Katrina Takes a Toll on Truth, News Accuracy - Los Angeles Times

Rodkong posted the following link in a comment to Gone, Forgotten, Real. The article is about the way that journalists, reporting on stories of rape and murder in the Superdome, filled in the gaps in verifiable information with rumors, thereby magnifying and distorting the actual problems. A national guard spokesman is quoted, saying, "It just morphed into this mythical place where the most unthinkable deeds were being done." I think that the post I link to above provides a way of accounting for this morphing, this rendering of the unthinkable. More troubling in the story is the following"

Link: Katrina Takes a Toll on Truth, News Accuracy - Los Angeles Times.

Times-Picayune Editor Jim Amoss cited telephone breakdowns as a primary cause of reporting errors, but said the fact that most evacuees were poor African Americans also played a part.

"If the dome and Convention Center had harbored large numbers of middle class white people," Amoss said, "it would not have been a fertile ground for this kind of rumor-mongering."

So, we have an instance of the press blaming poor black people for its, the press's, bad reporting. Because the press listened to a reported poor African-Americans, it was reporting rumors and lies, rumors and lies that were 'mongered,' that is, that spread in an excessive, uncontrollable fashion.

And, what sort of if is at work here? When a bunch of middle class people are in a superdome, we call it a football game. When they are in a convention center, we call it, you guessed it, a convention. The hypothetical here relies on the image of white people in a dome or convention center at a time when they belong there. At such a time, one doesn't usually think of the people as communicating with each other. They may all be an audience, watching a game, listening to speeches. But their relationships are mediated, not immediate. No wonder it's hard to imagine a rumor circulating--the white dome is part of a different imaginary, one that figures as the opposite of what happened in Katrina, one that broke down.

If these structures are filled with black people, well, something is wrong. Literally: the poor African Americans were there, in a place they usually don't belong, unless they are the invisible cleaners and servers, because something was wrong. The structures of race and class that prevented the buildings from being seen as 'black' (as if the convention centers and domes were always already segregated or imagined or presupposed as segregated) were inverted in Katrina's aftermath. Middle class whites (and blacks) got out and the poor (white and black) occupied places previously defined by their capacity to exclude (one has to buy a ticket to get in, after all). The racist reversal of these terms tries to deflect our attention from the vast, unconscionable inequities of the initial division.

Comments

[Patrick J. Mullins]

The actual report from the New Orleans Times-Picayune itself (the link comes from James Ridgeway's just-posted account of Delay's 'new look'--crumbling into his new persona so more characterful than the vacuous but venal 'anybody- look' of yesterday--as of today and is in itself worth reading) is much more informative and illuminating than the miniscule summary the Los Angeles Times gives. This is for people like me that are interested in that the rumours started somehow, anywhere and everywhere, and were then reported in various ways (LA Times does add something on the specific press coverage)--and which rumours and who made them, everybody who did them. No more and no less.

http://www.nola.com/newslogs/tporleans/index.ssf?/mtlogs/nola_tpor
leans/archives/2005_09_26.html#082732

Anyway, further rumours about how the bodies were going to be 'disappeared' don't somehow fit in to the 'actual appearance of only 6 corpses,' whether or not from natural causes (most of the 6 seem to have been). People can't decide what they want to celebrate or condemn in these circumstances.

[pebird]

Are we just talking about the news stories that were critical of the response to the Katrina (deaths, rapes, number of corpses, etc.), or are we also going to add the stories reporting shooting of emergency helicopters, rampant looting by police, wild gangs roaming the streets?

Or did the media get those stories right?

[Jodi]

For whatever reason, I couldn't find the article you mentioned.

[Patrick J. Mullins]

I have been having trouble with the addresses not showing on Mozilla Firefox for a few days, may have got it wrong. In any case, if you go to the Village Voice and look under Ridgeway's Mondo Washington article on Delay, and click on the link at the BOLD word 'untrue', you'll get it (unless this address below I managed to get from Internet Explorer is good.) I just think the more detail the better, not that there is usually that much to criticize about the LATimes by comparison to most of the big papers. It's a far better paper than the New Orleans Times-Picayune in general.

http://villagevoice.com/news/0540,
webmondo,68380,2.html

[Patrick J. Mullins]

It's called 'Delay Indictment Big Trouble for Bush.' I do hope it's going to be, although there should be no 'temporary stepping down,' as the NYTimes editorial, and surely many others, point out today.

[Jodi]

PEBird, my sense from the LA times story is that those stories weren't right either. (I wonder if the poor black people are also to be held responsible for those).

Patrick, to my mind, the inability to decide what to condemn indicates that what we are dealing with is Real. It can't be introduced into a symbolic frame without distortion and remainders.

[Jodi]

Patrick,
one more thing--so, this has sorta been the summer of countdowns for the end of Bush:

--Rove
--Katrina
--Delay

haven't there been a few others (or others that we've or I've said, ok, now this one will really stick...whatever happened to the Rove business anyway...and, Frist is on the line now, too, no?

[Patrick J. Mullins]

That's quite true, so many people, including smart ones, just go back and forth according to how they 'feel' at the moment. It's one of the forms of impotent reaction, although not the only one.

[Patrick J. Mullins]

Jodi--you managed to stick that second post on the countdowns while I was making sure to respond to only the second part of the first one; so I didn't see it until now, about 2 hours later.

The Rove thing is very much alive, and we just read different articles, there's talk about it in the NYTimes today with whole GOP mess article. It's just not possible for it to be as 'forefront-y' with also Abramoff, Savafian arrested even after having made some Katrina budget decisions, sharp energy conservation at the White House bunch of computers, fake hearings for Brownie, and Katrina bodies in Baton Rouge. The Roberts thing is supposed to be accidentally a better thing than Rhenquist was, even though Bush did it as a means of deflection in the middle of his Katrina failures, something like when Clinton bombed Iraq but managed to get his impeachment put off thereby by only one day.

But what I'm seeing is balkanization. We're seeing where our truest loyalties lie, and not caring what anyone thinks about what these are. If we're liberals, we're not paying any attention to extreme leftism; if we're leftists, we don't care what liberals in the mainstream say.

But for the single interest probably in common for both sides--by that I mean liberals and leftists--that of disorientation at the Bush level, it is happening much faster than could be expected considering how tight they've managed to get their machinery bolted down. I am much less easy to convince than you are, but when the Times and the Voice start talking about it, it at least may mean something at this point, although both of these (just examples) always are also aware that the one consistent history this White House has had is to save its own ass (and with an enormous result), so that is all it is still trying to do. They could still save their own ass, but it's much less sure they can now. Probably even leftists will concede this is a happy turn if it comes about, but they just won't say much about it, because it is assumed that theory won't be protected if any compromises are made.

[pebird]

Patrick - I agree on the disorientation of the Bush level - I think it comprised of 2 parts:

1) events taking control (e.g., lack of competence to respond to war, disaster, etc.)

2) withdrawal of "establishment" support - which has also provided the media the go-ahead to start sniping.

Of these, I think they are more bothered by 2) - realizing you aren't in the power seat (or that your hold is tenuous) is disorienting to say the least.

[Patrick J. Mullins]

'But the discussions were at times strained, with Mr. Libby and Mr. Tate asserting that they communicated their voluntary waiver to Ms. Miller's lawyers more than year ago, according to those briefed on the case. Mr. Libby wrote to Ms. Miller in mid-September, saying that he believed her lawyers understood that his waiver was voluntary.'

And now there's this: something to do with 'timing,' to be sure, but who knows who thinks they've got an advantage. I thought this paragraph was incredible, I want all details and I'm not going to get them: Did Mr. Libby write her in long-hand and put it in a post office box on the street? Did he really say that 'he believed her lawyers understood' (implying 'still not 100% sure'), so the poor dear did 85 days for something or somebody and gets to call it 'principle' and even the NYTimes is going to have to write very beautiful stories now, because Ms. Miller's 'principle' is so hilarious under the circumstances; she really wanted to go to jail because she believed the waivers used to be false. And then the 'sources' were simply so helpless despite good will toward Ms. Miller that they got flustered about it and just couldn't get it through her head that she really didn't have to go. The end of the article said she was given no special privileges either. I mean this one is really good. Since it wasn't even Karl Rove this time, it's purely coincidental that it wasn't one of, say, 4 other people.

I like breaking reports, the very first draft published, because they haven't polished it yet, so that in this case this sounds like some Dementia Support Group. We will finally get some truly singular writing from the Times tonight, and Frank Rich won't be exempt over the weekend. Oh yes, this is not just good politics, this is artistically thrilling. Does deserve a prize, I think 'Best Supporting Actress' is not asking too much. And I mean the Oscars too, not some podunk journalism award. This gal's got X factor.