Some Katrina Accountability at politburo diktat 2.0

Some Katrina Accountability

The Seattle Times: Reports of anarchy at Superdome overstated

Remember Frank Rich’s “Hell in New Orleans” screed?

It might have been based on a little exaggeration:

After five days managing near riots, medical horrors and unspeakable living conditions inside the Superdome, Louisiana National Guard Col. Thomas Beron prepared to hand over the dead to representatives of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Following days of internationally reported murders, rapes and gang violence inside the stadium, the doctor from FEMA — Beron doesn’t remember his name — came prepared for a grisly scene: He brought a refrigerated 18-wheeler and three doctors to process bodies.

“I’ve got a report of 200 bodies in the Dome,” Beron recalled the doctor saying.

The real total?

Six, Beron said.

Powerline:

It’s time for some accountability here. The conventional wisdom is that no one performed particularly well in the aftermath of Katrina–not local, state or federal authorities, and not considerable numbers of private citizens. But it now appears clear that the worst performance of all was turned in by the mainstream media. Congress should promptly investigate, and try to get to the bottom of the following questions:

* How did so many false rumors come to be reported as fact?
* Do news outlets have any procedures in place to avoid this kind of mis-reporting? If so, why did their procedures fail so miserably?
* To what extent were the false rumors honest mistakes, and to what extent were they deliberate fabrications?
* To the extent that the false reports were deliberate, did the press pass them on through sheer negligence, or did some reporters participate in deliberate fabrication?
* Did the widespread breakdown in accurate reporting stem only from a failure to follow proper journalistic standards, or did it also reflect a deliberate effort to damage the Bush administration by passing on unconfirmed rumors as fact?
* In deciding what stories to report, did the news media consider the likelihood that passing on false rumors would damage the rescue effort?

It is vitally important to get to the bottom of these questions, so that future natural disasters are not similarly mis-reported.

Looks like Frank Rich and the rest of the MSM got a little carried away. To paraphrase Mr. Rich, “we must live in the real world, not the fantasyland of the media’s hate-based propaganda. Everything connects.”

Let’s have some accountability - federal, state, & local governments, and the media.

Mark Coffey: The Networks Lied

Michelle Malkin: Post Katrina: What Really Happened? - According to Orleans Parish District Attorney Eddie Jordan, “authorities have only confirmed four murders in the entire city in the aftermath of Katrina — making it a typical week in a city that anticipated more than 200 homicides this year.” Officials now say there were only six deaths inside the Superdome. Of those, “four died of natural causes, one overdosed and another jumped to his death in an apparent suicide.” No murders. At the Convention Center, four bodies have been recovered. Only one of the four deaths appears to have resulted from murder.

Brainster: Who’s Responsible for the Lies? - This New Orleans Times-Picayune article makes it clear that the stories of rape and murder at the Superdome and the New Orleans Convention Center were largely a fiction. But who is responsible? “I had the impression that at least 40 or 50 murders had occurred at the two sites,” he said. “It’s unfortunate we saw these kinds of stories saying crime had taken place on a massive scale when that wasn’t the case. And they (national media outlets) have done nothing to follow up on any of these cases, they just accepted what people (on the street) told them. … It’s not consistent with the highest standards of journalism.”

Kevin Drum: Urban Legend Update - As you might expect, the truth is hard to nail down with certainty. Rapes can go unreported, and assault is hard to verify. By now, the witnesses have all scattered and it’s almost impossible to reconstruct what really happened. Still, although it’s clear that conditions were horrific, and there was a pervasive sense of fear and dread in both places during the week following Katrina, the evidence indicates that neither the Superdome nor the Convention Center was overrun by gangs, besieged by crime, or reduced to Lord of the Flies savagery. The national press could do everyone a favor by weighing in on this.

In the comments section of Kevin’s post, there’s a pretty good discussion going on. Commenter John H suggests that maybe the media had an agenda. Kevin replies: John H: I very much doubt this had anything to do with a desire to hurt Bush. There were lots of rumors floating around, and the media passed them along without much verification, but that’s what the media does these days. It seems to be a pretty bipartisan failing.