It is one thing for the media to get a story wrong. Sometimes, in the midst of an event, it is easy for a reporter to make a mistake. I still remember when those miners were trapped in a coal mine in West Virginia. A report leaked that all the miners had been found alive. The reports on the scene were elated. But, unfortunately, that report was wrong. It turned out that only one miner lived and he was severely injured. But it is another thing to get a story wrong, refuse to admit it, and just continue to repeat the lies.
The worse case of case of media malpractice was with regard to Hurricane Katrina. The news media reported a national tragedy, with people dying needlessly, surrounded by violence and mayhem with no government help. The problem is that the media got almost everything wrong. I wrote a post on this several months ago. If you want a refresher on what really happened, here is the link:
Unlike the main stream media, my post is based on solid documentation, rather then antidotes by camera hungry malcontents and continuous reruns of the same misleading videos accompanied by self-congratulatory comments by arrogant news anchors.
I just watched Fox News interview people about how terrible it was in the Superdome after Katrina. It was bad. People were hungry, it smelled and it was hot and humid. They were uncomfortable and they were angry. But there was nothing said about the greatest search and rescue operation in the history of the world that was going on at the same time. Literally hundreds of helicopters, boats and other vehicles were organized in a desperate effort to save over 100,000 people who were in deadly peril. Initial estimates were for a death toll in excess of 10,000. In any other country in the world, that would have been true. But that did not happen in New Orleans, because of a heroic effort by the National Guard and the Coast Guard. The main stream media still has refused to tell anyone what really happened. For example, did any of you see a report indicating that an emergency hospital was function at the Superdome that treated over 5,000 people with a remarkable level of success? Did any of you see a news report showing so many helicopters flying continuous rescue missions that the biggest fear was mid-air collision? All of that happened, but no one reported on it. They were too busy spreading false reports about widespread violence and hundreds of people dying unnecessarily because George Bush hated black people.
The National Guard and the Coast Guard and FEMA knew people were unhappy, but they didn’t want to divert precious resources to placate people who were loud, angry and uncomfortable, but safe, while other people were in danger of losing their lives.
If you read my post, it will quickly become obvious that a lot of things went wrong after Katrina, but no one botched this more than the main stream media. That was bad enough, but listening to them self-congratulate themselves five years later, while continuing to get almost everything wrong, is nauseating. In reality the video tapes of the main stream media reporting on Katrina, including the segments by Shepard Smith and Geraldo Rivera should be used as training tapes on how to botch a major story.
TDM