I remember blogging about how the media were using the tragedy to attack Bush and America (search my blog using Katrina). Some of the worst reporting came from the BBC as Val MacQueen noted.
Now that the facts prove the media got it wrong, on purpose, I emailed the BBC's Paul Reynolds and asked if he would correct "the story". By which I ment the Katrina story not just one specific BBC article. Here is Paul's reply:
"What exactly is the story to correct? Link me to the story which said that more blacks died than whites and we have something to build on and correct in factual terms.
The figures actually reveal a terrible tragedy -- that older people died disproportionately. This to me, aged 59, is a new and tragic twist on the events."
Paul did say he would pass my suggestion along.
Two points about his reply.
First, I was talking about the Katrina story and the BBC's abysmal reporting on the disaster as a whole not just one aspect. My point was, with evidence available that proves the BBC got most of the story wrong, would the BBC write a story to "correct" the false picture they painted. To be fair, perhaps Paul did not get my meaning and I should have been clearer.
As for the new twist of the elderly dying disproportionately, these people could have been saved had the New Orleans mayor, a Democrat, used the city's buses to evacuate them as called for in their disaster plan. A plan by the way the BBC claimed never existed.
I would like to point out one glaring error Wells "reports".
The havoc of Katrina had been predicted countless times on a local and federal level - even to the point where it was acknowledged that tens of thousands of the poorest residents would not be able to leave the city in advance. No official plan was ever put in place for them.
Wells, being the typical incompetent BBC reporter, doesn't bother to learn the facts. Note this is from the Louisiana Emergency Operations Plan which is in PDF format.
"The primary means of hurricane evacuation will be personal vehicles. School and municipal buses, government-owned vehicles and vehicles provided by volunteer agencies may be used to provide transportation for individuals who lack transportation and require assistance in evacuating."
Follow the link and you'll see a photograph of all those buses neatly lined up - and flooded.
And note this from the article I sent Paul:
Lack of transportation was assumed to be a key reason that many people stayed behind and died, but at many addresses where the dead were found, their cars remained in their driveways, flood-ruined symbols of fatal miscalculation.
But to answer Paul's challenge to send him a link to a BBC story that needs correcting, I'll send him this one for starters. But I want to stress, my original intention is to have the BBC write a story that shows how the media got it so badly wrong and to correct "the Karina story".
The plight of those stranded amid the filth and the dead has highlighted a side of the city most tourists did not see - one in which two-thirds of its residents are black and more than a quarter live in poverty.
Anger is mounting among African-American leaders that this section was left behind when others fled.
Some say the chaos in Katrina's aftermath has exposed deep divisions in both the city and US society.
From the report I sent Paul.
For example, a comparison of locations where 874 bodies were recovered with U.S. census tract data indicates that the victims weren't disproportionately poor. Another database of 486 Katrina victims from Orleans and St. Bernard parishes, compiled by Knight Ridder, suggests they also weren't disproportionately African American.
Many of those trapped by Katrina's floodwaters lived in dilapidated neighbourhoods that were long known to be exposed to disaster if the levees failed. [How many we are not told. .ed]
And a large number would have had no means to flee the region as the storm loomed - a recent US census found that one-fifth of the city's residents had no access to a car.
And yet as you just read many victims cars were still in their driveways.
But the BBC is happy to continue their biased reporting.
A former leader of the black caucus in the House of Representatives agrees.
"It is one thing to receive a warning to get out - it's something else to have the ability to get out," Congressman James Clyburn said.
There seemed to be buses and cars aplenty - nobody used them.
And again...
Some say the response was slow because those most affected are poor.
Some may say that and the BBC is glad to report it even though it's not true.
And again...
But some hope that the aftermath of the hurricane will force people to confront the issue of inequality.
Yes, why did a disproportionate number of whites than blacks die?
In Orleans Parish, 62 percent of known Katrina victims were African American, compared with 66 percent for the total parish population.
In St. Bernard Parish, 92 percent of the identified victims were white. Census figures show that 88 percent of parish residents identified themselves as white.
Here's an example where the BBC tried to correct one aspect of the Katrina story. Don't worry, at the end of the report the BBC try and and keep this myth alive.
Reports of murder, rape and violence among the thousands trapped in New Orleans' shelters in the wake of Hurricane Katrina shocked the world. [those would be media reports like the BBC. .ed]
The city's police chief spoke of babies being raped. Mayor Ray Nagin told of Superdome evacuees "watching hooligans killing people, raping people".
Now, a month later, officials say many of the accounts were probably false or greatly exaggerated in a time of chaos. [note the "many" and "probably false" .ed]
New Orleans police confirm they have had no official reports of rapes or murders in the days after the city was catastrophically flooded. [no as in none not just "many" .ed]
And the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals says only two of the 14 bodies found at the Convention Center and Superdome had gunshot wounds. One of those is believed to have been shot elsewhere and brought to the Superdome.
Which begs this question..
Or were the accounts simply panic-fuelled rumours that took on the guise of truth as they were repeated by evacuees, officials - and waiting TV crews?
Oh, the last ones lapped it up.
Capt Marlon Defillo, of the New Orleans Police Department, points the finger squarely at the media for any exaggerated accounts.
"The news media wrote those reports and I cannot tell you where those stories came from," he told the BBC News website.
I can. The BBC.
Prof Enrico Quarantelli, who heads the Disaster Research Center at the University of Delaware, agrees the level of violence "clearly was exaggerated" - and says the broadcast media should have done more to scrutinise the accounts.
"Instead of... trying to verify them, they were putting people directly on [air]," he told the BBC News website.
Because it fit their anti-American and anti-Bush agenda.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment