would be worth a click to find out?

The "you" you are addressing here isn't clear to me. Nor is it clear to me why you think the people you are addressing are here. I don't pass along messages to Paul Krugman, or Daily Kos, or Brian Williams, or Juan Cole, or Joe Biden, or Al Franken. Who's the you?

Posted by: Jay Rosen at September 10, 2005 3:26 AM | Permalink

Jay,

Perhaps you should consider it illustrative of the fact that your basic thesis is correct: it's a culture clash, not a matter of "bias". I'm on the other side.

I know enough of your, and Mark's, culture to realize that from your viewpoint your objection is well-founded. Do you understand enough of my culture to realize that, from where I sit, it has strong elements of Appeal to Irrelevant Authority? Or are you gently chiding me for impertinence, suggesting that I should 'old me 'at in me 'and and murmur "yassuh, Doctah Anderson" with modestly downcast eyes when he chooses to grace me with his pontifications?

You style your blog "Press Think", and your subject is the motivations and activities of the Press. Mark's expressed opinions on that subject range from exculpation to commendation of journalism as it is currently practiced. I don't, as a general rule, note the names of commenters in such threads, preferring to see them as expressions of opinion within the context of the current discussion; it simply happened that his post was short enough that his name was prominent, and the sentiment expressed was sufficiently derogatory to elicit a comment from me.

From my side of the divide, those wearing the uniform, flying the flag, and shouting the slogans of the opposition can be difficult to distinguish one from the other. Your blog does not allow commenters to edit their previous posts (a practice I approve). Presumably you have that power; if so, you have my permission to alter my comment. Search-and-replace all instances of "journalist" and cognate terms with "academic" and the like. The result won't be exactly what I would have written, but will be close enough to be well within the current practice of journalism as I now perceive it.

Posted by: Ric Locke at September 10, 2005 11:26 AM | Permalink

The journailists got there far before any "first responders." (Isn't that odd ?)

No. First responders need more than just to show up one by one with camera crews and an appalled OUTRAGE(tm). It really isn't that odd that some CNN guy can fly in there before rescue efforts can take hold. It's actually quite odd to suggest otherwise.

The coverage showed what the press is really good at--capturing the sense of chaos. And what it is really bad at--getting answers and providing perspective in the heat of the moment. New Orleans wasn't just in hurricane alley, it was in spin alley too.

Posted by: Brian at September 10, 2005 11:27 AM | Permalink

Mr. Alvaro R. Morales Villa made this outstanding photoreportage of 5 DAYS of New Orleans and Katrina, when it started to flood (it wasnt in first day...), looting police and recover

197 timeline photos

http://www.kodakgallery.com/
Slideshow.jsp?mode=fromshare&conn_speed
=1&Uc=11f8dl9z.4nk5zpvf&Uy=vhxvcl&Ux=1

This were his comments about media that he contacted.

Photo 182
"I don't know her name, but she works for MSNBC. My apologies for my wordage, but this wench didn't know what the hell was going on. She made up 75% of what she was saying and exaggerated about 95% of everything that she did know. The message: do you want to be a reporter? All you need to do is have a pretty face and buy a Thesaurus!"

Photo 183
"Mr. Brian Williams... you know, I've always been a fan of news reporters. After this "event", however, I'm a lot more skeptical about what they say." (...)

Posted by: LL at September 10, 2005 11:57 AM | Permalink

Ric: I'm sorry, but I simply don't understand what you're saying. I asked you, Ric Locke, to whom does the "you" in these sentences refer, and what makes you, Ric, think that "you" is here to address? I quote:

...you seem well on the way to completely discarding the process of mere reporting as useless, dispensible, and beneath your dignity. Your sacred duty to lay the meaning of events before a public deemed grateful for your condescension leaves you with no need whatever to actually describe the events. Having already declared your readers and viewers to be contemptible slugs of no discernable intelligence, you conclude that that's easy: "If it bleeds, it leads." Thus your ghoulish fascination with corpses.

Who's the you, Ric, and what makes you think they are here, at PressThink? Because my blog has the word "press" in it I deserve to be your target?

Now I pointed out that the "you" isn't likely to be Mark Anderson. His profession isn't journalism, it's academics. On top of that he isn't a defender of the press, at all-- 90 percent of his comments here are critical of journalists from the Chomsky-inspired left (my characterization, not his); and, knowing Mark, he would be as disgusted and cynical about "If it bleeds, it leads" as you are. So I really don't get it.

If your point is, newspaper reporters, networks news producers, college professors, press critics, who cares? They're all "left," they're all responsible for what I hate, they're all detested by the people I trust, and they're all going down... why should we respect that? That's like walking into someone's house and taking a shit.

If you really really really want to tell journalists in the big media how much they're despised, I would kindly ask that you don't use my blog's conversation thread to do it. The American Society of Newspaper Editors meets in April every year at the JW Mariott in Washington DC. You'd be better of standing in the lobby with a sign or something.

Posted by: Jay Rosen at September 10, 2005 1:53 PM | Permalink

Ric Locke,
Can you please point to a single aspect of "all true for one year" that is not already in effect?

What civil rights are left for removal? The president can already indefinitely imprison anyone, foreign or American, simply on his word with secret evidence and no legal process. Forever. Or until the Bush dictatorship leaves office.

Did the media invent "special renditions"? Did the media invent the Gonzalez memo? Did the media invent US protection of the Iraqi oil wells, the oil ministry, and NOTHING ELSE--while WMD (plastic explosives and uranium) were looted and Baghdad was razed to the ground?

You were entitled to your personal opinion in support of military dictatorship under the US constitution until Bush's coup d'etat made it irrelevant. Now it's just a question of you and your personal status as a "friend of George." Good luck.

Posted by: Mark Anderson at September 10, 2005 4:54 PM | Permalink

Getting back to hurricanes and press:

There's a lot in this post about reporters trusting their own eyes and having the courage to report what they see. Okay, I buy that.

But now there are some reports that things aren't maybe as bad as reporters saw. The bodycount, which everyone (reporters, officials) said would be high, might not be so high. So who actually saw bodies? Reporters did, sure. And folks in town, who reported seeing bodies to reporters. But how many bodies is a lot? I mean, if a reporter saw four bodies, does that mean there are "bodies everywhere"?

Some of the outrage was mayeb that reporters have never seen bodies, and it's disturbing. But the reporter's disturbance doesn't change the scope of the tragedy, just the reporter's perspective. So what we hear from the TV report is emotion, and the reporter's perspective on what he sees, which may be completely out of context in terms of what really is.

Then there's the Convention Center. I heard horror stories about rapes and children being murdered, and all that. But now the police chief is saying that some of these stories aren't true. But I heard them reported. Did the reporter see them? Did the reporter just pass along a rumor? If a reporter was outraged about something that turned out to be a rumor, is it really news? Does it change the scope of the disaster?

I wonder if reporters aren't, maybe, unused to seeing tragedy. This looked terrible because it is, but perhaps the reporters' reactions were overblown. We might applaud them if their overblownness matched our own view.

I had a hunch that the media hysteria would give way to facts that were less outrageous. And it seems to be happening. I don't care either way, but I think for the press, it presents a problem.

Posted by: JennyD at September 10, 2005 5:18 PM | Permalink

From CJR Daily:

There's still plenty to investigate about what went wrong in the days before and after Katrina did its damage, and we trust that state and local officials will find their own culpability examined, just as FEMA's has been.

I don't see much sign of this extended examination, myself. Go check out the front page piece on today's New York Times' website: "Disarray Marked the Path From Hurricane to Anarchy." The lede describes Louisiana Governor Blanco as "blistering mad" that there were too few buses available to evacuate those stranded at the Superdome and the Convention Center. In fact, the first three paragraphs of the article deal with the issue of the missing buses. Yet nowhere in the article (which is quite lengthy) is there even a mention of the hundreds of NOPSI buses and New Orleans school buses which were left by the City of New Orleans to flood on low ground.

The Times manages to recognize how important the buses were. Paragraph 3 of the article even states that the buses "were an obvious linchpin for evacuating [the] city." Yet the Times manages to completely ignore the flooded bus story, which has been all over the blogs for days, complete with aerial photographs that include both the Superdome and a parking lot full of flooded buses less than a mile and a half away.

Now, I could go all sarcastic and snarky and draw my own conclusions, but in this case, under this set of horrible facts, I don't give a flying flip about the point-scoring. I want to know how the heck we can fix the problems that contributed to this disaster when the press won't even report what they are.

Posted by: JEK at September 10, 2005 5:44 PM | Permalink

I've been a little busy, so I haven't read all those blogs. Did all those blogs also mention how exactly local officials were supposed to contact all those drivers for all those buses? Many people with access to transportation had already left by Sunday. Katrina's winds knocked out the phones and the cell service was worthless. There was no power and no way to get to the buses, which flooded out Monday after the levee broke.

Let's remember that, inititally, planners and local government officials thought they'd dodged the bullet with Katrina. The extra 45-miles or so to the east was enough, they hoped, to spare the city. Than the water started spilling over the Pontchatrain levee. Then two more broke.

Things don't always go smoothly in a disaster. I'll grant you, the photo of flooded buses was certainly dramatic. But to see it as proof of governmental malfeasance or the media's rush to judgment seems, well, an unfounded rush to judgment.

As for the reporting on the bodies, JennyD. By definition, news reporting is fluid. You go with the best information you have from the best sources available at the time. That's particularly true in a disaster as chaotic and widespread as Katrina.

My hope certainly is that the death count is lower than earlier reported. But since the reports you cite involve only a search of the streets the army can get through and don't include the areas where the water hasn't receded and doesn't include a more thorough search of homes and businesses that were underwater, we'll have to wait to judge who was premature in the death count.

Posted by: Dave McLemore at September 10, 2005 6:40 PM | Permalink

Dave -- I am sorely tempted to debate you on the bus situation, but I would like to avoid a tit-for-tat here on Jay's forum. I am more interested to know: Do you think that the Times article represents an "able, disinterested, public-spirited press, with trained intelligence to know the right and courage to do it," as Joseph Pulitzer envisioned?

Jay -- How would you evaluate this article? I am especially interested in your take on the lede. Do J-Schools usually teach writers to take the POV of one of the key players in an investigative piece? How would this article be any different if it were written by Gov. Blanco's defense counsel?

Posted by: Neuro-conservative at September 10, 2005 9:21 PM | Permalink

Dave McLemore says:

Did all those blogs also mention how exactly local officials were supposed to contact all those drivers for all those buses? Many people with access to transportation had already left by Sunday. Katrina's winds knocked out the phones and the cell service was worthless. There was no power and no way to get to the buses, which flooded out Monday after the levee broke.

C'mon, the whole Times article is about the failure of emergency planning. Has anyone in the press asked whether the local officials of this below-sea-level city, which is threatened by hurricanes from June through November of every single year, had any kind of plan for moving its buses to high ground BEFORE the levee broke, while the hurricane was still out in the Gulf? Or for arranging IN ADVANCE to have drivers (maybe Louisiana National Guard or other emergency personnel who stay behind) on stand-by to drive the buses for emergency evacuation when a hurricane is forecasted to hit New Orleans?

If the city didn't have such plans, has anyone in the press asked why not? And if the city did plan ahead, has anyone in the press asked why the plans weren't followed?

You tell me. Are these questions unreasonable? Does the public have no interest in answers to questions like this? Do they have no place in this very long article by the Times, which emphasizes the importance of buses for emergency evacuation? And if they are valid questions, when is the press going to start asking them? It's stunning to me that pictures like this would surface, and NOBODY wants to ask any questions about them.

Actually, I'm trying really hard not to rush to judgment. I don't believe I have anywhere near the facts needed to arrive at any judgment. I'm just wondering whether I ever will get enough facts to make something approaching a fair appraisal.

Maybe there are good answers to the questions I'm asking. Maybe somewhere, someone in the press has asked these questions, and I missed the report. If so, I'd appreciate a heads-up.

Posted by: JEK at September 10, 2005 11:15 PM | Permalink

Of course, the wingnut hermeneutic that focuses on the interpretation of images of idle busses is actually a will to ignorance. Know-nothing. We need to suppress the images of dead bodies in favor of images of bus caracasses. The forensics of immobile minds.

Posted by: boingo at September 10, 2005 11:30 PM | Permalink

Jenny: What is the more likely pattern? That things when fully checked out confirm the story we got in the first days and weeks, or that things when fully checked out fit almost none of the "original" narrative from the first days and weeks?

I say none of the crude story lines some are so hot about now will survive further investigation and patient analysis. We should not get upset when they crash. That's just the sound of finding out. The story of the response, when we know more of it, will turn out to be very different than the journalism done during the response.

If that is the normal pattern, then each time some impression hastily built, or ideologically convenient comes crashing down, it's not an occasion for a screed, or even very notable, but just the normal way polities (publics) nations learn when they have only messy, incompetent but all-ya-got institutions. Like journalism. Like electoral politics. Like bureaucracy.

Is any one of us really going to be surprised when guys in their boats with strong arms turn out to be the most effective rescuers, not governments, with their billions? And when the journalist taps out the familiar lines, "... and the irony, experts say, is that private citizens in their boats were the ones who..." will it ring true?

Posted by: Jay Rosen at September 10, 2005 11:37 PM | Permalink

Guys, we're not two weeks into the storm that wreaked disaster across a region the size of Great Britain. The reporting is far from over. Why this rush to 'understand' why the entire story has yet been told.

That said, there has been reporting on the the local disaster plan and there's been reporting looking at the action of governors and mayors, as well as the feds. That reporting isn't finished either.

which is, I believe, what Jay just said, and which is my point. This story is just now starting to unfold.

Posted by: Dave McLemore at September 11, 2005 12:46 AM | Permalink

As I see you have determined, the "you" in my screed is the exemplary or practicing journalist. You, Jay Rosen, are a teacher of journalists and a theorist of journalism. Do you suppose that what you teach and theorize has no effect upon the practice on the ground? But in future comments, if any, I shall attempt to respect your elevation above the fray.

So far as I am aware I don't hate anybody. There are a goodly number of folk I despise, but I neither have nor wish the power to do anything about it other than not contributing to their welfare. I don't watch the TV news when I can help it; I don't buy the newspapers; and when I have the choice I don't buy the stuff they advertise. I have no intention of going farther than that, even if I were able to do so.

In the matter of Mark Leonard, I of course respect your opinion. I do note, however, that Mark has posted prominently on his website, and endorsed, an essay by E. L. Doctorow purporting to be a polemic against the person and character of George W. Bush. The screed fails utterly in its purpose because Mr. Doctorow makes assumptions which are utterly invalid. (For example, George Bush does not hate poor people, and you have no notion whether he feels compassion for them or not. He does not promote or endorse the measures you prefer because he regards them (as do I) as somewhere between "ineffective" and "criminal assault". He does not emote about them in public because his culture (which is also mine) regards people who do so as villainous opportunists promoting their own egoes. The rest is in the same vein.) The result is that the polemic's supposed target feels nothing -- it might as well be addressed to some tentacled octopoid on a planet far away.

Directly addressing Mark: the power you suppose George Bush has arrogated has existed for some time. Abraham Lincoln, for instance, suspended the right of habeas corpus against some thousands of Southerners, imprisoned them, and confiscated their property. I have a great deal of difficulty sympathizing with you in this matter, having lived a good bit of my life listening to relatives and neighbors complaining about "the Lincoln dictatorship" on precisely the same grounds. Otherwise --

Did the media invent "special renditions"?

No, but I find the complaint curous in the light of other advocacy. You presumably endorse the notion of "cultural relativism", which holds that people's actions and attitudes must be considered nonjudgementally against their cultural background. "Special rendition" simply places the person to be interrogated squarely within the culture from which he comes, thus comporting precisely with your stated ideals. It is, in fact, exactly what you demand. Whence the objection?

Did the media invent the Gonzalez memo?

No, but the poisonous (and largely nonsensical) interpretation of it you appear to endorse is pretty much their creation.

Did the media invent US protection of the Iraqi oil wells, the oil ministry, and NOTHING ELSE--while WMD (plastic explosives and uranium) were looted and Baghdad was razed to the ground?

WTF? There were no WMD; you and the media have been banging with that hammer since summer of '03. How can the nonexistent be looted? And there was certainly no uranium -- Joe Wilson says so, and he found out at a cocktail party, so his word cannot be doubted. As for "razed to the ground" and "protecting the oil wells", I do hope you never accuse me of hyperbole. There was a great deal of looting, and the military didn't do enough to stop it, being shorthanded, overextended, and possessing the Pollyannaish expectation that the Baghdad cops might hang around for a bit. You clearly have no experience of oil wells whatever, so the other part is simply laughable.

It's always interesting to read a missive that disproves itself by its very existence. Why aren't you in jail, Mark? Any self-respecting dictatorship would have slung you in the slammer in a heartbeat.

Posted by: Ric Locke at September 11, 2005 1:06 AM | Permalink

boingo,

We need to suppress the images of dead bodies in favor of images of bus caracasses.

This obsession with showing pictures of bodies says some things about you and its other advocates that you might prefer to suppress, yourself.

The Press's specific rationale for doing so is that that is the only way they can drive home the gravity of the situation. In bald terms, they expect that pictures of drowned children will so titillate their audience that they will stay, immobile in slack-jawed amazement, to listen to the screed.

I have handled dead bodies, including drowning victims. I find it inexpressibly sad, and I weep for the loss of the irreplaceable person who once animated that slab of meat, but I do not find them titillating in any way. I am certainly not going to stare raptly at bloat, rot, and crawling maggots while the voice-over tells me how awful it all is, and I'm damn sure not going to search out the experience.

The fact that you confidently expect the audience to do so says worlds about you and the audience both. Jay will quite properly chastise me if I actually write the words.

Posted by: Ric Locke at September 11, 2005 1:24 AM | Permalink

Jay & Dave --

The NY Times article runs to nearly 5000 words, and is the lead Front Page article of the Sunday edition of the newspaper of record, two weeks after the fact. Yet it reads like a brief from the Governor's office.

To what standard should it be held? Dave claims that the role of state and local leaders has also been examined, but this NY Times profile of Gov. Blanco is almost cringe-worthy in its puffy superficiality.

Even putting aside the bias argument, it is sad that the amount of usable information/context provided by these articles is so miniscule compared to that provided by equivalent word-counts on some of the top blogs. As a first approximation, I would say the following analogy might apply: Blogosphere:NYTimes::NYTimes:Geraldo.

Posted by: Neuro-conservative at September 11, 2005 1:43 AM | Permalink

"I say none of the crude story lines some are so hot about now will survive further investigation and patient analysis...The story of the response, when we know more of it, will turn out to be very different than the journalism done during the response." - Jay, above.

I agree wholeheartedly. The early story, promulgated loudly by much of our dominant media, pointed the finger largely at Federal organizations that our press friends attached closely to President Bush. We learn increasingly that local and State officials may end up more directly responsible for the suffering that reporters and viewers saw.

But the difference here is the mistaken first stories were shouted loudly, while the follow-up corrections typically aren't so loud. I suppose it's another coincidence that the former hurt the man for whom our dominant media has such ideological antipathy, while the latter could be more harmful to their political allies (if heard).

Posted by: Trained Auditor at September 11, 2005 3:16 AM | Permalink

I agree with you -- this is a massive story, with a geographical scope 90,000 square miles beyond the City of New Orleans, and there's been nowhere near enough time for complete investigation and reporting of the governmental response, much less for drawing of conclusions.

But from where I sit, as a consumer of news, it appears that there is little media energy being directed to state and local deficiencies that may have contributed to the disaster. The Times piece, which I'm assuming was intended to provide the beginning of objective analysis after the initial crisis has passed (which is what the Times normally does), has a big, gaping hole in it where this reporting should have been.

I realize that it's only two weeks since the storm. I also realize that, in this country, far too many storylines get set in stone within two days, and never seem to budge thereafter.

One thing about it, we'll all get to see how the coverage develops. There either will be the same level of scrutiny brought to bear on all three levels of government, or there won't. My own preference would be for the press to investigate with the intensity of a plaintiff's lawyer with a billion-dollar complaint in his pocket and three potential defendants in his sights. I have zero interest in shielding the feds from scrutiny (just in case that needs saying), but I feel no inclination to excuse state and local officials, either.

Posted by: JEK at September 11, 2005 10:00 AM | Permalink

Neuro: I agree that the profile is a superficial article. Other than offering the basic story of how she rose to be the gov--standard profile material--it has nothing to recommend it. Whether you call it puff or fluff makes little difference, I think. Note how the headline is a string of cliched words, "The Embattled Leader of a Storm-Battered State Immersed in Crisis."

Why is it like that? There's no one answer and no "right" ansswer to that. Mine would be: It's like that because of the nature of the assignment: this was a "call up a range of sources and ask them what they think of the governor" story, which anyone on the staff can do in a day or two. By the rules of journalism it can't say much because the reporter has no independent source of information, only what sources say.

My guess is that some editor on the national desk said, "Who is this women who defied the President's request to take over control of the national guard? Let's find out." And he ordered up a standard on-the-fly profile.

But I would caution you, neuro: in evaluating the Times, it's the run of Katrina aftermath coverage that matters, not this or that article.

Let me ask you: why do you care so much about what the New York Times says? Is it because you depend so heavily on it for your information? Is it because you think the Times is very powerful? Is it because you don't depend on it, or think it so powerful, but think others do? Is it because the Times is the flagship, the leading symbol of the national press, and so what it does says something about the press as a whole? Is it because the Times is the exemplar of a liberal newspaper and when bias hunting you go where the ducks are? Why do you care?

Posted by: Jay Rosen at September 11, 2005 11:26 AM | Permalink

The big 5,000 word article begins with what is called a "feaure lead," as against a "hard news" lead. This means a little story that is supposed to stand for part of the larger story to come, but not summarize the essential facts, which are too complicated to capture in a first paragraph:

The governor of Louisiana was "blistering mad." It was the third night after Hurricane Katrina drowned New Orleans, and Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco needed buses to rescue thousands of people from the fetid Superdome and convention center. But only a fraction of the 500 vehicles promised by federal authorities had arrived.
Ms. Blanco burst into the state's emergency center in Baton Rouge. "Does anybody in this building know anything about buses?" she recalled crying out.

To me, that shows a governor out her depth and overwhelmed. If some of you read that passage as a press release from the governor's office I cannot help that, nor do I have anything to say on it. People are dying; she's the chief executive of the state but knows nothing about getting busses, and in fact failed to get them.

The summary (news lead) for what the story found is this, not a simple "blame Bush" story line:

The fractured division of responsibility - Governor Blanco controlled state agencies and the National Guard, Mayor Nagin directed city workers and Mr. Brown, the head of FEMA, served as the point man for the federal government - meant no one person was in charge. Americans watching on television saw the often-haggard governor, the voluble mayor and the usually upbeat FEMA chief appear at competing daily news briefings and interviews.
The power-sharing arrangement was by design, and as the days wore on, it would prove disastrous. Under the Bush administration, FEMA redefined its role, offering assistance but remaining subordinate to state and local governments. "Our typical role is to work with the state in support of local and state agencies," said David Passey, a FEMA spokesman.

With Hurricane Katrina, that meant the agency most experienced in dealing with disasters and with access to the greatest resources followed, rather than led.

To me that says: Power sharing, and an unclear division of responsibility proved disastrous in a crisis. The Bush Administration, putting into practice its policy of federalism, counted on state and local governments to act first, and they failed. State and local government counted on the Feds to step in and they failed. Inability to communicate over normal lines made it a lot worse. Again, if you find that's a "blame Bush" observation I cannot help you. My reading is not yours.

My prediction: the busses will become the culture war's (and blogging's) flash point for the story, with everyone trying to prove their "side" innocent and the other side guilty of screwing up. And in that game every single fact will be distored while lying by omission will be standard practice.

Posted by: Jay Rosen at September 11, 2005 12:16 PM | Permalink

Kudos to Tim Russert ("Meet the Press") and Chris Wallace ("Fox News Sunday") for showing the picture of the flooded buses on the air today and asking New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin and Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu, respectively, what the explanation was. Those who saw the programs and/or read the transcripts can decide for themselves whether the responses given were anything close to adequate. But at least the press, in the persons of Russert and Wallace, asked the question, and I give them credit for it.

I haven't watched the other Sunday shows, so I don't know what, if anything, they are reporting on this story. But I hope that the MTP and FNS interviews are the start of the extended examination of the state and local response that CJR Daily and Dave McLemore expect. Nothing would please me more than to have my own expectations unfulfilled.

Posted by: JEK at September 11, 2005 12:17 PM | Permalink

Jay, I think you're right, that the hot story lines won't pan out, but others will. And the better journalists will find the stories that will last, and will tell us more about what really happened.

As for the Times, you know, there are some cilnkers amidst their great stories. Like the governor story. But check the story on Page One today about New Orleans victims in Utah. It is hilarious. I have relatives in Utah, and boy does this piece ring true.

The thing that disturbs me is that the hurricane narrative went like this: Terrible Cat 5 storm, eases to Cat 4, veers slightly away from NO, we're lucky and everyone relaxes because things are MUCH better than we thought, oh no it's flooding and things are MUCH worse than we thought.

The truth is probably that things were never as good or as bad as the media said. But they get a lot of mileage out of hysteria. Is that a flaw of the media? I don't know.

But I find this whole thread fascinating.

Posted by: JennyD at September 11, 2005 12:18 PM | Permalink

I never understood and still don't understand why the President's supporters and friends weren't more alarmed by the Bush bubble, the doctine of White House infallability, and the criticism that the President is insulated from facts that discomfort his story line.

These charges, if true, always signaled a disaster-in-the-making for Republicans-- an out of touch CEO who thinks he is in touch is going to make some big, possibly fatal mistakes. Anyone with experience in corporate life or the military should know that.

Pretending that the bubble was all an invention of journalists or disgruntled insiders was astoundingly complacent. I still find it amazing that those who wanted the President to succeed weren't more worried about it.

Here is Mike Allen, formerly a White House correspondent for the Washington Post, now with Time, in the new issue:

In addition, former aides say there has always been enormous pressure on White House officials to take only the most vital decisions to Bush and let the bureaucracy deal with everything else. Bush does not appear to tap sources deep inside his government for information, the way his father or Bill Clinton did, preferring to get reports through channels. A highly screened information chain is fine when everything is going well, but in a crisis it can hinder. Louisiana officials say it took hours for Governor Kathleen Babineaux Blanco to reach Bush (although when she did, he talked to her soothingly, according to White House officials). "His inner circle takes pride in being able to tell him 'everything is under control,' when in this case it was not," said a former aide. "The whole idea that you have to only burden him with things 'that rise to his level' bit them this time."
A related factor, aides and outside allies concede, is what many of them see as the President's increasing isolation. Bush's bubble has grown more hermetic in the second term, they say, with fewer people willing or able to bring him bad news—or tell him when he's wrong.

That's the "inside" story that interests me, and if I were a Republican it would alarm me even now because it's going to be a factor in whether Bush recovers.

Posted by: Jay Rosen at September 11, 2005 12:45 PM | Permalink

Ric Locke,
You're so upset with the media that in your excitement you've changed my name!

I agree with you that Lincoln did impose a military dictatorship on the South. Your attitude is that turnabout is fair play. In other words, the South has declared war on the North once again and is making the North pay. I agree with you that the current political situation in the US is essentially Southern revenge served cold. The South HAS risen again and this time the carpetbaggers come from the South and are getting theirs.

Revenge is not a very impressive argument for political tyranny, but I appreciate your honesty. It's hard to blame Northern resentment over Southern military dictatorship on the media or unAmerican attitudes, but you do.

I'm not a cultural relativist, so just as with your polemics vis-a-vis Jay, you are projecting the fantasy you claim to be struggling with. You are not addressing me, Mark Leonard. Hard to blame that on the media, but you do.

Here is the link for the uranium looting. You're right that it was inaccurate for me to refer to it as WMD. It was not enriched enough to be used in a bomb, but it was radioactive enough to poison the neighborhood. Hard to blame that on the media, but you do.

You insultingly play stupid when it comes to Joe Wilson. One of the reasons he and everyone else with passing knowledge of the state of intelligence on Iraq was suspicious of the ridiculous play given the Niger uranium story by the Cheney gang was that EVERYONE knew Iraq already had hundreds of tons of UNENRICHED uranium in country. They didn't need any from Niger. Joe Wilson said no uranium FROM NIGER had gone to Iraq. You don't make sense. Again. Hard to blame that on the media, but you do.

The US army was shorthanded in Iraq by design. Donald Rumsfeld's ignorance is not an act of God. He was warned but he knew better. Hard to blame that on the media, but you do.

As for my ignorance of oil wells, tell it to the Pentagon:
CorpWatch:
"The US military has drawn up detailed plans to secure and protect Iraq's oilfields to prevent a repeat of 1991 when President Saddam set Kuwait's wells ablaze. The US state department and Pentagon disclosed the preparations during a meeting in Washington before Christmas with members of the Iraqi opposition parties."

It is hard to avoid the conclusion that you avoid media accounts of the world as they refuse to stop making sense in the way you do. I can understand the Media's feelings up the thread, when she expresses her relief that you don't believe her.

Posted by: Mark Leonard at September 11, 2005 1:34 PM | Permalink

Jay --

We are indeed reading the article in two different ways, perhaps not surprisingly as we have different hobby horses. How does the average citizen (I know, no such thing, but I mean people without strongly held views on the press or on the key players) read it? Unfortunately, I don't have time today (maybe later tonight) to write about the detailed close reading I have applied to this article. But I think the number of paragraphs applied to FEMA-fingerpointing, the shading of the adjectives, the point of view applied, all support my take on this article and the coverage generally. In the sentence immediately following the summary you quoted, the authors' slip is showing, in what I might take to be their intended lead: "FEMA's deference was frustrating." To whom? According to whom? By what standard?

I sometimes use my parents, who are fairly apolitical but interested consumers of news, to gauge these things. I was surprised yesterday when they pointedly asked me, in almost accusatory tones, whether George Bush was to blame. I inquired as to basis of their view, and determined that they were fully familiar with Michael Brown's alleged shortcomings, but were not aware of numerous failings of state and local officials (which are also absent from this article).

I would love to spend more time addressing your other questions and comments about the Times, Bush, and the culture war. I think the culture war is unavoidably at the heart of all of this. Must rush out for now, though. Hopefully more time later.

Posted by: Neuro-conservative at September 11, 2005 2:18 PM | Permalink

Note, also, the stark difference between world press coverage and American press reports.

Most noticible was the foreign (to us) covereage of what one called the "Horrordome." That dozens of white Europeans and Australians were subjected to the harsh reality of white-on-black hatred was given significant attention. In America, the media would have us believe such scenarios were little more than love fests.

http://www.hillarysvillage.com

Posted by: Kenn Gividen at September 11, 2005 2:43 PM | Permalink

Hobby horses. Right. That's what I'm all about: my hobby horses. Ride 'em and call it critique.

I do want to emphasize that arguing about whether a given article is biased is, to me, meaningless, stupid, and about as non-revealing as you can get.

Posted by: Jay Rosen at September 11, 2005 2:51 PM | Permalink

Jay, one reason Republicans may be sanguine about Bush's weak leadership is that they had Reagan who was a successful president. Reagan was not rocket scientist, and he out-folksied the current Bush. He was seen as a weak executive in terms of intellectual ability, but he appears to have surrounded himself with good people. Or at least people who didn't have the colossal screwups we see at the moment.

On the other hand, Clinton was also folksy, but brilliant, but he had his own set Achilles' heels. One may have been his disinterest in terrorism and its threat to the US.

Another piece is that the administration extends way beyond Bush and his appointees into the ranks of the civil servants, whose loyalties may rest with a president long gone. (Got lotsa cites on this, will spare you details.) So the texture of an administration is an odd amalgam of those who have gone before, overlaid with the current culture.

One reason I'm not worried is that things don't change as much as they stay the same. Change in DC (and I mean REAL change) sometimes seems glacial. But there is change over time. I think, in fact, the other forces change government faster--like a terrorist attack, or the speed of computing technology, or questions about bioethics.

Posted by: JennyD at September 11, 2005 3:21 PM | Permalink

I read the whole Times article (plus the superb accompanying time-line graphic of who was doing what for 11 days running) and, like Jay, I see it as a portrayal of governments at all levels proceeding on different assumptions and different expectations -- and the tragic results that attended.
Anyone who sees this article as a valentine to Gov. Blanco isn't reading what I'm reading: the woman comes across as an inept, hand-wringing nitwit who invariably is two days behind whatever is happening at the moment. And who doesn't even know what resources are at her command.
As for the passage neuro-conservative cites as some sort of indictment of the Times:

"FEMA's deference was frustrating." To whom? According to whom? By what standard?

Well, given Michael Brown's well-deserved fate, I think it's painfully clear that it was frustrating to the president of the United States, and to Michael Chertoff as well,
And by what standard was it frustrating ? Let's take a guess: By the standard (one hopes) that any sentient taxpaying citizen uses to measure the performance of the nation's chief emergency management executive.
This guy wasn't the water boy, for crying out loud. He was -- or was supposed to be -- managing the entire federal response to the emergency. That's why it's called the Federal*Emergency*Management*Agency.

Posted by: Steve Lovelady at September 11, 2005 4:24 PM | Permalink

Jay,
I would hazard to guess that regardless of the glaring practical importance of solving the problem of Bush's insularity, the "Bush bubble" is a very difficult issue for most Bush supporters for a variety of reasons.

First, the campaign strategy for years has been that anything anti-Bush/anti-Republican is by definition a product of liberal/media conspiracy. Entertaining the possibility that the insularity charges might be true would require rejecting the culture war delegitimization of the media that insists all negative press must be untrue. This includes the clause that pointing out that Bush is trying to fool you is elitist arrogance.

It would require admitting that you had been previously fooled or taken in by Bush to think believe that he was responsible or competent or principled. It is easier for many to go into denial than to admit that they have been deceived,

Even in the event individual Bush supporters realize the problems, they will still generally identify with the culture war perspective, they will simply have lost faith with Bush as a competent messenger. They could hardly be excited about the idea of giving ammunition to the enemy--the "liberal" press--by openly admitting that Bush is out of touch.

Lastly, given the punitive, mafioso management style of the Bush/Rove team, it is hard to imagine any government employees broaching the topic would not be fired almost immediately.

There are a long list of Republicans who tried the constructive criticism approach and quickly found themselves looking for something else to do: such as Paul O'Neill, Bush's first treasury secretary and John DiLulio, Jr., his former advisor on faith-based initiatives. Both were appalled at the complete absence of policy research that went into administration initiatives. O'Neill attempted exactly what you suggest serious Republicans need to do. It hardly won him friends in the White House.

cbs news:
"Paul O'Neill says he is going public because he thinks the Bush administration has been too secretive about how decisions have been made...In the book, O'Neill says that the president did not make decisions in a methodical way: there was no free-flow of ideas or open debate...Suskind says that someone high up in the administration--Donald Rumsfeld--warned O'Neill not to do this book...The former treasury secretary accuses Vice President Dick Cheney of not being an honest broker, but, with a handful of others, part of "a praetorian guard that encircled the president" to block out contrary views. "This is the way Dick likes it," says O'Neill."

How would a concerned Republican get anywhere in this hornet's nest? Any move with a prayer of success would surely have to involve a VERY large group of Republican legislators backed up by Norquist and his lobbyist army. They're getting so much of what they want (and have already paid for), it would be asking a lot to risk the White House's wrath and get thrown off the gravy train...

Above all else, challenging Bush on this issue would require distinguishing between the national interest and Bush himself, the party interest and Bush himself, and the self-interest of the core Bush corporate welfare queens (also known as Pioneers). The strategy of the administration from day one has been to conflate Bush's personal political interest and the national interest, Bush's personal political interest and the party's interest. What's the likelihood that's changing anytime soon?

Posted by: Mark Anderson at September 11, 2005 4:35 PM | Permalink

Another way of putting my previous post: If the Bush administration's fundamental problem is a refusal to listen, how would you go about telling them that?

Posted by: Mark Anderson at September 11, 2005 4:39 PM | Permalink

As I was reading Anderson's screed above, I began to realize there was something very familiar about it. Finally it dawned on me----Bill Clinton!

Just insert "vast right-wing conspiracy" for "liberal press" and "Clinton" for "Bush" and you have basically the same story. (BTW, does anyone know who began the "Bush Bubble" meme? Was it Ron Suskind?)

Think about the loyalty required by Clinton----he lied to his Cabinet members then made them go out to the public and press and lie for him. Remember all the Congressional Democrats that joined Clinton on the WH lawn for a victory celebration after he dodged the conviction bullet on impeachment? Even though Clinton perjured himself? At least some Congressional Republicans have the cojones to criticize GWB.

Has it occurred to anyone here that what GWB is being denounced for is just what politicians of all political stripes do? Nah, I didn't think so.

Posted by: kilgore trout at September 11, 2005 5:54 PM | Permalink

"Has it occurred to anyone here that what GWB is being denounced for is just what politicians of all political stripes do? Nah, I didn't think so."

But none has done it so well, Kilgore, or made the lockdown so complete. (Clinton's team was a reporter's dream; they leaked like a sieve.) That's been Jay's point for over a year now.

Is it Bush's doing ? Cheney's? Rove's? Doesn't matter. What matters is that it is.

Posted by: Steve Lovelady at September 11, 2005 7:31 PM | Permalink

It may not be the first occurrence, but it's the first I came to. The 'Bush Bubble' meme that has Kilgore a-twitter dates at least from Oct. 7, 2004 when Olivier Knox published a campaign report on George W. for Agence Presse Francais:

Some critics and supporters of US President George W. Bush agree on an intriguing explanation for his poor showing in his first debate with Democratic rival John Kerry: Blame it on the White House "bubble."

The term refers to the protective layers of aides, spokespeople, Secret Service security and supporters that encase the modern US president, keeping reporters, hecklers and threats away from the chief executive.

Even allowing for heightened protection around him in the wake of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, Bush has taken unusual pains to insulate himself from hard questions from those who disagree with him.

"He has held fewer press conferences than any modern president -- including his father, former president George Bush -- and aides who disagreed publicly with him have generally recanted swiftly and humbly or left the administration.

Hope this helps, even though it was the French. And congratulations on the restraint, Kilgore. Usually the "Clinton Did It Too!!" complaint comes much sooner.

Posted by: Dave McLemore at September 11, 2005 7:40 PM | Permalink

Steve, are you saying that a leaking administration is one that doesn't leak? I mean, I hear you on the relative weaknesses of administration's...I get the sense that you favor Clinton because his folks leaked.

From the point of view of a citizen interested in public policy, is leaking part of good policy?

Posted by: JennyD at September 11, 2005 7:45 PM | Permalink

Yes, Jenny, I do believe that from the point of view of a citizen, leaks are a public good.

More so than an airtight lockdown that closes off the decision-making process to the public; that punishes and casts out the Paul O'Neill's of this world; and that insulates those inside the bubble from any knowledge of alternative suggestions.

Jay addressed your question (before it was asked) quite well in his post of 12:45 pm today.

Insularity in the executive suite is never a good -- and that's true whether the executive is president of a country or a corporation or a university. (It's also, if you think back, a trademark of every tyranny, from Uganda to the Soviet Union to North Korea.)

I see no redeeming grace to it.

Posted by: Steve Lovelady at September 11, 2005 8:39 PM | Permalink

Here's the Los Angeles Times story that is sort of a counterpart to the NY Times "fog of war" story that much of this debate has been devoted to.

On balance, it strikes me as a stronger effort.

Posted by: Steve Lovelady at September 11, 2005 9:02 PM | Permalink

Steve. I disagree. Example: Hilary Clinton's health care plan might have been brilliant. It might have really solved problems. But leaks and sniping made it impossible as a policy plan.

The other thing is, you can't trust leakers. They have their own agenda.

Another interesting side note is that leaking assumes that executive regimes are, by definition, evil or motivated always for personal gain rather than public good.

And...why is leaking good for one branch, but not good for, say, the Supreme Court?

So, how can you make the case that leaking is good for the public? I don't think you can.

Transparency is good for the public. But that's not the same as leaking.

Transparency. Like what journalists need too.

Thanks for answering though. I'm thinking about what you said, but I just can't think of any good examples of when leaking helped.

Posted by: JennyD at September 11, 2005 9:13 PM | Permalink

Jay, didn't you think it strange that somebody calling some stuff garbage, other stuff gold, is unwilling to name a couple of examples? Also, I'm wondering where else he will go to see pro- and anti- Bush folk discuss the media?

I don't think PressThink has much in the way of competition.

I'm concerned about the Bush Bubble, and it's been around as a meme a longer time than 2004, I think. Like all too many Bush problems, I acknowledge them and then consider the alternative -- stark, raving, Bush-bashers. Winning. Yechh.

Jay's pre-emptive defense (excuses) of press bias in (NOT) talking about the busses seems transparent -- WHY wasn't the press asking the Dem Mayor about the NO busses before?

The TPM timeline seems quite good, but notes the Dem Mayor calls for mandatory evacuation on Sunday, but he doesn't seem to be using the busses.
Can we say ... incompetence?
Oh, not if we're the press, talking about a Dem.

Why didn't the press ask the Dem Mayor about the busses on Sunday? Or about the Mayor's plan for evacuating poor people; or about the Governor's plan?

Terry Ebber seems to be the NO DHS guy, but who is the LA state person -- named by the Dem Governor?
"under the command of the director of the state office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness"

Why isn't this person, supreme state commanding director, more well known, and publicized? -- and likely to be the most blame-worthy target.

Yes, I accuse all anti-War (anti-Vietnam War) protesters of supporting the policy of the US leaving Vietnam; the results of following that policy were genocide.

Similarly, those who voted in favor of Clinton in 1996 were supporting his decision to lie about, and coverup, genocide in Rwanda. Nice apology afterward, but how many Americans cared? Even the Reps didn't bother attacking him on this issue in the campaign; no "truth to power" by the press, either.

Two world genocides I've lived thru, far more meaningful to me than Hitler. Press failure in both. BAD at current history. Darfur kills more than Katrina every month; prolly every week. But the UN says "no genocide" -- where is the press?

Bush is going to be blamed for the mistakes of other feds, like Brown -- well, Bush deserves blame for choosing such a mediocrity. But if he deserves only 10% of the blame, and I see in the press he's getting 90%, the press is failing.

Dave says the press has articles about the Dem Mayor failing, and the Dem Governor failing; but no links. And really, I don't have time to read the lamestream media -- not if I want to read this thread, too.

Powerline thinks the unfair press attack dogs against Bush are hurting him; I do too. With tired rage, including against the fact that unfair Bush-hate shouting silly criticisms drowns out the more real criticisms.

How to vote against those pro-Dem media guys; how to fire them ... (vote Rep? not buy MSM?)

Posted by: TomGrey at September 11, 2005 10:16 PM | Permalink

Great conversation. I printed them all out and thought a lot about some remarks, especially those of Lex, Jenny D and Kilgore and ended up riffing on it all on this post at my blog.

I have some other thoughts about the press getting its spine back and whether that's great news or just a return to how things should be, but I'll save those for another day.

Posted by: Scott Butki at September 11, 2005 10:18 PM | Permalink

Here's a longer, better timeline.

I wonder how "no bias here" press & Dem defenders will try to spin that the LA dept HS turned BACK the trucks with Red Cross supplies.

(Lotes of Fed mess ups too) Brown was clearly concerned about legal issues of states-fed relations.

Fear of future lawyers and lawsuits seemed larger than fear of loss-of-life.
Shameful.
Doubly shameful; that the system is so messed up.

Posted by: Tom Grey at September 11, 2005 10:59 PM | Permalink

Jenny --

When you have a steel vault (which to me is a better description than "bubble," which sounds sort of flimsy), the only transparency you're going to get is from leaks. Or from insiders who walk away (the Paul O'Neills and Richard Clarke's) and live to tell about it.
Watergate was fueled by leaks; the turning over of the Pentagon papers to the press was probably the biggest leak of all, in terms of volume of material.
Sure, most leakers have an agenda; but "agenda" isn't necessarily a bad word; even whistle blowers appalled by the abuse of power have an agenda.
But not all "agendas" are bad either.

Posted by: Steve Lovelady at September 11, 2005 11:15 PM | Permalink

Dave,
I've got the Bush Bubble appearing in an article on November 30, 2003 in the Guardian. I'm pretty sure that was the first time I encountered it.

I imagine it is not happenstance that it was first said out loud in this flamboyant way by foreign media services. They tend to be spontaneously shocked by the elaborate, stagy artificiality of Bush's politically cleansed public appearances, the Germans going so far as simply refusing to cooperate on one occasion. Bush's standard operating procedure tends to be treated as a natural rhythm of some kind by the Washington press, but it often looks unconscionable and totalitarian to much of the foreign press.

In his Decertifying the Press post, Jay refers to Dan Froomkin suggesting the Bubble issue dates from campaign 2000, but the 2003 Guardian story is the first I happened to see using the term.

I really can't recall a single previous US president of either party that refused to speak to other than politicially cleansed audiences. Can anyone come up with a single example to the contrary? A comparably systematic disenfranchisement of non-supporters (non-Republicans) as non-Americans by a sitting US president?

Am I out of the loop, or is political cleansing brand new territory for US presidential governance? Can anyone think of precedent for the whole covert ops by "local" White House advance people Bush has introduced? Kilgore to the contrary, I think we are on very new ground here. If I'm wrong I'll be happy to be disabused of this mistaken impression.

Posted by: Mark Anderson at September 11, 2005 11:26 PM | Permalink

To The Media: You're quite welcome. You might check your readership/viewership numbers before you go to bed satisfied at zinging the "winger", though.

To Mark: I'm sorry I munged your name.

No, I don't believe in revenge. I just find it amusing that you are able to compliment one President and excoriate another for the same actions.

And I knew about the uranium and the looted explosives, very likely before you did. Red-stater, remember? Winger, with contacts among the unfortunate children sent to die for George Bush? (For some curious reason they don't thank you for that characterization.) I simply, again, found it amusing that mutually contradictory concepts are so easy for you to entertain.

That's already more than Jay is likely to be patient with, and it's his blog, after all. You clearly don't know where I'm coming from and have no desire to learn.

For Jay -- an addendum. No, I don't expect anyone to "go down". I'm not any type or flavor of optomist. I expect the present situation to continue right up until the Imams start snapping the slave chains on. I'll be fine. I'm a Christian (Evangelical, boo hiss) so I'm a "people of the book", eligible to pay the tax and get on with my diminished life or convert and enjoy the benefits of the new regime. And if less happens, well, that'll be great, and I'll smile. The picture of pessimists as dour is wrong, you know -- true pessimists are always cheerful. After all, they only get nice surprises.

Posted by: Ric Locke at September 11, 2005 11:40 PM | Permalink

For all, especially Tom Grey: Look for Bush's resignation sometime in early 2007, right after the new Congress is seated, assuming the "Impeach!" crowd don't get strong enough to turn it into a pissing match. Enjoy President Cheney; I certainly expect to. Perhaps he'll paint the West Wing red and silver.

You read it here first.

Posted by: Ric Locke at September 11, 2005 11:47 PM | Permalink

The right-wings obsession with trying to deflect blame from the Bush administration for the Katrina catastrophe misses the key point --- this is not a story with just local implications, but a story that raises a question of national importance, to wit:

Why did the federal agency charged specifically with responding effectively and appropriately to a national disaster fail to do so?

There is a huge difference between what we should be able to expect of local politicians who are suddenly charged with implementing "emergency plans" on the fly, and what we should be able to expect from federal officials who (should) have the expertise derived from experience in dealing with disasters. The key word here is experience; local officials simply do not have the experience necessary to deal effectively with disasters---they don't know what works and what doesn't, or how to set up an effective organization to deal with a crisis on the fly. That is why we have FEMA and DHS, and when FEMA fails to fulfill its mission, the national issue becomes "what happens if there is a disaster in my city?"

"Government" failed on all levels, but the national media rightfully concentrated on the failure at the national level. Those who are criticising the coverage show a consistent partisan bias----always talking about how the mayor and governor are Democrats, but the media's coverage of the failure of the federal government wasn't focussed on the fact that the federal government is run by Republicans. It was focussed on the federal government, period. It wasn't about the failure of Republican leadership, it was about the failure of national leadership---Bush isn't getting blamed as a "Republican", he is getting blamed as a politician who allowed unqualified political cronies to be placed in critical positions, and for being completed isolated and out of touch with an unfolding national tragedy. A Democratic administration would have received the exact same treatment that Bush and his team are getting from the national media.

Posted by: ami at September 12, 2005 11:37 AM | Permalink

Slow down, and think about what you just said ami. When a tornado blasts through my small midwestern city, I should expect the feds to know more about how to help me than the mayor? Than the local cops who've worked the streets for decades? I would expect that some guy from two states away is going to swoop in and know instantly the best roads for evacuation, the best sites for shelters, the resources for food and water?

Of course not.

The feds do have enormous reasources than be brought to bear, bigger than any local government. And these should be brought swiftly to a place that needs them. That requires some work on the part of the feds (work, I might add, that the head of FEMA didn't seem to do).

But it's up to the local officials to draw up the plans for an emergency and to tell FEMA what those plans are. The logistics are shared, but the plan is local. I believe that federal law (or maybe it's just state law where I live) requires municipalities to have emergency management plans.

Some towns might have a dipstick in charge of police and fire, and have a crappy plan. Others have great plans. (I know our police chief, and I am quite certain that this guy has a terrific plan.) If our police chief was relying entirely on the feds to come tell him what to do in a citywide emergency, I'd ask for the chief to be fired.

Posted by: JennyD at September 12, 2005 11:47 AM | Permalink

So true, shaunna, and today in the Chicago Tribune, Dennis Byrne riffs on the chickenhawk meme, so beloved by the left.

Byrne says that a way to save money is to abolish FEMA and give the job to the media, race-baiters like Jesse Jackson, and other know-it-alls.

Byrne says that since the critics could do so much better, let's put Ted Koppel in charge of FEMA.

Jesse Jackson could run relief logistics, because of his impressive ability to transport himself to anywhere a camera exists.

Anderson Cooper as advocate for the poor and dying could get the job of body collector. Well, you get the drift.

Those schooled in real life know the hard work is in "doing" not in criticizing, which our wonderful press does so well----so let them "do" for a change, or as the multi-culti cliche goes "walk a mile in the shoes" of those who are REALLY making a difference.

Posted by: kilgore trout at September 12, 2005 2:15 PM | Permalink

Things I Used to Teach That I No Longer Believe.

Alas, I used to teach that the world needs more critics; but it was an unexamined thing. Today I would say that the world has a limited tolerance for critics, and while it always needs more do-ers, it does not always need more chroniclers, pundits, or pencil-heads.

Posted by: Jay Rosen at September 12, 2005 2:25 PM | Permalink

Frankly, I don't believe in the "Bush bubble" as Jay has described here and previously. What appears bubblicious to some seems to be either: 1) a delegation of certain details to staff that is common to all chief executives, b) disgruntlement by advocates of alternative policies rejected by the President, or c) "a superior recognition of reality".

Accordingly, I suggest that there is no systemic weakness in the Bush communication process that allows President Bush to be blindsided with information that he should reasonably be expected to know at his level. The President is not insulated from opposing views or news (though it is congenitally believed to be so by those whose views are properly considered but then rejected), it's just that his deliberation about them is done outside the view of most observers.

Posted by: Trained Auditor at September 12, 2005 3:10 PM | Permalink

Kilgore:
"Let's put Ted Koppel in charge of FEMA .... Anderson Cooper as advocate for the poor and dying could get the job of body collector."
I sort of like this idea. But only if in turn we get to turn Nightline over to Michael Brown ... and put Dick Cheney to work for CNN, combing the shores of Mississippi with a microphone and camera.
I'd stand in line to watch that every night.
Earth to Trained Auditor:
This is fantasy land. You're bouncing back and forth between "there is no bubble" and "the bubble is justified." Didn't we already have that thread before? Say, along about March 21 ? I know it's a cycle, but does it have to repeat itself every six months ? That's less intellectually challenging than my other favorite pasttime: Watching reruns of The Honeymooners.

Posted by: Steve Lovelady at September 12, 2005 4:11 PM | Permalink

Jay -- Is it possible - or, how is it possible - for a journalist to be a do-er rather than a chronicler or pundit or (ick) pencil-head?

Does this mean to engage in Hunter Thompson-style journalism rather than simply "do the research and report what I find out/see"? Does it mean to try and change things with journalism rather than presenting facts and observations (and conclusions based on access to facts and observations not available to the general public)? Or is the simple act of presenting facts and observations not available to the general public "do-ing" because a general public that pays attention (ha) to these facts/observations can now draw more informed conclusions of its own, and thereby "do"?

Wouldn't being a "do-er" as a journalist contradict the hallowed (in modern times) mantra of "objectivity"?

I'm becoming confused.

Posted by: Jane Richard at September 12, 2005 5:18 PM | Permalink

ps. I have a type-key identity and keep trying to sign in so my name will link to my email address and I can be held accountable for my comments, but I keep getting an error. So, sorry about that.

Posted by: Jane Richard at September 12, 2005 5:19 PM | Permalink

A tornado is a highly localized transitory event that in no way in analogous to the massive area of devastation caused by a "national disaster" such as hurricanes, earthquakes, etc. If you are going to criticize me, please don't make such ridiculous analogies.....

yup, and FEMA is supposed to approve those plans, blah, blah, blah. The point which you seem to be committed to missing is that there is a difference between drawing up "plans" to deal with a theoretical disaster, and having the wealth of experience that only a federal agency like FEMA can provide in dealing with actual disasters. (and, in fact, the "plan" for New Orleans was to get as many people as possible out of the city --- but to SHUT DOWN evacuation routes as a storm got closer, and direct people to shelters of last resort---then rely on FEMA to evacuate people if it became necessary. NO followed the plan, and when the "Hurricane Pam" exercise was done in 2002, FEMA made all sorts of promises about the assistance that it would provide---which we know was never provided in a timely fashion.)

Some towns might have a dipstick in charge of police and fire, and have a crappy plan. Others have great plans. (I know our police chief, and I am quite certain that this guy has a terrific plan.)

I'm sure he does....and if it turns out that the primary "four lane" evacuation route happens to be undergoing repair and is down to two lanes at the time disaster strikes, you're screwed. "The plan" doesn't matter---all that matters is doing what is possible to save lives when those lives are in jeopardy.

There is more than enough blame to go around --- there always is. The point here is that the job of the NATIONAL media is to report on NATIONAL concerns, and whether or not Podunk has an effective "plan" is irrelevant to whether or not the NATIONAL government's response to a disaster is adequate. People like you want to divert attention away from the failure of the FEDERAL response to this disaster solely for politcal reasons. Its rather pathetic....

Posted by: ami at September 12, 2005 6:13 PM | Permalink

Lovelady, reconcile this way: I would argue that there is no bubble as the bubble-hunters define it (they've defined it here, over time, pretty clearly and with seeming examples). Instead, a good part of what appears to be a bubble to them (but really is not) is a justified reaction by the Bush team to perceived media bias, in my opinion.

The rest of the apparent bubble is what I describe as points 1 and b in my post above - - it's just that those afflicted with Bush Derangement Syndrome (a kind of hatred-inspired madness) prefer to interpret it nefariously.

Posted by: Trained Auditor at September 12, 2005 6:30 PM | Permalink

oops...forgot one point...another example of how "plans" can't be relied upon

In Louisiana, as in most states, major disaster planning includes a reliance upon their own National Guard troops --- yet the state of Louisiana didn't have their full complement of troops available because of decisions made by the Federal government. Suddenly, all those state plans that were good in 2002 weren't so good, and there is no way for anyone to know very far in advance if/when the Bush regime is going to render any state's disaster planning obsolete. (Bush sure as hell didn't tell anyone in advance of the Iraq war that 90,000 of the troops that states rely on in emergencies wouldn't be available in 2005.)

Posted by: ami at September 12, 2005 6:34 PM | Permalink

As a public service, I'd like to present

The Shorter Trained Auditor

Bush is perfect. Any perceived imperfection of Bush is the result of "media bias" and "pathological Bush haters" in general.

Posted by: ami at September 12, 2005 6:38 PM | Permalink

I really doubt that Bush will resign in 2007; I think it more likely that Cheney will, and Condi becomes VP for her 2008 campaign (Pres or VP?). But lately I've read that Dick's feeling healthy, and maybe even ready to run himself.
ugh.

Nice repeat about fewer critics, Jay -- but I think the world needs smarter, more honest critics.

Smart enough to develop reasonable alternatives for comparison, and honest to DO the comparison.

Like, comparing FEMA in Miss., where Katrina's eye actually hit, and FEMA in NO. With a competent Rep Gov., and very little lamestream media, a lot more orderly relief for an even more devastated situation.
The lack of spine of the Dems is shown in not discussing Gen. Landreneau, and whether he, too, should be fired.

Ami "It wasn't about the failure of Republican leadership," -- this is a dog that really won't hunt. If it was about "national leadership", there would be more examination of just who wanted FEMA in Homeland Security -- the Dems. Bush initially wanted FEMA kept out.

If it was about Federal Response, FEMA says local first responders are responsible for 72-96 hours -- how many was it? When did Gov. Blanco give authority over to the Feds? And if you don't know answers to these important questions, doesn't that indicate a LACK of news spine in asking important factual questions?

Michael Brown did terrible on TV; he deserved to be fired. For bad TV. His agency mostly did OK, and was wrongly blamed for local failures that created problems his agency didn't quite have legal authority to decide about. The moral requirement was to usurp the failed local Dem authority and issue orders to solve problems.

There's a housing voucher subsidy scheme that could probably be expanded, immediately, to pay rent for the homeless disaster victims.

And I had TypeKey id problems yesterday, too.

Posted by: Tom Grey at September 12, 2005 6:42 PM | Permalink

ami, people "like me" aren't pathetic. People like me are just people like you...except people like me don't characterize your views as pathetic, or ascribe motives to your ideas. People like me take people like you at your word, and ask you to do the same.

You assume I'm some kind of enemy who needs to be shouted at. Why? Why do you tell me I'm ridiculous? I'm not being snide. Really. I am curious to know what it is about my words that made you react with the words you did.

Posted by: JennyD at September 12, 2005 6:54 PM | Permalink

Kudos to you Lovelady, for not playing the tyranny/fascist card on this thread until 9/11/05 @8:39 PM. You rock dude!
-- Kilgore

Awww, thanks, goodbuddy.
I was getting worried. I thought you'd never notice. (Blush.)

Posted by: Steve Lovelady at September 12, 2005 8:01 PM | Permalink

Why do you tell me I'm ridiculous? I'm not being snide. Really. I am curious to know what it is about my words that made you react with the words you did.

well, start with equating a tornado to a Category 4 Hurrican.....

then proceed to the fact that my post was about the claims of media bias from the right, when its the national media's job to cover events from a national perspective--- and your response was all about how its (supposedly) the complete responsibility of local government to come up with plans for "disasters". This isn't a blog whose purpose is to play "the blame game", its a blog about journalism. In this instance, its about coverage of a catastrophic failure to respond to a natural disaster. The NATIONAL story is the failure of the FEDERAL government to avert the catastrophe that occured in the aftermath of Katrina--- and the coverage by the NATIONAL media focussing on the FEDERAL response was not media bias, as the right wing wants to claim it is.

Jenny, you may be less doctrinaire than some of the wingnuts here, but in this thread you spewed little but GOP talking points. Your comments were primarily about "the blame game" and how bad it was---but how the catastrophe was really the fault of local and state governments and individuals---ANYONE but Bush and FEMA.

Don't you think that's both pathetic and ridiculous?

Posted by: ami at September 12, 2005 8:03 PM | Permalink

" ... a good part of what appears to be a bubble to them (but really is not) is a justified reaction by the Bush team to perceived media bias, in my opinion.
--Trained Auditor

But, TA, the problem with the "justified reaction" is that it's not the media that's getting fucked by it; it's all the rest of us.
Do we really need a sanitized version of what's going on in the White House?
And where does that leave those of us who are trying to be informed citizens ?

Posted by: Steve Lovelady at September 12, 2005 8:09 PM | Permalink

So Jay (or Steve) any speculation why suddenly there's more than a few blind quotes about Bush's behavior in private. Behavior which suggests he really is not the nice, jokey jovial guy the WH wants to project?

I'm not so much wondering about whether this is true or not..but why after 4 years are these quotes suddenly coming out. Could it be some disgruntled WH worker really was angry at Bush for how he was handled or handled Katrina?

Posted by: catrina at September 12, 2005 8:15 PM | Permalink

Man, oh, man, here is the best five paragraphs of on-the-scene reporting to come out of NOLA:

Facilitating the tabula rasa agenda is an increasingly militaristic attitude that borders on boyish fantasy and seems to pervade the numerous federal SWAT teams, out-of-town cops, private security forces, civilian volunteers and even journalists. There are exceptions: The young soldiers of the 82nd Airborne and First Cavalry seem much less caught up in it and are quite generous with their ice and MREs.
When an APC full of federal marshals passes deep in the Ninth Ward, a journalist in a camo floppy hat riding with them glares at me and demands, "Who are you with?" For a second I think he's a cop.

Downtown, a man on a bicycle wearing a pistol and carrying a medical bag says he's an emergency medical technician. "I had to shoot one guy in the arm," the man explains. "He was going for the bag. They think it's full of drugs."

Elsewhere, two vehicle convoys from Blackwater USA--one of the biggest mercenary firms operating in Iraq--cruise the deserted city, their guns trained on rooftops ready for snipers, who have recently shot at a cell-tower repair crew.

It seems the rescue effort is turning into an urban war game: An imaginary domestic version of the total victory that eludes America in Baghdad will be imposed here, on New Orleans. It's almost as if the Tigris--rather than the Mississippi--had flooded the city. The place feels like a sick theme park--Macho World--where cops, mercenaries, journalists and weird volunteers of all sorts are playing a out a relatively safe version of their militaristic fantasies about Armageddon and the cleansing iron fist.

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20050926/parentiweb

Posted by: boingo at September 12, 2005 8:16 PM | Permalink

ami, I don't spout anyone's stuff. Just my own. I'd love to see those "talking points." Are they printed out?

I didn't equate a cat 4 hurricane with a tornado. I wrote about my own city and situation. I would have been ridiculous to say my midwestern city would be hit by a hurricane.

I'm not a republican or a democrat.

I'm really wondering how much any individual can count on government to save them in a disaster of any kind. I mean, do rely on the government to save you from a lightning bolt? The weather service tells you to go inside, but what if you can't or won't?

ON the other hand, I'm disturbed that a government takes my taxes, promises to be prepared for emergencies, and then doesn't show up. Or show up quickly.

But I wonder about what's acceptable? Do we expect too much? Too little?

What I really think is that there are smart people here, like ami and others, who are so busy looking for enemies they forgot to make friends.

Posted by: JennyD at September 12, 2005 8:38 PM | Permalink

Jenny, I certainly would have agreed with you that everyone (almost) that I read in these comments is smart. That is, up until I read that ami seems to be saying that the job of the NATIONAL media is report on the FEDERAL government....like, DUhhhhhh, doesn't everybody just GET IT?

"NATIONAL PERSPECTIVE" translates to only asking relevant intelligent questions of officials at the FEDERAL level. Well I'm glad we cleared that up.

BTW, does that analysis hold just for Katrina or for everything else as well?

Posted by: Kristen at September 12, 2005 8:56 PM | Permalink

"A Democratic administration would have received the exact same treatment that Bush and his team are getting from the national media."

Word of advice for you: when you lie, it should contain at least a wisp of truth, however nebulous. Otherwise there's nothing to hang it on.

Posted by: Ric Locke at September 12, 2005 9:46 PM | Permalink

Jay --
The distinction between critics and do-ers is a legitimate one.
However, the distinction between fact-finders and do-ers is a false one. Just as the distinction between fact-finders and "making a difference" is false.
Any time a Richard Nixon resigns, or a Michael Brown is removed from operational authority, or public support for the doomed (and unfair to the troops) Iraq effort sags, that is the time that the fact-finders become "do-ers." It is also the time that they make a difference.
No one can predict these outcomes; often facts don't intrude at all on the process. But once in a rare while they do. And that is when they make a difference. And that is when fact-finders become do-ers, in the best sense of the word.

Posted by: Steve Lovelady at September 12, 2005 11:15 PM | Permalink

Let me see if I have this right. The media is engaging in self-congratulation because they became "human" and displayed "emotion" in their reporting? Nevermind that they're reporting was so completely wrong as to be laughable.

Case in point. AP reports five Army Corps of Engineers contractors shot dead by "bad guys" (my word, not theirs.) Then they retract the story and report that five "bad guys" were killed by the police when they fired on the contractors. Then they report four were killed on two wounded. Then someone else (don't recall who) reports that two were killed and four wounded. Then someone else reports that contractors weren't involved at all, it was strictly a shootout between the police and the "bad guys".

But hey, the reporters had emotion. They were human.

The media is proud of this? My how their standards have fallen.

Posted by: antimedia at September 13, 2005 12:02 AM | Permalink

So now Michael Kinsley is saying that CNN coached people to "get angry"--hey, it's theme week!--and while that's not news (just how TV works, sadly), what is interesting is that while certain pampered talking heads were applauded for showing their outrage, there was very little skepticism of this on-cue emoting. Emoting--makes ya feel good, accomplishes nothing. Television audiences will always applaud it.

Posted by: Brian at September 13, 2005 12:05 AM | Permalink

ami, there's plenty I find wrong with President Bush: 1) He's a poor speaker, 2) he has poorly protected our nation's borders, 3) he made an Iraq War planning mistake (namely, not enough troops), 3) he supported renewal of the so-called assault weapons ban; there's more. It's just that I agree with his positions, on balance, more often then not; so do a majority of Americans.

Posted by: Trained Auditor at September 13, 2005 12:59 AM | Permalink

Mr. Lovelady, please clarify, because I'm really trying to understand what you're saying exactly. Sometimes I feel like you and Mr. Rosen have some super secret code language that only you guys speak and understand. What do you mean by "sometimes facts don't intrude at all on the process"?

And, are you saying that it should be a goal of journalism schools to turn out fact-finders who really should try to become "do-ers" because they can then actually affect change?

For example, you say "any time that .... public support for the doomed .... Iraq effort sags" then fact-finders become do-ers and that's when they really make a difference. Huh? Doomed? I can see where you'd have trouble calling that a fact but what are you really trying to say???

Plus you sound kind of wistful and dramatic like there's some overall point I'm missing in all of this about an overall goal...

Mr. Rosen, I've been reading your blog for months now because I love that it pulls the curtain aside and lets me see the thought processes behind people "in the press." You've given me much insight into the minds of America's press "influencers;" people like yourself and Mr. Lovelady and others who have helped to create the press of today. That is an invaluable service to us citizens.

A simple question because I'm curious.... Very simply, do you believe that it should be a goal of jounalism schools to produce a conglomerance of people (reporters, journalists, whatever else they're called) specifically so that they can cause change to happen?

I get the feeling that "the press" gets very touchy and insulted when people accuse "it" of intentionally playing a causal role (e.g., the reference earlier to Hugh Hewitt's question to you about the start of Katrina coverage and the resulting comments).

But isn't that exactly what Mr. Lovelady just admitted by using three examples of where the press has "made a difference" in a good way...Nixon, Brown, and sagging public support for a "doomed" Iraq effort? Is he saying that it's a good thing for the press to play a role in causing a "doomed" effort to fail?

And, if indeed you believe that "the press" should try to cause change, doesn't that give credence to the belief that it is very much a political party?

Posted by: Kristen at September 13, 2005 8:57 AM | Permalink

Kristen: When I wrote this:

I used to teach that the world needs more critics; but it was an unexamined thing. Today I would say that the world has a limited tolerance for critics, and while it always needs more do-ers, it does not always need more chroniclers, pundits, or pencil-heads.

I was trying to talk, not about the difference between types of journalists, but between scribblers (whom I called critics) and the rest of society. Therefore the do-ers in my original were people who build companies, run for office, fight wars, write software, organize marches, start magazines, restore power, and rescue people with their boats. The scribblers write or talk about how well they did it.

Hugh Hewitt's comments about a "causal role" were that journalists killed--that is, caused the deaths of--hundreds of people by standing out in the rain and doing live shots, or by failing to take the storm seriously enough in other ways. If you're gonna Blame Bush, I'm gonna blame the media, so how do you like that?

Just another day in the sandbox of the culture war. As for getting touchy about it, the original question to me was why I wasn't touchier, why I didn't I wallop Hugh when he said that. My answer was: just another day in the sandbox of the culture war, in which I try not to participate, though I have no illusions about succeeding in that effort.

No, we don't prepare journalists to "cause change," nor do we tell them that this is part of their job description. We might, however, teach them that Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, originally published in the New Yorker, is considered by some to be the start of the environmental movement because that is a fact. We might teach them that a 1982 Atlantic article, "Broken Windows," is credited with being a crucial catalyst in the decline of crime nationwide, which is also a fact.

To say the press is a political party is a metaphor. If you like it, use it. I have been arguing that the press is a player in politics for more than 10 years. Here are two pieces that make the point. One, and two.

I think one of the reasons journalists are in such a mess today is that in fear of their work being politicized they pretend to themselves and others that it is without any politics at all. This is not so, and has never been so.

Where I differ from most bias critics is that they think it's easy to describe what the politics inherent in news work is ("just look at who they vote for!") whereas I think it's complicated and difficult. It's not my job to make things simple when they are difficult to understand. But that is the job of ideology.

I'm not specifically addressing you, Kristen, but I am a little tired of people asking me if I teach journalism students X, where X is whatever they hate most about the media. It isn't a real question. It's a "who can I behead for this?" tactic.

The very first thing I teach in my classes is: "journalists are people who make things," which of course does not mean they make it up. This I contrast with "journalists are people who find things." Finding out is crucial to good journalism, but the news is not a found object; it is a made object.

Posted by: Jay Rosen at September 13, 2005 9:52 AM | Permalink

Kristen, when I said that "often facts don't intrude at all on the process," I meant that there is no predicting outcomes. Sometime the introduction of found facts changes an outcome; often, it does not. Which is why it's pointless (not to mention arrogant) for reporters to imagine that their work will "make a difference." Once in a rare while it might, but much more often it won't.
I have seen some very powerful journalism that had no influence whatever on outcomes. And I have seen some fairly lame journalism that, for reasons that remain inexplicable to me, did indeed influence the course of events.
That's why, if that is someone's aim -- to influence outcomes -- I try to steer them away from journalism as a career path. I would tell (and often have told) that person that the odds of of her somehow influencing the course of events would be infinitely higher in other vocations.
If that's their goal ("making a difference") I suggest to them that they become a cop, or a teacher, or a tax accountant, or a bartender -- or, better yet, invent something useful, like the zipper, or the safety pin, or the ATM.
They don't like to hear it, but they need to hear it. Otherwise, we end up with one more journalist who's in it for all the wrong reasons.

Posted by: Steve Lovelady at September 13, 2005 10:52 AM | Permalink

The usual meaning of the word "do-er" describes "the man in the arena," which is how TR saw himself: out there, taking risks, doing the dirty work, being sniped at by critics.

The term ""man in the arena" comes from one of the great speeches of the 20th century, and if you've never read it, here it is. The central myths (and I don't mean that in the sense of being "false") of American culture and identity are evoked with Roosevelt's usual rhetorical power. I highly recommend it.

Anyway, you hear about "the man in the arena" a lot when you work as a reporter or editor. Public officials who have just been exposed as corrupt tend to cite the "man in the arena" in their farewell speeches. Their message: "I may have made some mistakes, but at least I tried to do something, unlike these pooftahs in the press."

We all love the "do-er" and hate the critic, because that's the way Americans view themselves in the context of the larger world. We're the do-ers; the French (i.e. all Europeans) are the critics. And in 1910, it was clear who TR meant when he talked about the critics in America: they were the "journalists" of the day. Nobody else had a printing press.

And let me say it: As journalists, those guys SUCKED.

The irony today is that EVERYBODY'S A CRITIC. The blogosphere, of which I am so happily a member, is an ever-expanding critics circle.

Which leaves... who in the arena? Who is out there in the mud and stench and heat? Who rushes toward the place where the need is greatest, knowing full well that everything they do will be criticized, endlessly, by people whose only contribution will be to sit at home and complain? Who are the people who make mistakes, work beyond the level of their abilities, take their lumps and get up and do it again?

I know a few reporters who have met that "man in the arena" description, going out into the post-Katrina chaos to try to get information out to the world. And I know a few reporter-haters who simply live to chronicle their every sin of omission. They seem to think that criticizing the critics makes them a do-er, at least vicariously, as if a double-negative makes one noble and strong.

And you know what? Fair enough. Smack the press around. If the press can't take it, it doesn't deserve the title.

Because this is the thing that nobody says about Roosevelt's great "do-er" speech: For all his manly bluster, TR was whining.

Posted by: Daniel Conover at September 13, 2005 11:54 AM | Permalink

I'm a do-er. I left journalism to become a do-er because I realized I was far less effective at making a better world as a critic or chronicler. So I'm out here in a really un-sexy place with my sleeves rolled up, mucking around in the hard work of improving public education.

Working in journalism was much cooler than what I do now. I could observe from up close or from far away, and I could get all worked up and involved in the problem du jour. But in the end, I could walk away from the mess and leave it to others to clean up. Now I'm one of the people who is left with the mess.

I blog and comment because it brings me back to much sexier and quick work of journalism. It was never boring, it was always changing. But, in the end, I was always an outsider on the real work of making change. I really loved being a journalist, but after awhile, I thought I had to do more than just keep engaging written records of the problems around me. I had to do something else.

I don't know about TR, or others who try and are blasted for not being a complete success. He was probably whining. And the press probably deserved to get smacked around.

It's a shame that the relationship has to always be this negative, or oppositional. But...there it is.

BTW, Jay and Steve, your answers to Kristen were terrific.

Posted by: JennyD at September 13, 2005 12:14 PM | Permalink

Antimedia’s complaint about AP’s coverage of the shooting incident involving Corps of Engineers contractors is underscored with the belief that the ‘errors’ in the reporting stemmed from reporters becoming too emotionally involved in the story. And of course the lack of standards that AM always complains about. The facts, as usual, get in the way of a crackerjack story.

Unwittingly, AM’s rant is instructive in how reporting works during a disaster. When the facts on the ground are chaotic, it takes extra effort to pin down the facts. And get them out on deadline.

On Sept. 4 at 5:00:46, p.m. AP sent out a brief News Alert on its wire, notifying editors that a story was coming that some contractors were killed by gunfire on their way to repair a levee breach. One minute later, another alert went out, citing Corps officials saying police killed five contractors.

Five minutes and 57 seconds later, a story went out, attributing the story by name to a Corps spokesman.

At 5:18:50 p.m., AP killed the story, correcting it with statement by Corps officials that shots had been fired at the contractors and New Orleans police returned fire, killing the assailants. A revised and more detailed story went out about 3 minutes later. It also contained a second notice to AP members to ignore the earlier dead contractors story. Subsequent stories, called ‘write-thrus’ went out on the wire with more details, the last one at 5:33:51 p.m.

Mind you, the AP writers on the ground were dealing in a destroyed landscape with no power, no landline phones, no internet access and limited cell phone coverage. Officials were scattered at a half-dozen locations, often difficult to reach. And rumor traveled faster than facts. But in 18 minutes, AP made its initial report – based on a Corps statement, not ‘emotion’ – realized the error, killed the story and sent a correct one out on the wire. Reporting is rarely pretty to watch. And God knows, mistakes are made. But as evidence of a failed medium, I don’t think so.

Posted by: Dave McLemore at September 13, 2005 1:06 PM | Permalink

If the news is not a found object (and it isn't), but a made object (which it is), then aren't the people who go out and make those objects, at some level, do-ers? And doesn't that make those of us who grouse about their performance here at PressThink - left, right and otherwise - critics?

The advent of the blog means you don't have to be one or the other. It changes those old relationships. So be a do-er, but embrace your inner critic. And let's junk these bullshit frames.

Posted by: Daniel Conover at September 13, 2005 1:13 PM | Permalink

Dave McLemore writes

You seem impressed that they could correct the error in eighteen minutes. I am disgusted that they couldn't wait an extra eighteen minutes before publishing.

What is the hurry? Sensationalism? Being first with the "news"?

In the end, the public is not served. The original story, often false, enters into the public consciousness and becomes "truth", repeated ad nauseum ad infinitum by those whose framework it "fits". And the lies continue. The media is to blame for this, like it or not.

Any time you can't wait another eigthteen minutes, deadline or no deadline, to get the story right, you have failed your readers and your profession and this country.

The modern media fails in this way routinely. Yet you don't see this as a failure.

Why is that? It seems it's because the media has rationalized mistakes as "oh well, we'll get it right in the end - after all, the facts on the ground were "chaotic" (a euphemism for I wasn't able to confirm the veracity of the story but we'll publish anyway.)

Can you see now why the media disgusts me so?

Posted by: antimedia at September 13, 2005 2:11 PM | Permalink

"I am disgusted that they couldn't wait an extra eighteen minutes before publishing." -- antimedia

Now you've got me curious, AM. I'm no fan of AP's perpetual scramble to be "first" myself. But put yourself in charge for a moment. In this case, would you have waited ? Even after 5:06 pm, at which point you have the statement from the corps spokesman, on-the-record, and for attribution ?
What exactly would be the rationale for waiting -- unless the reporter or his editor had some reason to disbelieve the corps spokesman (who was himself confident enough to put his name on the report ) ?

Posted by: Steve Lovelady at September 13, 2005 2:44 PM | Permalink

Who's rationalizing anything? This wasn't carelessness. AP didn't make the stuff up. They had an official with the Corps making a statement on the record. When it proved wrong, they corrected it.

As for waiting, the first actual story didn't go out until seven minutes after the 1st alert. That's assuming you understand that alerts are not for publication, but simply to let members know something is coming. That would make it closer to 11 minutes from publication to correction.

News doesn't happen in a vacuum, AM. Particularly in a disaster, when chaos rules. News never happens in a polite fashion, with all the details neatly arranged in logical order. The AP model has always been to get the factual news out as soon as it happens. And make corrections as the news changes as quickly as possible.

But I'm also curious: why would you have waited if you had a credible source telling you that five contractors had been killed in a gunfight?

And, did you actually hear this reported on TV or radio as it was reported? Or is this after-the-fact grousing?

Posted by: Dave McLemore at September 13, 2005 3:22 PM | Permalink

Tankers in the middle of a chaotic battlefield accidently shoot at friendly units: It's the Fog of War, and anyone who would dare to criticize their actions is the lowest of the low.

Commander-in-chief leads the country into war based on faulty intelligence: It's a complex world out there, and those who question the president's intentions and actions are "Bush-bashers."

Associated Press reports an incorrect statement from the Army Corps of Engineers in the middle of a tense disaster area and corrects the original report within 18 minutes: "Can you see now why the media disgusts me so?"

Posted by: Daniel Conover at September 13, 2005 3:59 PM | Permalink

I couldn't help chuckling when I went back and read the second post in this thread:

"DO you think anyone is going to read your blog anymore after you were not even around during the biggest national crisis since 9/11?
Posted by: Nina at September 8, 2005 09:15 AM"

Well, yeah, Nina -- 168 comments so far.

Posted by: Steve Lovelady at September 13, 2005 8:04 PM | Permalink

Steve Lovelady asks

Now you've got me curious, AM. I'm no fan of AP's perpetual scramble to be "first" myself. But put yourself in charge for a moment. In this case, would you have waited ? Even after 5:06 pm, at which point you have the statement from the corps spokesman, on-the-record, and for attribution ?

Look at it from another perspective. Obviously they weren't comfortable that they had the facts nailed down or they wouldn't have been correcting the story after its release. Either that or they simply assume all their stories will need correction, so they don't care about the initial release (because they can always correct it later.) In either case, it's apparent that someone with good judgment would not have released the story.

What exactly would be the rationale for waiting -- unless the reporter or his editor had some reason to disbelieve the corps spokesman (who was himself confident enough to put his name on the report ) ?

I'm glad you asked this question, because it gets to the heart of what I think is wrong with the media today. Rather than do some research and confirm the facts before publishing, it's enough to simply print "he said, she said" stories (quoting "experts" and officials) and worry about the details later (if at all.)

The function of the press in a free society is to inform. If they inform falsely, they are not fulfilling their function. It's really that simple from a citizen's perspective.

Daniel Conover writes

If you want to play mind games, then how's this?

A doctor operates and leaves some sponges in the patient's body. Later on the mistake is discovered, and the patient has to undergo a second surgery to remove the sponges.

You see, some mistakes matter more than others, don't they? The media seems to think their "mistakes" are no big deal. This attitude fosters a climate of sloppiness and inaccuracy. When confronted, they respond....well, let's let Dave McLemore explain it.

Notice how Dave calls the false story "factual news" which then has to be "corrected" because "the news changes"? Curious, isn't it? In science, facts are facts. Apparently, in the media they are fungible. Subject to "correction" as the "facts change".

I don't know about you, but that's not what I understood "news" to be, before I began to understand what "news" really was.

Because the credible source was obviously wrong, and in an environment in which, by your own admission, "chaos rules", reporters should be even more cautious about reporting "facts" until they know they are facts.

I read it on my AP feed and in blogs, saw it on the TV and heard it on the radio, all as the story "developed" (and the "facts" changed until they became so confused that I'd be loathe to guess how many, if any, persons died, what those persons' identities were or even why the killings occurred (if they actually did.)

Posted by: antimedia at September 13, 2005 9:57 PM | Permalink

I usually like and agree with anti-media, but I think the AP getting the initial "factual quotes" right; and then correcting them, is OK.

French TV 2, in their fabrication of the Palestinian boy who died (murdered? by Israelis? by Palestinians? by accident?) on camera is terrible -- but got the intifada going hotly. (See Nidra Poller

Who is General Landreneau -- the head of LA Homeland Security, the person who had command (according to Gov. Blanco's Emergency declaration); and when will he be fired?

The press not reporting more facts about his decisions seems a lack of spine -- which I believe is due to tunnel vision looking for Bush-hate justification. Like ami above "national" news, ONLY (ie Bush-bashing, only).

Lovelady betrays the desire of most newsfolk to "make a difference" -- and JennyD so well shows what it takes. Quit Journalism and go elsewhere...

I'm now teaching. In Bulgaria (for a week). Hopefully soon for a week in Kenya on another project. But the media desire to "do good" is important, but unfortunately right now it's twisted.

I really love how Jay so often phrases it nicely: "journalists are people who make things,".
They DID make Brown leave; they DID make Nixon leave; they DID make the US leave Vietnam.
But were all those successful make-ings, good?

Too many in the press report/ edit/ "make" the news in order to maximize the desire of US voters to leave Iraq.
"Commander-in-chief leads the country into war based on faulty intelligence:"

Secondly, the intel would NEVER have been known to be faulty without invading.

Firstly, I supported the war to MINIMIZE the chance of Islamic terrorists getting WMDs, and because it good to boot Saddam. I'm comfy that the probability of a WMD strike went down thanks to the invasion. And now it's time to help heal Iraq and promote the long, slow process of democratic nation building.

Posted by: Tom Grey at September 13, 2005 10:03 PM | Permalink

From Dan Kennedy's blog, Media Nation, which bears watching. (Dan is a Press Think reader, and former media columnist for the Boston Phoenix.) First quoting Franklin Foer at the New Republic site.

In a post on The New Republic's website yesterday (sub. req.), Franklin Foer argued that Cooper is nothing but "a Yale-educated Geraldo Rivera." After describing several examples of Cooper's heart-on-his-sleeve reporting, Foer continued:

FOER: Cooper, who at times seems to posses a sophisticated ironist's view of his business, must surely appreciate the dangers of this brand of emotionalism. The suits at TV networks swoon for tears and outrage because they draw larger audiences. (It's the reason that Geraldo keeps getting hired.) But melodrama and sputtering outrage aren't precisely the same as truth telling. In fact, they are often the enemies of it. (See Fox News for the obvious case in point.)

Obviously there's nothing wrong with journalists asking tough questions of government officials, whether those officials are inclined to answer them or not. For too long, the Bush White House managed to avoid those kinds of questions. But to substitute fake anger for supine cravenness isn't an improvement.

Dan Kennedy, Rage for ratings

Posted by: Jay Rosen at September 13, 2005 10:40 PM | Permalink

"Secondly, the intel would NEVER have been known to be faulty without invading."

Just as, no doubt, some nasty person will claim that a surgically invasive procedure, as opposed to a mere cat scan, is required to explain Tom Grey's thought processes.

Posted by: boingo at September 13, 2005 10:52 PM | Permalink

It was 11 minutes, AM. AP confirmed the report with FEMA. With a named source. The information proved to be wrong. And AP corrected. In 11 minutes.

You're not talking about news, AM. You're talking a doctoral thesis.

Posted by: Dave McLemore at September 13, 2005 11:27 PM | Permalink

Dave writes

I love how you guys completely miss the point.

Posted by: antimedia at September 14, 2005 12:06 AM | Permalink

I wrote about the AP story a week ago (link)...heh...A.M. even linked to me.

This line: "The contractors were walking across a bridge on their way to launch barges into Lake Pontchartrain to fix the 17th Street Canal, said John Hall, a spokesman for the Corps."

later became this line: "Fourteen contractors were traveling across the Danziger Bridge under police escort when they came under fire, said John Hall, a spokesman for the Army Corps of Engineers."

How did this happen?

Why was the clause "under police escort" added to a quote? Was this question from a second interview? Or did the A.P. realize they somehow left it out?

Did they speak to Mr. Hall the second time?...did they ever speak to Mr. Hall?

Why did the AP writer (assumingly) mistakenly think that it happened the way it did in the first place? Why isn't it important to find out the answers to these questions?

Posted by: Ron Brynaert at September 14, 2005 12:34 AM | Permalink

It is, Ron, because it might tell us something about the reporters' reflexes. But I think the point Dave and others are trying to make is that this kind of reporting shouldn't be taken as "finished" work, even though it was "published" work. Especially the initial AP account of a breaking news event, which is always going to be revised.

But this episode reveals something important about journalism that I think is poorly understood by its practitioners: Lots of times there aren't really good reasons why a news report presented one way wasn't presented another, why these sources were consulted, while those were not, why this event made the news, but that one, equally event-ful, didn't.

Reporters and editors could try to explain how a decision came to be, but very often their reasons will sound arbitary to the public: "It was coming up on deadline." "We had a big take out scheduled for the next day, so this had to run today." "Our regular reporter on that beat was out on vacation, so it fell through the cracks." "The editor's kid said there were drug sweeeps in his school." "It was a good lighter story to balance all the hard news that day." And many other things that fit under the category of contingency, or happen because of a production system's strange demands, or because of group think, or rituals peculiar to craft culture.

There's nothing surprising about this. If you try to explain why a bureaucracy behaves the way it does, you will discover similar factors at work. But journalism trapped itself into claiming there's a rational reason for everything in the news, when they know that much of what happens cannot withstand scrutiny because "our regular reporter was out on vacation" is just not a good reason if the news is supposed to be entirely prudential as a product.

Journalists will sometimes signal their awareness of this when they talk about the risks in "watching sausage being made" in newsrooms. But I believe the cause of the thin skin often observed in daily journalists is this elusive factor I'm describing.

Many things news organizations do can't be explained very well, or defended persuasively to audiences outside the craft. The public senses this, too. Officially there's supposed to be a good reason for everything in the news. There is sometimes, maybe even most. But a lot of times, no. Each time that's an implicit loss of credibility, which is why transparency is driving trust down. But the real problem is in the claim of system rationality itself.

Posted by: Jay Rosen at September 14, 2005 1:21 AM | Permalink

Why do people read weblogs?

In the New Republic Franklin Foer comes to the same conclusion PressThink did four days earlier:

Nostalgia for the glory days of television news is crazy. The medium has rarely provided for genuine depth. But to imagine that Cooper will help stem this slide is equally crazy. ("Anderson Cooper is rewriting the rules of news anchoring," Interview magazine has declared.) A cosmopolitan upbringing, a sophisticated wardrobe, and a few moments of genuine outrage aren't the same things as analytical heft and moral seriousness. Unfortunately, in this era, they are too easily confused.

Posted at TNR September 12. Compare to:

Posted at PressThink September 8.

Posted by: Jay Rosen at September 14, 2005 1:34 AM | Permalink

Errors aren't the problem. Mistakes and rowbacks aren't the problem. Mistakes happen to everybody. Eagerness, competition, informants with agendas, a thousand other things will cause errors in news reporting, and the very best we can hope for is that corrections will be prompt and prominent.

It's when the pattern of errors turns into reflex that there's a problem. If an explosion on the Moon turned out to be a ranging shot from the purple octopoids of Alpheratz, ten thousand journalists would leap to ten thousand keyboards, steno pads, and Big Chief tablets, and the first thing to stream from their minds would be some variant of "George Bush has betrayed us again. When, oh when shall we be rid of him?" The "objective" and "evenhanded" ones would cut it out and paste it in later in the article, but for most it would stay the lede.

It's starting to be boring.

Tom Grey, consider yourself chastised. The matters you refer to are Received TRVTH, as declared by those who style themselves liberal. They require no evidence, corroboration, or confirmation, and any contradiction constitutes "hate speech", which the committed pacifists will send cops to beat you up for.

White folks have spoken, and the rest of us are graciously permitted to step&fetchit, provided that we don't talk too loud, dittybop, or get uppity.

How very familiar it all is. I admit it's a bit disorienting to have the machine pointed at me, but the system is identical. Dey do talk purty, tho Uncle Dub was much more concise.

Posted by: Ric Locke at September 14, 2005 8:13 AM | Permalink

Your discussion on the changing AP story is very instructive. It is very much a sign of the "fog of war" or sausage being made.

However, it is still a sign of news being "made". I understand that sometimes you have to report something because the deadline has arrived. However, it is still the product. Since it is the product it can still be critized for being incomplete.

In the world of the AP, is there really a deadline or could they have waited 11 minutes for a more complete story? However, let's give them credit for puttting out what they had and correcting it as soon as possible. You can't have both ways. They made their choice. They can take their lumps.

Other media outlets can make their choices in different ways depending on their news philosophy. They too make their choice and can take their lumps.

An example in different arena are projects with a firm end date. These have a hard deadline, but sometimes everything does not get done in that timeframe and things get left out or are incorrect. At the end of the day, people look at the product and decide whether they want to buy. Three months later they don't care whether the product came out on time, they care about the product.

Posted by: Tim at September 14, 2005 8:19 AM | Permalink

All I wanna do
Is blame some Bush
I got a feeling
Now is the time to putsch

All I wanna do...

By the by, does anyone know what happened to the Tim of Sisyphean Musings, which appears to be abandoned?

Posted by: Jay Rosen at September 14, 2005 8:27 AM | Permalink

Bush-loving is an interesting phenomenom as Bush-bashing. It's tempting to view its object as a late-generation blueblooded carpetbagger with an acquired accent, and a sack full of the accoutrements of Capital, but without the concern for the equality of black people (as a result of an inverse racism which denies the existence of race as a social category) the original carpetbaggers professed - which would explain the ferocity of his support as a concommitment expression of Snopesian sociopathy. However, that omits the presence of a conscience, a sense of thwarted honor and the existence of an ethical system present in the Bush-lover's soul. Unfortunately, when these buried aspirations are exposed to light, and observed, what is revealed is a figure we might call "Hannibal Wingnut" who possesses an active, but damaged intelligence ceaselessly occupying itself with fantasies of "The Silence of the Libruls."

On the lighter side, maybe the actual character of the Bush-lover is that of a cartoon coyote, obsessively chasing the roadrunner of bias, only to be flattened again and again by the blowback from the 16 tons of his thwarted, sadistic strategery, which he apparently finds endlessly entertaining nonetheless. With the roadrunner ever always just outside his grasp, this pursuit perhaps has taken on a religious character, the monkish hermeneutics of solitary bloggers, tracing and chasing a spirit through endless canyons of text with the assistance of their ACME computers.

Posted by: boingo at September 14, 2005 12:33 PM | Permalink

Clueless Quote Of The Day from Brian Williams: "It surprised me at how different it was to know that the man floating past my window, face down, was an American in America." That's right, in America, if only Chimpy McBushitler didn't give tax breaks to his wealthy friends,we would no longer have to die, since we could have the new "Eternal Life" entitlement. Also, we are exempt from natural disasters because....well, just because. Sheesh! We rely on these people to keep us informed?

Get these people out of Columbia, Missouri, Northwestern and Berkeley, where hardship is standing in line at Starbucks, and into some real life. Sheesh!

Posted by: kilgore trout at September 14, 2005 2:05 PM | Permalink

That's funny, Kilgore. I read the Brian Williams' quote as emblematic of the self-referential focus of most TV news. (How Katrina affects ME.)

How did you get an anti-Bush message out of it?

And speaking of TV news, does anyone else find "The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer" as shrilly annoying as I do? Each time Wolf says, "We just got this terric video in" and it's the same crap as before, I want to slap him so smartly.

Posted by: Dave McLemore at September 14, 2005 5:55 PM | Permalink

I think we have a consensus here, people, and it's one which spans hard left to far right:

Namely, people who want to slap Wolf Blitzer silly.
(Selfish request: After Wolf, can we bat Anderson Cooper and Geraldo Rivera around the room as well?)

But let's remember:

After that therapuetic and much-sought-after release, we really do need to get back to the subject at hand, about which Blitzer, Anderson and Rivera have nothing to do: journalism.

Posted by: Steve Lovelady at September 14, 2005 8:37 PM | Permalink

I'd sure be interested in any specifics on how one measures journalistic bias.

The watching of sausage making (or seeing a Chinese kitchen?) is kinda reasonable for the news making issue of FAST, immediate timeliness. What about bias?

Let's see, if the sausage is supposed to be a mix of ground pork and ground beef and spice, and you only taste pork and extra spice, it seems like you can ask where's the beef?

I think with the Impeach Blanco movement we might see some beefy blue heifers getting a more ground up than we have seen in the last two weeks.

Where can I bet that Blanco doesn't get re-elected? Nor Nagin? (since the viewers can't directly vote against Cooper)

Posted by: Tom Grey at September 14, 2005 9:08 PM | Permalink

At this point, I think that everyone pretty much agrees that Nagin, Blanco, Brown and Bush each found themselves in another country, far beyond their skill sets, and entirely over their heads -- and, as a consequence, Brown, for one, has already had his (head) chopped off.

But what about Chertoff, where, it seems, the real power resided ?

Posted by: Steve Lovelady at September 14, 2005 10:32 PM | Permalink

And here's Brown covering his own ass.

And so the follies begin.

It's a beautiful thing to watch.

And you think the press is the problem ?

Posted by: Steve Lovelady at September 14, 2005 11:03 PM | Permalink

Remember when I said often there is no good explanation for what a given news organization does?

Case in point.

CBS has a new blog, Public Eye (a great name) and it's supposed to shine a light on the news work at CBS and provide transparency. I think it's basically a good idea, the blog. So yesterday the blog notices that Tuesday's CBS News broadcast ended with an heart warming upbeat story (a guy who loves ducks), causing Public Eye to say: "With such an overwhelming amount of news about Hurricane Katrina--most of it depressing--when and how does a broadcast decide that it’s time to include something unrelated and upbeat?"

Now listen to the answers CBS people get from CBS people:

PE spoke with Ingrid Ciprian-Matthews, senior broadcast producer for the “Evening News,” about how the decision to include Blackstone’s piece came about.
“It is two weeks plus after the hurricane,” said Ciprian-Matthews, “and we felt like it was the right time to do something else. That kind of feature was uplifting and didn’t detract from hurricane coverage and it just felt like the right time to do that.

When and how does a broadcast decide? "It just felt right. It was uplifting and didn't detract." That's her answer.

Later on we go to someone I know, formerly of NYU:

Todd Gitlin, a professor of journalism and sociology at Columbia University who studies the media, says that broadcasts include these types of stories to hold on to their audiences. While acknowledging that he hasn’t done any research on the subject specifically, Gitlin said, “They think, and they may be right, that there is a portion of the audience that badly wants these gestures of reassurance and would flee otherwise.”
Ciprian-Matthews disagrees: “Yesterday, we weren’t thinking, should we do something so that we don’t lose audience? The day comes when you walk in and say, we’ll cover the big headlines, but let’s also go with something a little more uplifting. It was a good story and that’s why we did it, because it was a good, well done piece.”

Her non-reasons boil down to: the day comes, it felt right, and it's a good story so that’s why we did it. But here's the tricky part. I don't think she's hiding the real reasons, or trying to snow us. That's also the scary part: she gave us what explanation exists! She believes what she said; and she thinks it "explains" the use of uplifting stories to end broadcasts. Maybe in the newsroom it does. To the rest of the world it's journalism gone tautological. Not likely to increase credibility, I say.

I'm doing something for Public Eye, so stay tuned...

Posted by: Jay Rosen at September 15, 2005 12:49 AM | Permalink

I forgot that the system closes comments after a week. But they're open now.

Steve and others: if you put those long url's into comments the system doesn't break them up and it affects column width. Instead of doing that, just highlight the text you want to highlight and click on that little symbol that looks like a link in a chain, which you should see on the top of the comments box. Then it will ask you to put in the link, but if you have your pop-up blocker on it may not.

Posted by: Jay Rosen at September 15, 2005 11:36 AM | Permalink

Jay wrote:

Old School journalism was "art," in the sense that its conventions and practice was driven by "news judgment" and the acquired wisdom of the newsroom. There was very little "science" to it, because the people involved didn't have access to the right tools.

Today we've got new tools (and the potential to create much better ones), but we aren't using them.

And that's not always a bad thing: Two of the "scientific" tools we've used in the past were the readership survey and the focus group. Readership surveys are a great way of steering your ship right onto the rocks, and focus groups are only as good as the people who lead and interpret them.

The modern news model is basically just an adaptation of a 19th century model, and it is change-resistant.

Posted by: Daniel Conover at September 15, 2005 12:09 PM | Permalink

I agree, Jay. She wasn't making things up. There's no way journalism can ever be a science and news judgment was and is an essential component of the enterprise. And human variables play into that.

I run a website that is not news oriented but is somewhat topical and I know the feeling. After concentrating on one type of thing for an extended period of time, at some point you just have to do something different. It's human nature. Balance cries out for it, as well.

I would posit that having hour after hour, day after day, week after week of hard core bad news, without letup, at some point becomes a lie of omission. There is more going on in the world than just the disasters, and although they are more "photogenic", they are not the end-all and be-all. Obviously there are enough bad things going on in the world at any one time to fill up entire news broadcasts til the end of time. But that's only part of the story. They don't represent the totality of the human experience.

Posted by: kcom at September 15, 2005 10:11 PM | Permalink

Steve Lovelady writes

I'm sure it will come as no surprise that I disagree. I won't bore you with the reasons, because you wouldn't care to hear them anyway.

Why don't we just fire the entire administration and start over? I'm sure that would solve all our problems, and we could all live happily ever after.

I have a question for the journalists here, and it's a serious one. Why should a story go to press because of a deadline instead of because it's finished? (And yes, I fully understand what a deadline is.) If "making news" is like "making sausage" (and you haven't convinced me that it should be), why do the "cooks" feel compelled to serve the sausage before it's fully cooked?

Posted by: antimedia at September 15, 2005 10:26 PM | Permalink

Why publish news before its finished? In all seriousness to a questioned asked seriously: Because news is never finished. The events of the world rarely come to completion. We merely add more details.

If the media waited until the full story of Hurricane Katrina is finished, when exactly when would that be? When the final death toll it tallied? When the damages are toted up? When New Orleans, Biloxi and Gulfport are rebuilt? When the children of Katrina's victims have children and they undergo a cataclsymic storm?

If we've learned anything, it's that human life is a continum. News is never ending and never fully covered. News being the first draft of history is more than a trite saying.

Posted by: Dave McLemore at September 15, 2005 10:49 PM | Permalink

"News being the first draft of history is more than a trite saying."

Sure, but it can also be a mighty convenient cover for incompetence. However, there's a solution. All it takes is a nice little correction in 6 pt. type on page 2 pointing out the error in that 72 pt. front page headline the day before.

Posted by: kcom at September 16, 2005 12:23 AM | Permalink