I typically like Jonah Goldberg’s columns, but today’s effort, “Gale-Force Exaggeration: Katrina’s other consequence,” is a feel-good porridge of glancing recrimination and affected, world-weary “realism”—one that inadvertantly points up the media culture’s complicity in driving news rather than reporting it, as well as its tendency to circle the wagons and appear circumspect in the face of public dissatisfaction, when what it should be doing is taking a good, hard, honest look at itself. Writes Goldberg:
In the last month or so, we’ve heard a lot of self-congratulation from the press about what a great job they’ve been doing. At the high water mark of their rain-soaked Katrina coverage, they started to sound like Stuart Smalley telling the mirror, “I’m good enough, I’m smart enough and, doggone it, people like me.” Even the normally hilarious and cynical Jon Stewart of “The Daily Show” broke character to congratulate the press for its excellent work.
We now know, thanks to valuable post-mortems by the Los Angeles Times and the New Orleans Times-Picayune, that a great deal of the “great reporting” was in fact great rumor mongering. The stories of rape and murder in the Superdome were all unfounded. Six people died in there, tragically. But nobody was murdered.
All of the major newspapers contributed to the hysterical environment, passing on one unconfirmed rumor after another. And, to be fair, almost everyone else in one way or another contributed to the climate as well. The blogosphere bought the hyperventilation hook, line, and sinker. The low point was almost certainly when Randall Robinson ominously disclosed on the Huffington Post that African-Americans in New Orleans had resorted to eating the flesh of corpses to stay alive. This was just days into the flood (it took the stranded Donner party weeks to resort to eating the dead). Yet this supposedly fact-checked blog found it credible that African Americans would eat the bloated carcasses floating in New Orleans’ floodwaters almost the second they ran out of groceries.
Sorry, but this is silly. Were Goldberg really interested in being “fair,” he wouldn’t suggest any kind of equivalency between the media (from a narrative standpoint, the “first responders”) and “almost everyone else” in order to suggest that there is plenty of blame to go around—a trope of marked intellectual laziness that, sadly, has been the fallback position of too many of those presuming to comment on the storm and its (political and cultural) fallout.
Goldberg knows that blogs feed off of mainstream media reports, and that many of them (including this one), were cautioning against buying into the hysteria and hyperbole being pumped at us by on-the-scene reporters like Shepard Smith or Anderson Cooper, and by print reports that were poorly sourced and hastily written. That the majority of the Cornerites (you there, Rod Dreher?) lost their shit and began screaming and wringing their hands is not proof, however, of a wider failure by the secondary responders in the blogosphere to view those reports critically—though there were certainly plenty who did buy into the hype, largely (consciously or unconsciously) out of some degree of political opportunism: many on the left, for instance, seized on the reports to beat up on the administration and to use the supposed “horrors” to advance longstanding ideological and policy arguments, from environmental reform to race and poverty initiatives; and many on the right, fearing that the spectacle of 10,000 mostly black bodies found in the waterlogged wreckage of New Orleans might be used to bludgeon them as uncaring capitalist warmongers, rushed to show their outrage, as well—though they rejected “progressive” political critiques and concentrated their ire on bureaucratic delays and local mismanagements.
Surprisingly, Goldberg chooses the most extreme “blog” story, Randall Robinson’s Huffingtonpost entry on cannibalism, to suggest the extent to which blogs were complicit in this atmosphere of rumor-mongering. But in fact, virtually no one in the blogosphere believed that story, and it was the blogosphere’s skepticism (in the wake of Drudge’s publicizing of the post) that was largely responsible for forcing Robinson to issue a retraction.
Goldberg continues:
What accounts for this journalistic fiasco?
Social scientists might call this an “overpredicted” event, meaning that there are too many causes to single out just one. Clearly, the breakdown in communications is a major factor. Word of mouth is never reliable. Word of mouth during a chaotic, horrifying disaster is worse than useless. Journalists stuck in isolated areas felt they had no choice but to buy the scuttlebutt coming out of the Superdome. And pundits, like yours truly, simply bought what they were selling  to our discredit.
We weren’t helped by the scandalously irresponsible actions of New Orleans’ leadership. Mayor Ray Nagin and Chief of Police Eddie Compass  the latter who resigned as this column went to press  circulated rumors to a pliant national media machine uncritically. Compass told Oprah Winfrey of “little babies getting raped” at the Superdome. Ray Nagin complained of the horrors faced by those “in that frickin’ Superdome for five days watching dead bodies, watching hooligans killing people, raping people.” Compass told the press his officers were involved in shootouts inside the stadium, with hundreds of armed gang members. The Times-Picayune found evidence for none of this.
This is all true, and to his credit, Goldberg is willing to take a bit of the blame, even as he is more than happy to spread it around. But while he is correct to note that public officials were responsible for starting many of the rumors, he is not correct to note that “journalists stuck in isolated areas felt they had no choice but to buy the scuttlebutt coming out of the Superdome”—or rather, he is correct that journalists likely felt that way, but the observation misses the real point, which is that the problem lies precisely in this journalistic surrender to expediency and haste at the expense of doing their own leg work and fact-checking.
That is, Goldberg takes credit for having bought the rumors; but what he doesn’t take responsibility for is a media culture that excuses haste and sloppiness on the grounds that such is the nature of the current media beast.
Public-safety officials and elected leaders have a responsibility to provide factual information during disasters. And even when they give bad news to the public, it’s common sense that they do it in a way that doesn’t cause panic. They went a different way, and journalists who normally assume such sources will behave responsibly were burned in the process.
No. Journalists were burned for not being more careful in the way they presented the claims being made by harried public officials caught up in a crisis. Sure, Nagin and Compass should have been more circumspect; but it is the responsibility of our press to corroborate such claims, particularly when many of them, on their face, strained credulity.
Instead, the press took wild claims and, in its effort to push the story, ran with them, ratcheting up the hype by granting it the imprimatur of “news.” And for that they should be roundly and thoroughly condemned. A willigness to share blame with public officials is, in my estimation, a calculated dodge, and Goldberg, I suspect, knows it; after all, Nagin is answerable to the voters of New Orleans. But it is the job of the press to report the facts, and they were not, contrary to Jonah’s assertions, “forced” to accept every claim at face value.
Race is obviously part of the equation, too. “If the dome and Convention Center had harbored large numbers of middle-class white people,” Times Picayune editor Jim Amoss said, “it would not have been a fertile ground for this kind of rumor mongering.” As with the cannibalism canard, there seemed to be an eagerness on the part of many  on the Right and Left  to believe the very worst stories possible about poor African Americans.
Again here, Goldberg takes a press failing and extrapolates it out to the population at large—a mistake that Dean Esmay makes in a post that proceeds from similar claims.
Instead, I suspect the majority of people who believed the very worst stories did so because they believed that, as politicized and shaded as news stories sometimes are in terms of framing facts, they at least get the facts themselves largely correct.
Perhaps many in the press have racial issues that color their assumptions, but to make the leap from that to the suggestion that news consumer shares in those prejudices (how much of what we believe to be true, after all, is directly attributable to first-hand media reports?) is disingenuous and slippery.
And then there’s politics. Setting aside the no doubt authentic concerns and outrage of the press, who can deny that there wasn’t a certain amount of Schadenfreude at work here? Almost instantly, Katrina was declared George W. Bush’s debacle and proof of myriad long-simmering gripes against the president, from his alleged hatred of the poor to his cartoon villainy on global warming. James Wolcott, Vanity Fair’s media critic, not only admitted he “roots” for hurricanes, but he was downright giddy that Katrina might erase the effects of 9/11 because the casualty numbers were “threatening the inviolable aura of ‘3000 dead.’ “ Let the record show that the 10,000 dead number was just one more irresponsible improvisation from Mayor Nagin.
The foreign press was even more unconstrained, asserting every pseudo-scientific global warming theory imaginable and declaring the moral bankruptcy of the United States. Some couldn’t even restrict themselves to the inaccurate rumors actually reported. Writing in the British tabloid the Sun, Jeremy Clarkson penned a column, titled “Flood that released America’s demons,” in which he flatly declared that desperate New Orleans residents were “finding themselves being blown to pieces by a helicopter gunship.”
The president isn’t blameless either. The initial response to Katrina was a mess. We’ll have plenty of time to debate how much of a mess and who was responsible. But it’s a political fact that when the media was hysterical and local leadership behaving abysmally, Bush did not successfully impose order. That’s something he’d have to do in the wake of terrorist attack, and it’s something he should have done with Katrina.
In an era of hyper-partisanship, of course a disaster of this magnitude was destined to be framed politically—though that doesn’t mean it should be, or that we shouldn’t resist such politically-charged narratives.
Instead, Goldberg’s attitude seems to be one of rhetorical resignation—an attitude that feints toward hard-boiled realism, but one that again simply provides cover for the press, who, after all, is just engaging in “politics as usual,” as if such a thing were as inevitable as breathing.
He then goes on to assert that “it’s a political fact that when the media was hysterical and local leadership behaving abysmally, Bush did not successfully impose order,” an observation that —ironically, painfully—relies for its force on the media’s own failure, during its hysterical finger-pointing, to understand the role of the federal government in responding to disasters, a misunderstanding that continues to this day, as Rep Davis made clear yesterday when he opened hearings into Katrina by demanding to know why FEMA hadn’t done a better job evacuating New Orleans, a task not assigned them.
Concludes Goldberg,
Let’s hope lessons were learned all around.
A fine sentiment, sure. But lessons won’t be learned so long as we’re more desirous of sharing blame than we are of identifying actual failures.
And the press failed, and continues to fail. And judging from Goldberg’s halfhearted bit of introspection, its failures aren’t likely to give it real pause any time soon…
Yea, but what about that fucking armadillo of yours, Goldstein? He had me running around with a red plastic cup bailing out my pond for at least a week.
What bothers me most about the media is that they claim it is their job to hold the powerful accountable, but they never take even a little responsiblity for any of their own actions. Goldberg’s tortured You-a-culpa (yeah i said you-a-culpa, the silly so and so blames everyone on earth but the press for the press’s failures) is par for the course. Not one word does he mention about Rod Dreher. Not one word does he mention about KJL and her one woman Shep Smith pep rally. Not one word does he mention about Andrew Stuttaford’s ambush of Mark Levin when Levin had the temerity to ask the rest of the Cornerites not to get carried away.
Instead, it’s the blog’s fault. It’s the reader’s fault. It’s the president’s fault. It’s mayor Nagin’s fualt. It’s everyone’s fault but the people who claim to be able to get the damned facts right.
There should be a serious debate in this country post Katrina. But the debate isn’t about FEMA or race. It should be whether a representative deomcracy can survive its press. Having observed the press’s conduct over the past few years. I’m not sure it can, and I’m not willing to separate the right leaning pundits from the left when I assign blame, either. I’m also not willing to spread it around so the press can feel all warm and fuzzy about itself. They have alot of expalining to do. I’m wating for the explanations.
While eating lunch today I watched the local news. They had a story about Governors Blanco, Barbour, and Riley (?Alabama gov) discussing Katrina with the Congressional Committee that interviewed Brown yesterday. It mentioned Blanco asking for money and showed a short clip of her doing so, never even alluding to her or her state’s (or any of the other states’
role in disaster preparation or response. Yet it ended with the anchor stating, “None of the governors was asked about the slow federal response in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.” It was all I could do to make sure my TV wasn’t covered with ravioli and tomato sauce.
Where has Rod Dreher been lately?
Any bets on whether he’ll address his ugly little meltdown when he gets up out of the fetal position to post again? Or is his hysterical fainting spell going to go right down the memory hole, conveniently forgotten by his compadres?
That twee little beotch Stuttaford will be back, complete with irritating and unearned sense of superiority.
J-Pod has stopped being horrified by the images of Katrina and Bush’s “disaster” just long enough to switch that same sense of horror and impending doom to the Delay situation.
Goldberg needs a prozac. Anybody read his woe-is-me screed about how he’s bored with politics and its oh-so-tough to be a pundit these days, etc?
God, I wish they would open a comments section over there. I wouldn’t waste Jeff’s bandwidth with my complaints about many of those clowns.
Huh. If you think that was a dispirited attempt full of rhetorical resignation, did you see his last G-File?
I think some political junkies need a vacation, or at the very least a positive political jolt. And some red-state time.
I don’t care about his attitude or which side he supports. I want him to get his facts straight. When he doesn’t I want him to correct himself instead of duck and cover. Today, he was ducking and covering, not only for himself and his employer but for every single sloppy, over paid, self absorbed “journalist” out there.
Goldberge = Hitler
The most important thing that MSM should bring to the party is BACKGROUND. They should have deeper knowledge about which they speak so that they can discriminate bogus info from stuff that might make sense.
That Shep Smith! That Joe Scarborough! Morons both! I wouldn’t let either change my tire for obvious want of common sense.
Remember Edward R. Morrow? That guy sounded like he knew what he was talking about most of the time because he did! Plus, he didn’t lose his cool – ever see him angry?
Too many bloggers got caught up in the same act. Instant pontification based on a lack of deep knowledge is just noise. Even Michelle Milkin, a lady I generally respect, goofed up on Brown, leading a witch hunt but wanting for the facts.
What we need is smarter reporters and fewer cosmetologists.
No, Cindy, not really. Besides, the Hitler thing is pretty much over with. All those comparisons were used up on George Bush. Though I suppose Charlie Rangel might compare him to Bull Connor. But I wouldn’t agree with that, either.
Self pitying, self indulgent, responsibility shunning #%$&. Jeff, don’t let up on these churls. Don’t EVER let up.
When I redeploy home I’d like to find Goldberg, slap him across the face with a rolled up Times Picayune and tell him to cowboy up. Sniveling does not become him.
Fantastic stuff, Jeff. You’ve been very impressive on the Katrina beat.
I’ve been a long time fan so I enjoy seeing the people who kinda pigeonholed you because they didn’t get/appreciate your schtick realize that you’re not a simple jester. A bit of a failing in the blogosphere if you ask me, that only those who present themselves as ohsoserious are assumed to bring the goods.
I swear – the next hurricane that sweeps in I’ll load up a UHaul with 200 live chickens,
drive to which ever city Geraldo is reporting from,
station myself a hundred feet or so upwind of Geraldo,
wait until the hurricane winds reach 110MPH or so
and then release said chickens while Geraldo is on the air.
—
“This is Geraldo Rivera reporting live from
“thump”
What the f__?
“thump”“thump”“thump”
What is this … are these chickens?
“thumpity”“thump”“thumpity”“thump”“thump”“thump
”“thumpity”“thump”“thumpity”“thump”“thump”“thump”
Oww, goddammit … OWWW! Jesus, not the nose again …
dammit! … Quick, cut to commercial …
“thumpity”“thump”“thumpity”“thump”“thump”“thump
”“thumpity”“thump”“thumpity”“thump”“thump”“thump”
Aiiiigggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!
– commercial –
While I’d feel bad for the chickens, a Drudge Headline like this:
Geraldo gets Pullet Surprise
Would have made their sacrifice worthwhile
What we are hearing from the established press is something like “I’ll never drink again” while they’re hung over after a party. Yes, their heads hurt. But the pledge is a purely ritual one. They’ll be on a bender over some new stupidity soon enough.
And they’ll remember the party forever—“Man, that was some great party. Remember when Shep was pointing out that dead body? Man, that was a blast!” Shep will likely be rewarded with a network anchor job for his melodramatics.
I think the press has learned some valuable lesson with this storm—but the lessons, unfortunately, are all the wrong ones.
BS, I’d suggest that you get your own blog, but I’m afraid that might ruin a good thing. Still, something to consider…
Jeff, spot on.
I had a longer post that I wiped out when looking for a reference to link to.
But my main point was that the media has finally jumped the shark. Disaster stories will forever forth be covered as political stories. They will no longer be a story of the respect and awe that we should feel in the face of the power of Mother Nature, it will be about preventing the next disaster, and why can’t we respond faster, because this catstrophic destruction shouldn’t happen–mankind being superior, and all!
But the main reason this type of story will be about politics is that these reporters and pundits are a bunch of no-nothings when it comes to emergency preparedness and disaster relief planning, and the local/state/federal intersection of responsibility, combined with the governing principles of federalism.
Since the media regularly covers politics, that’s the lens framing the story.
Goldberg has once again proven himself a sniveling defeatist, like his Corner brethren. I don’t even bother reading NR any more, it’s collapse as a reasoning news mag is near total.
On the bright side, the finest, most up-to-date and coolly analytical coverage of Katrina was right here at Goldstein‘s. Your work was simply outstanding, Jeff; so much so that two days into it I quit reading anywhere else, because they were behind your curve and wrong to boot. You were consistently skeptical of the wilder claims, and patiently and thoroughly dissected each new development. Kudos to you, my friend, for your excellent work. You put them all to shame – simply out-fuckin’-standing.
I hope you archive a “greatest hits” for your Katrina coverage, so the MSM idiots can come here to study how to properly cover chaotically breaking stories. They sure as shit ain’t gettin’ that in J school.
The fact that the Democratic Party and affiliated Bush-opponents have, for the last several years, been rehearsing just how they’d conduct a full-blown propaganda blitz, in a calculated effort to destroy public confidence in the Bush administration’s disaster response.
The hope/expectation was that Operation No Confidence would be conducted following another terror strike. Instead, a natural disaster occurred first.
Consider the media’s Katrina coverage to be a dress rehearsal for their Regime Change Begins at Home Program when a nuke goes off somewhere.
“I’ve been a long time fan so I enjoy seeing the people who kinda pigeonholed you because they didn’t get/appreciate your schtick realize that you’re not a simple jester. A bit of a failing in the blogosphere if you ask me, that only those who present themselves as ohsoserious are assumed to bring the goods.”
Yeah, he’s like John Stewart with a brain. Oh – and funny.
Actually it has just been reversed, since:
Bush obviously can’t even be a fascist when it really counts.
Loser.
You’re just right, Jeff. That’s all there is to it. Excellent work.
I would like to add that for some reason, the media likes to pretend they have no influence and therefore no power.
I mean, they definitely want influence and power, and work hard to get it, but when they are accused of actually using it they always pull the “Who us? We’re just reporting..” schtick.
It is bad, but all is not lost. When those who claimed to stand up and be the watchdog of our society were found to be just hysterical rumor mongers, it was, as it was always meant to be, the people, who stood up and spoke the truth.
The 4th estate enjoys rights the rest of us do not, the question now for all of us to answer is, are they worthy of this continuing trust? If not, what should be done?
Toga party…?
Toga, toga, toga, toga, toga, toga, toga…
Of course we could also continue to mock the mainstream media mercilessly. That’s sort of fun too.
I quit paying attention to them awhile back. Seems to be working okay so far.
Moe, the odd thing is that politicians pay the press lots of attention. The only insitution more hated in America than the government is the press. I suspect that the right politician from the right state could make himself very popular simply by being openly hostile to the press. I don’t mean dismissive of, I mean openly hostile to. Why don’t more of them do it?
There is a picture emerging here in the fallout of the media’s pathetic coverage of Katrina. Not only did myth and legend trumped facts and hard nosed reporting, but the spin game is on to make excuses for their own ineptness.
The mainstream media and its counterpart in the left of center blogosphere failed to apply a scant iota of journalistic integrity in its coverage of Katrina.
A new picture is emerging in the aftermath of the self congratulatory, we are great journalists, oops we got it wrong byline. The media is trying to paint over their own inept reporting with the following two cover stories.
1.Journalists and officials who have reviewed the Katrina disaster blamed the inaccurate reporting in large measure on the breakdown of telephone service, which prevented dissemination of accurate reports to those most in need of the information.
2.Race played a factor in this misinformation.
This is typical for today’s media. Rather than be honest and face the cold hard facts that agenda journalism got the better of them once again (ala Dan Rather memogate), the press is making excuses.
Now let me get this straight, Oprah Winfrey can get cameras down there to interview the mayor, Brian Williams can get on a boat with camera’s and release story after story, Shepard Smith can interview old ladies pushing shopping carts through the water and the someone can get pictures of Sean Penn bailing out his sinking boat. Yet, somehow, someway, these professional “journalists†can’t be held accountable for such crappy reporting because phone lines were down during and after a category 4 hurricane!
Likewise, race played a role here. Let’s see, a majority of New Orleans was black before the evacuation and the press was somehow surprised to see that a majority of victims were likewise black! Math and logic seem to be another shortcoming of the press.
Race did play a roll, but not in the way the press is shaping it to be. It’s not that poor black people exaggerate stories of despair, or that conservatives are painting poor black people as helpless animals who lose control in the vacuum of authority. No. The true story is that Democrats love to play the race card for personal and political gain. The demographics of New Orleans mixed with the tragedy of the storm provided convenient fodder for a party that is so corrupt and dishonest that they would add to the confusion and mayhem for partisan politics. Thus race had everything to do with the coverage.
I have also read that the press is learning a lesson from all of this as if this is the first time it has happened. This could not be further from the truth. The fact is that people who don’t want to learn a lesson simply are incapable of moving forward.
The government under the direction of the Clinton Administration sponsored a study of FEMA and its various state by state success and/or failures from the early 90’s through late 90’s ending with Hurricane Hugo. This 1999 study contained 2 major findings that are relevant to the story of the press coverage today.
http://www.arnet.gov/Library/OFPP/BestPractices/pbsc/library/FEMAsuccess.pdf
1.) FEMA’s efforts in South Carolina after Hurricane Hugo, for example, were viewed as a failure in part because several prominent politicians immediately took to the airwaves and painted a picture of federal incompetence.
2.) Most importantly, the news media must play a crucial role in disseminating disaster warnings and information about available federal assistance in a cost-effective manner in order to help mitigate the affect of disasters.
A quote from the study stated the following:
“In the hours or days immediately following a disaster, victims often mill about – literally or figuratively – trying to figure out what has happened, who is in charge, and how they can get help. The first people to reach the media with their interpretations of what is happening can have a big effect on the disaster relief effort by shaping citizens’ expectations.â€Â
Contrast this to what the media did in the wake of this disaster. I didn’t see much in the way of information passing and disaster assistance. No, instead we were bombarded by the likes of Shepard Smith, Terry Moron and Brian Williams as they did their best to foster national unrest with uninformed and moronic finger pointing, fear mongering, race baiting and playing up the tragedy for ratings.
Agenda driven reporting has been instrumental in steering people wrong for the longest time. It’s about time people woke up and called them out on this.
There is no excuse. The press told the story it wanted to tell. This fact is a very telling aspect of this disaster.
You’re right Terry, but you’re too limited. Alot of folks in the center right press screwed the pooch on this one too (See the Jonah Goldberg column our host wrote about.) and they’re using the same excuses. I’ve decided that the problem here is journalism, period.
I’ve also noted the lack of trackbacks on this post, which leads me to believe that alot of folks in the center right part of the blogosphere (That means Hugh Hewitt and Powerline and M. Malkin and all the rest) aren’t very willing to point out the excesses of their own, which is more than a little disappointing.
I tend to agree, but on a more generalized basis. I think the Katrina coverage was by and large a product of agenda journalism that most like stated in the blogosphere on some of your more popular anti-Bush sites.
Many of these sites are frequented and supported by the the media elite; even if they won’t admit it.
I think the theme was convenient once it was clear that things were going wrong and Bush had the unfortunate dumb luck to be captured on film with a guitar on the opposite side of the country.
I did a little experiment and stayed away from the blogs and the Times for a couple of days. As a political junkie, it has been easy for me to forget that the less than politically attentive have a different view of matters. In our world it is probably much different; and often less objective. Stepping away from the day to day grind tends to add much needed perspective. (I’m obviously back now)!
In the case of Katrina you were not able to get away from this story. We were inundated with the myths, lies and exaggerations. There was no escape. This was not your typical story and it had an underlying theme that castigated Bush, the feds and conservatives in general.
As a result I believe that the over reaction on this story was no mistake. It seemed like a blatant attempt to pin this on President Bush. It is for this reason that I focus most of my rage on the left of center even though there were many on the right that bought into and perpetuated the myths.
Blogs have their part in this. The print media has been struggling to keep up with the rapid dissemination of information on the Internet. Their haste to get the “scoop†with such an obvious disadvantage has made them sloppy.
Conversely, blogs can add a check to keep the MSM in line. For some reason it just didn’t happen here. This to me is another chapter in the continuing saga of the press vs the blogs; neither of them trusting one another.
There are many factors that go into this one. Lots to learn.
Terry-
I know that you are saying you think the media was reading DailyKos, right? I think so too.
I’m going to start a Breasts Not Bad Headlines protest. Anyone care to join me?
Thanks, guys. I’d hoped this post would get more play—not to embarrass Jonah, who I really do respect, but rather to draw attention to a troubling trend that many of those who believe themselves above all to be “fair” people are more and more enamored of these days, namely, this willingness to insist there is “plenty of blame to go around” as a way to defuse an uncomfortable situation. I think some people do it with the best of intentions; others abuse it by deploying it as a rhetorical dodge or as a way toward self-satisfaction.
But, well. At least you guys read it.
But alas, ‘twas not to be.
Sorry, Jeff.
((I really do think you are right. This trend is kind of the opposite of, and yet the same thing as, zero-tolerance rules))
Jeff,
If you want this post to get more play, try leaving it up top for a while.
I’ve loved your take on the whole Katrina Kontreversy btw.
The center-right’s complicity in this failure may have something to do with the insiderish nature of NRO and Malkin (who was far more hysterical than all of the Cornerites, Dreher excepted.)
Your post didn’t make as big a splash as you’d have liked on its debut, Jeff, but that doesn’t mean it can’t have a continued (perhaps increasing?) effect. I think we (that is, bloggers who regularly read your site) can word-of-mouth this post into a wider audience. It’s worth a shot, anyhow.
MayBee,
Daily Kos exactly!! I read it every day just so I can keep a tab on thier compass. The amount of misinformation on that site is ridiculous. Manufactured outrage is required.
I would tend to label them (The Kosers) as the lunatic fringe it it were not for the parallels with Salon.com, the Times, etc.. Not sure who is following who? (By the way, did anyone notice that Salon has monthly articles in Rolling Stone?)
One can also note that the Kos is very often visited by Democrat support groups as well as congressmen such as John Conyers who at one time had a Diary on the site. It is pretty much of a shame considering the hateful and juvenile speech that is usually front and center over there. Fringe? Not so much. I would call them representative.
Jeff, I love the site, this was a great post.
The lack of coverage on the media Katrina coverage catastrophe is par for the course. It fits the playbook of allege, editorialize, spin and then forget. Once the truth comes out they have moved on to the next story (today it is DeLay, hmm what happened to Schumer?). The left has been running through this drill for as long as I can remember. But we have a new defense against this screen play; enter the blogosphere.
I hope that eventually the decline in journalistic professionalism will be corrected by blogs and economics. Lagging advertising and dwindling subscriptions can only be tolerated for so long. Why pay to read the paper when I can find truly brilliant hard nosed reporting and editorializing on the blogs?
Not to mention the bonehead moves like those at the Times to charge people for the luxury of being misinformed!!!
The word is being delivered, even if it seems to be as slow as the pony express! keep up the good work.
Jeff,
This post is really important – Drew is right, keep it up at top. People need to read this – and the “professionals” at places like The Corner need to admit their culpability in this situation.
It was their hysterical behavior and that chicken little “the sky is falling” attitude that implanted this meme in the public’s mind that EVERYTHING was the fault of the feds.
It was their histrionics that convinced a whole world that America was filled with racists and that “whitey” didn’t care.
It was their overwrought handwringing that convinced them that every rumor and piece of hearsay was gospel truth deserving of being brought to the attention of the world.
It was their unmatched arrogance that made them believe they appeared “more professional” with their hair set on fire, while running around in a circle with their arms flailing about crying “ahhh, the world is ending, the world is ending”.
I’ve been getting more and more angry at the vile display by “journalists” of all stripes in the whole Katrina coverage. I knew 2 days into the mess that the media had jumped the shark – and I knew there was nothing I could do about it.
The only power these pathetic twits have, is the power that WE give them. I think it’s time we tried to actively change that.
For what it’s worth, I agree that this post definitely deserves to be bumped to the top and kept there a bit.
Bump this post to the top, and keep it there for awhile. This is very important to the center right. If they won’t even acknowledge their screw-ups, if they spin and cover their omissions and errors they are no different from the Daily KOS. They truly are just the opposite side of a very screwed up political system. I know I’m being very harsh here, but frankly my level of respect for the folks at the Corner and even for MM has taken an enormous hit. Not becuase they weren’t sufficiently partisan, but becuase they didn’t tell the truth. Then when the truth became apparent they tried to tell me it was, in fact, something other than what it was. Just like Jeff Jarvis. I can forgive that, I suppose. I will never forget it, and I suggest that anyone who does is hopelessly niave.
This story is very important. Especially when you consider that the inept press has all jumped on the “communication failures were the reason we all got it wrong†bandwagon. This is the emerging theme as I noted yesterday.
This is continuing today. The media that was too lazy to accurately report the Katrina story has now repeated that same pattern in explaining their own ineptness. Rather than learn from this they will simply try to make excuses to save face and perpetuate the myth that journalism school automatically makes them good journalists.
I don’t buy it. The media had ample time to research the Constitution to learn the difference between federal and state jurisdictions. The media had plenty of time to go to the FEMA website and see that local and state govts. Are responsible as first responders. The media had plenty of resources to do many of the simplest things that bloggers did over the course of a week. But they didn’t. Plain and simple.
This was reportorializing at its worst.
Look at the theme as it spreads (I even heard some NBC guy on Hugh Hewitt repeatedly repeat the same thing yesterday).
Independent
LA Times
NRO
NYT
This will no doubt continue as the story behind the story unwinds.
– Trip
Great post and analysis–One of my nagging concerns is the way the race issue was hyped–but NOT in the way you might think. It seems to me the MSM was altogether to quick to assume that black people would commit the type of horrors on each other that were alleged, even though the stories flew in the face of common sense. Had the population of the superdome been from the Hamptons, does anyone honestly think the horror stories would have emerged? Somehow I dont think so.
No, I cant “prove” my feelings, but the media seems to be a lot more racist in the sense it is willing to believe and pass on reports of alleged black atrocities. Were I black, I would be outraged.
Now you’ve got the Instalanche going on.
Jeff – you’re right in a lot of ways. The problem with Hurricane Katrina reporting and news coverage is similar to the coverage of Iraq. Reporters in a hotel in Baghdad (or New Orleans) can only see what’s around them or what their stringers tell them. They can’t get out and see for themselves. They are victims of their own perception. Entire towns in Mississippi are missing, destroyed – never to return again – yet most were focused on New Orleans. I don’t think I saw a report from Alabama until Secy Rice visited. The same with Iraq and the ‘bubble’ the media and politicians are in. You can play the same stuff all day long with your own spin, hype people to the point of hysteria and people think that’s what’s happening EVERYWHERE. They reported Katrina through a soda straw much like they report the war in Iraq. I was aggravated at SOMEONE, ANYONE to see people needing water, the affect of the heat, etc. and it was compounded every time I saw the President or Brown get on TV and say ‘things are going well.’ 99% of the country I’m sure felt the same. But that’s our own fault for depending on hysteria in the media instead of finding things out for ourselves. I was able to read NOLA to find out more information than any cable TV show offered in 3 days. We gave them permission through viewership to behave this way. They continue at their own peril.
Congrats Jeff, you got an Insta-plug.
All agenda driven framing and slanting aside, the main problem with “media-types” in general is they are under-educated and inexperienced. The lack of a serious scholarship is pandemic in the liberal studies and social “science” departments… the breeding grounds for future journo’s.
This is just a wild-ass-guess, but I would bet that less than 25% of the working “press” has never worked in a job that required physical labor, mechanical ability and carried a risk of death. You know, like construction, mechanics, roughneck, military, machine shop, factory, etc.
The school of hard knocks has a way of burning in the concept “believe nothing of what you hear and half of what you see”.
When your life, limb, or buckets of sweat are the price exacted for mistakes, one tends to double check the facts before making a move. It is obvious that the left and right wings of the media are simply coddled dilettantes who have never had to perform a hard job in real time.
Also, I have to disagree with Jeff’s opinion about Goldberg. He is the worst of the bunch. Sure, he is a good writer and I agree with most of his opinions, but don’t be fooled by thinking clever is intelligent. He states many times that real experience is not required, that he can read about shit in books and be qualified to spew out his ass all day long.
Katrina exposed the media to a fine mesh screen… most days, their half-assed product slipped by unnoticed, but when the fit hit the shan, the turds were filtered out for all to see.
It should read:
MSM folk define success as circulation and Nielsen. Their remuneration is based on those two simple statistics. ONLY those two.
MSM folk should never be expected to do anything other than service those measurements. “Man bites dog” versus “dog bites man” may be the oldest expression of that fact. Another is “many planes land safely every day at O’Hare; that is not news”. They care far less if they are accurate or fair than that they are read or watched, if they care at all.
MSM folk compete in real time with each other. They expect the more lurid or sensational to bolster those statistics against their real time competitors. Given choices of portrayal, the more lurid, no matter what its chancy provenance, will always be selected. Always. The MSM has always been able to post-spin events and coverage, has always been able to delay corrections and bury them if they make them at all. Always.
MSM know their markets and service them. The NYT should never be expected to go against the core hard-copy purchasers on the streets of NY, and they are Blue. CBS, et al, are no different and Rather’s continued professional existence is all the evidence one should need on that point.
IMVHO, the only way MSM will ever change is if a new competitor emerges and forces change by either affecting those “success” measurement mechanisms or by creating new ones. I am hoping the Net and Blogs will continue to grow into that role.
But Mr. Horst, if I don’t cry over spilt milk how will Mommy know to come clean it up?
Seriously, you nailed it right there. They had no grasp of the scope and logistics involved in the rescue and clean-up mission for sure.
Jeezus, Terry Trippany; learn to use the http button or use tinyUrl. This page is now so wide from your links I can’t even squeeze it on a full (20″) screen.
I’m sure that someone else has mentioned it, but I haven’t heard many people observing what most MSM types meant by the press “congratulating itself on excellent work” on Katrina.
Every permutation of that phrasing basically translates into the press doing a great job of laying as much blame as possible at the feet of the Bush administration. Which is true. They did an excellent job of flogging Dubya, and anyone else connected with the federal response. In terms of facts, responsible journalism, and measured reporting, the press was an absolute failure. But in terms of sensationalizing, exaggerating, and mud-flinging, they were absolutely non-pariel; but the fact that made the MSM downright giddy was that they were able to fling almost all that sludge exclusively at the Bushies.
The Katrina operation was, by almost any objective measure, the fastest, largest, and most comprehensive rescue and disaster response ever organized by the federal government. Comparing numbers against hurricanes in the nineties makes this painfully clear. In terms of disaster recovery, particularly on this scale, the Feds have never done better.
But because of massive local corruption and a shabby levee, the MSM gets to congratulate itself on finally scoring a few below-the-belt hits on the Bush administration. They’ve been waiting five years for it, so of course you get some high-fiving when they finally taste blood.
As to the toga party idea, yep, but no press. That’ll show em.
Hell, we could turn it into a GoldsteinCon, much like the EschaCon only with more bedsheets and less Krugman.
Sorry jdm. Don’t act like the press by making an assumption
I used the http button but kept the long URL. The problem with the wide screen seems to happen in Mozilla or Firefox but not in IE.
In any event I will keep it short. – Trip
Less Krguman, is that sort of like Les Nessman?
Ya’all are talking around it, but I think that the most significant part of the whole story is that from Monday afternoon to about mid-Thursday, it looks like the media was the only source of information. The police radios were flooded, they had primitive equipment anyway, the telephones were out, so the only info was the info coming from those satellite trucks.
The LA National Guard chief already explained that they did not go into the convention center and superdome until Saturday because they didn’t have enough troops until Saturday. If they went into a big (25,000 people) crowd that was ready to explode with too small a force, then this could easily trigger the crowd into rioting and mayhem. They needed lots of uniformed bodies to intimidate the crowd into submission, otherwise there was too big a risk of carnage. If they went in with too small a force they would make things worse.
Why did the Guard think that they had a vicious out-of-control riot-waiting-to-explode and they had to assemble an overwhelming force to subdue it? Well, because the newsies told them so! This is not just about “the public” being misinformed. This is about the newsies spreading misinformation when they were the only source of information, so they caused the officials to make poorly-informed decisions.
This is about how the newsies caused the misery that people suffered on Thursday and Friday by telling lies about what happened on Tuesday and Wednesday.
cathy
You’re right Cathy, now get a newsie of any stripe to acknowledge that.
Yeah, sure Jeff. Nice criticism of those Right wing scum. Welcome to the side of enlightenment. Good to see you’re suffering from a sudden attack of reality. But how come you didn’t criticize Ramesh Ponnuru’s mistake in defining Pareto Efficiency in 1998? You are a Bill Buckley fellating piece of insane right wing crap, and that last post was probably based on the talking points that the RNC faxed you this morning.
/s
Average Left Wing Commenter @
Right Wing Site Slightly Critical of Right Wing And Linked to by Leftist Blogger.
You are so smart and right, I said exactly the same thing. But what about Karl Rove’s orchestration of the Iraq War, his delaying action (because he hates blacks) followed by the unsupportable bailout plan (unsupportable only due to Bush tax cuts for the wealthy), and his sheer evil in planning the deaths of 10,000 in NOLA due to the Republican Weather Control Machine rented by Preznit from Pooty-poot Putin? Because you didn’t mention this, it makes your ethics suspect. And your mother’s ethics too… both of your mommies’ ethics in fact, you stinking hook nosed Neo-Con! I’m sick of your mean-spirited Republican lies, even if they are directed at Republicans.
/s
A Left Wing First Time Visitor
—-
That’s not what we said at all.
How ‘bout Star Trek III: better, or worse than, Wrath of Khan and Babylon 5?
Here’s a time waster.
Mendoooooooooozzzzzzzaaaa!
/s
Robert Roe, Jane Joe, Don Doe
Normal Readers, Okay?
—-
How come you ditnnt mentun Tom Dilay’s conviction? Yore nothine but a partican hack and a RpeukkliKKKan (!) whore! And you’re a neocon haliburton acolyte too.
/s
Tired of Calling in On C-SPAN and
Faking my Way onto the Republican Phone Line
—-
I can’t help but think, that none of this would have happened, if George Bush hadn’t of gotten us into an illegal war in Iraq.
/s
J. Wenner
–
There’s no telling what kind of harm Goldstein’s latest homophobic ranting will wreak in the gay community.
/s
Andy S.
—
And I can see Bumperstickerist later stating “As God is my witness, I thought chickens could divert a category four hurricane.”
The Cornerites will dismiss your critique by calling it:
BORING
Magic Word: now
Well, sure. But in my defense, it’s difficult to muster the kind of verbal pyrotechnics of, say, a K-Lo.
The Cornerites won’t have the courage to admit any one has taken them to task over their coverage. Or if they do, they’ll label anyone who disagrees with them a right wing kook. Speaking of name calling, I dropped by Jeff Jarvis’s place a while back. He decided I was a member of the “Bernie Goldberg hit squad.” Jay Rosen has decided to rise to Jeff’s defense as well. Neither of them have improved my view of the press even a little.
To be such disinterested parties the press sure call people names don’t they?
Corvan and Jeff,
Perhaps one reason for the lack of trackback on this subject is that your trackback seems to be broken. I tried submitting a ping via haloscan and got:
Notice: Undefined variable: tb_array in /home/jprotein/public_html/pmee/modules/trackback/mcp.trackback.php on line 467
I posted it to their forum and there was at least one other post with the same error message.
Anyway, I found the post thoughtful and informative. I have other followup comments here:
http://dougie-pundit.blogspot.com/2005/09/in-aftermath.html
On top of everything else, I suspect the 24-hour format of modern cable news outlets is also driving the problem. When there is a story so big that it is the only story that day, it can become a problem coming up with something new to say to keep the news junkies tuned in. Unlike some other events that kept of delivering new twists and turns, say 9/11, after New Orleans flooded there wasn’t all that much to say after the hundredth iteration of ‘this really, really sucks.’ Being able to throw in accounts, however unsubstantiated, of mayhem and murder, offered to fill that void. The cable outlets went with that solution with everything they could muster.
Rangel is just pissed because he fears the storm may hamper his ability to get the axle grease he uses on his hair.
Looks like we can retire all arguments against the blogosphere (or the rest of the public) having as much claim on the first amendment as the “Legitimate Press”. Once the press hits this level of standard, their claim to having a ‘special chair’ in the room of free speech can no longer be claimed.
te: wall: it was brick, and it was hard.
Don’t forget that the news media got its information about mayhem in the Superdome, etc. from two sources that should have been the most reliable but, as we now know, were not: (now former) NO Superintendent of Police Eddie Compass and Mayor Ray Nagin.
To me, this puts an odd twist on the racism angle. The press would have investigated the claims of rapes and murders among the evacuees if Nagin and Compass were white.
Actually, I have come to believe that the fact content of the MSM is remarkably small. As nearly as I can understand, what happens is that the “journalists” hear a few factoids from some “source” and they pick the type of the story that they want to write, they look for details to flesh the story out and they write it. They are not interested in nor do they look for facts, which are messy, inconvenient and are likely to muddy the perfection of the type.
Goldberg’s piece is much too little much, much, much too late.
Brown and Bush, because of incompetence, lack of concern and…well, you know, New Orleans has a large black population and they are Republicans after all, were unprepared and slow to respond to Katrina. That is the narrative that has been etched in stone. Anything revealed from this point forward is, at best, a subplot.
When Brown resigned the overwhelming response was “It’s about time†or “Bush should’ve fired him sooner.†When NOPD Commissioner Compass resigned there was lamentation among the press and politicians – another unfortunate casualty of Katrina. When Brown appeared before a Congressional committee he was roasted by Democrats and Republicans alike. When Blanco appeared before the same committee there was nary a mention of her role in preparation or response, save for a question about her reply to charges leveled by Brown, which achieved nothing more than to provide her an opportunity to give the impression of being above the blame game. Michael Brown’s name is synonymous with incompetent cronyism. Ray Nagin is the toast of the talk-show circuit.
The lesson for the MSM? How about this: If you hit a big story hard enough, fast enough, breathlessly and relentlessly you can cut those right-wingers off at the knees. And if you sufficiently sensationalize it you might even sweep some normally rational people along with you. Facts? There’s always time for a retraction later – when not as many people are paying attention. Anyway, a good reporter never lets the facts get in the way of a good story or get in the way of the Truth.
I was wrong about Dan Rather the other day. He’s perfectly sane. His completely reasoned opinion is that the Katrina coverage was a stunning triumph. If you use the same metrics that he does. Republicans being evil, and this administration more evil than most, the fact that they suffered significant and (hopefully, in the view of the MSM) lasting damage is proof of that success. The media failed, Jeff? Not from their point of view, they didn’t.
Hugh Hewitt slams the press on the PBS Newshour, transcript here:
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/weather/july-dec05/media_9-29.html
It isn’t that Goldberg was too little to late. It’s that, in this case, he and the rest of the folks over at the Corner are part of the problem, and won’t admit it, or re-think their positions.
Now the Federal governement is concoting ways to push state and local governements out of the way so that it can deploy the 82nd airborne in future disasters. Now, there is a good chance the Pentagon will be in control of future disaster responses, not the governor of the state hit.
And there is nary a complaint at the corner. There can’t be. They’ve helped create the problem. They can’t be seen as saying it doesn’t exist. Even though the facts show that it doesn’t. This is one of those lesson the media has pushed on us. Facts don’t matter. Feelings do. And if the feelings take us one step closer to facism, all the better. And its all because the media just can’t make themselves tell the truth. I think I’m going to throw up.
WSJ (don’t need a subscription) makes the same point.
(I keep thinking of the famous Dick Daley malaprop from the 1968 convention. “The policeman isn’t there to create disorder, the policeman is there to preserve disorder.”)
cathy
Oh I forgot, Mendoooza! There I feel so much better now.
During Katrina for the first time in a long time the media felt that it had real power. They weren’t just reporting events they were having an impact on those events. Look at the transcript that Jim links to and what those other than Hewitt were saying, or look at just about any of the other statements of those who issued reports from NO. Invariably, it amounts to “Okay, maybe we got some things wrong but it wasn’t our fault, and, besides, WE MADE THINGS HAPPEN, MAN!!!”
Anybody even bothering to check “The Corner” anymore? I keep swinging by to see if anyone has committed suicide yet.
I mean, that place is moribund. Totally lacking any sort interesting posts. Smattering of “humor” postings, K-Lo’s really (seriously) embarrasing posts (she must not be allowed to blog), J-Pod actually posted “These are the times that try men’s souls”. Seriously, he did!
Maybe this is their idea of penance or laying low after crapping themselves over Katrina.