How the Watchdogs of Democracy fed on the frenzy of New Orleans
By John David Powell (09/30/05)
It is heartening to read and hear the collective “meaculpa” from some of the nation’s news media regarding the inaccurate reporting of rape, pillage, and murder in New Orleans in the days immediately following Hurricane Katrina. The encouraging part of this sorry
incident is that a great national outrage did not precede the cleansing confession.
Nor should one. We do not need wild-eyed
publicity-seeking politicians shaking their fingers
and clucking their tongues as they hold congressional
hearings into the failures of the self-proclaimed
Watchdogs of Democracy. Let them turn, instead, on
their own in their never-satisfied craving for
political gain.
This is not a condemnation of the journalism
profession, from which I made a decent living for many
years, and in which I dabble as a member of that most
revered segment of journalism: the Internet opinion
writer. This allows the opportunity to explain, not
defend, why breathless reporters relayed horrific
details of human depravity to an information-hungry
world.
The most important aspect to keep in mind is that
Hurricane Katrina was breaking news. Journalists
reported events as they happened without the benefit
of the usual filters provided by time and distance.
Breaking news is exciting to the reporter and to
audience; it also is fraught with the dangers of
exaggeration and inaccuracies. Broadcasters cannot
let such trivialities stand in the way of reporting
the story and providing a good clip for the resume
tape, however. Case in point: reporters who stand in
the wind and the rain with their fingers in their ears
dodging flying debris and complaining about the
stinging pellets that blister their faces. Back where
I come from, if Uncle Ben went out in a storm and
stood in the front yard with his finger in his ear
telling us that it was windy and rainy, why, we’d
probably put him back into rehab.
Yet, we expect tv reporters to show us they don’t have
the sense God gave a goose. And that brings up the
whole question of credibility. If we believe Uncle
Ben is a nut case for insisting on getting drenched
while sticking his finger in his ear, why do we
believe these soldiers in the rain and hang onto their
every water-soaked word? Because it’s showbiz, not
news. And the American public subconsciously
understands the difference. We don’t watch because
it’s news; we watch because it’s flash and dash and
full of excitement.
A good clip for the resume tape? You betcha. I don’t
know a television reporter or wannabe that doesn’t
dream of getting tied to a tree during the worst
hurricane on record, ala Dan Rather, and riding that
baby all the way to the big paycheck. I had to settle
for the mundane stories, such as burning buildings,
poisonous gases, and thieving public officials. Ever
try to explain political corruption while sticking
your finger in your ear? It’s not the same, believe
me.
Reporters should not carry all the blame, however. I
place the bulk of the blame on their producers and
editors. Television and radio reporters are not rogue
villains who attack any story they see. A producer
decides where to send the reporter, and then chooses
whether to go live, based on what the reporter says is
happening at that moment. The producer also knows
what he or she wants out of the broadcast; good
pictures and beating the competition are the forces
that determine if the live shot is a go.
Credible sources, verifiable information, and
substantiated eyewitness accounts would be nice, but
we can get those later. Besides, we can always use
attribution. “According to So-and-So, blah, blah,
blah.” All we’re doing is reporting what someone else
says. We’re not saying it’s true.
And that attitude, my friend, is absolutely
unacceptable, but undeniably the norm.
What about the newspaper journalists? They, too,
reported heartily the accounts of slit throats and
mass murders, despite the advantages provided by time
and distance. How could this happen? Once again, we
can blame public officials.
Every day in every city and town across the land,
reporters turn to public officials for quotes and
clarification. That is why you run with the stories
when the mayor cries and pleads and warns about the
deaths of ten thousand citizens, and when the
commissioner of police tells of gun battles between
thugs and his police officers and how he and his
officers had to retreat to save their own lives.
And besides, they were on the tv news last night, so
we’d better have a story for the morning edition.
Remember – and this is important – the print media,
not Congress or the public, broke the story of
“hyperbolic reporting” as the Los Angeles Times called
it. Print reporters and editors took advantage of
time and distance to get a good, hard look at what
happened, to walk through the alleged crime scenes, to
track down leads, and to ask the one question no one
asked during the breaking-news phase: “Where are the
victims? Show me the bodies.”
Journalism has its faults, particularly television
journalism that is at its best and worst covering
breaking news. This is why it is incumbent upon the
public to consume what it sees and reads with more
than the proverbial grain of salt.
There is a saying regarding financial scams: “If it
sounds too good to be true, then it probably is.” We
can apply a similar statement to coverage of dramatic,
breaking news: If it sounds too horrible to be true,
then it probably is.
And, we can be thankful that it was.
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