Database of Katrina/Media related News
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THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 1, 2005
Page
One Today
"Networks
won't retreat from graphic coverage"
TV Networks Navigate Floodwaters To Get on Air
Slate
Jack Shafer explains: "Race remains largely untouchable for TV because
broadcasters sense that they can't make an error without destroying careers.
That's a true pity. If the subject were a little less taboo, one of last night's
anchors could have asked a reporter, 'Can you explain to our viewers, who
by now
have surely noticed, why 99 percent of the New Orleans evacuees
we're seeing are
African-American? I suppose our viewers have noticed, too,
that the provocative
looting footage we're airing and re-airing seems
to depict mostly
African-Americans.'"
Local
TV heads to Gulf Coast (Broadcasting & Cable)
TV Telethons Announced:
Annual MDA Telethon: begins 9 p.m. EDT Sunday ends 5:30 p.m. EDT Monday
"A Concert for Hurricane Relief" will air on NBC, MSNBC and CNBC at 8
p.m. EDT Friday
MTV Networks: Saturday, Sept. 10, music special airing on MTV, VH1 and CMT
(from Poynter & Jim Romenesko)
TV
execs: Covering Katrina is tougher than reporting war
New York Times
Bill Carter writes: "The news channels have scrambled against impediments
like
widespread power failures, disrupted cellphone service, and lack of fuel to
maintain
contact with correspondents and news crews, while also struggling to
keep them
supplied with food, water and shelter." Fox News Channel's John
Stack says:
"This really does remind me of covering a war zone or a third
world story."
> "I
never anticipated covering a story in the continental US like this"
(WP)
> People
most in need of info were least likely to read, see or hear it (WP)
Wall Street Journal: Newspaper
That Had Warned of Disaster Lives Own Prophecy
(8/31/05) by Joe Hagan
The Journal article notes that past coverage
in the Times-Picayune predicted
that the New
Orleans area "was becoming more vulnerable because of rising
seas, sinking
land, difficulties in evacuation and a number of other factors."
Some of
those "other factors" were detailed in a June 8, 2004 Times-Picayune
piece, which quoted emergency management chief Walter Maestri on why work
had
stopped on the city's east bank hurricane levees: "It appears that the
money
has been moved in the president’s budget to handle homeland security and
the
war in Iraq." See also Editor &
Publisher:
Did
New Orleans Catastrophe Have to Happen? Times-Picayune
Had Repeatedly Raised
Federal Spending Issues (8/31/05)
by Will Bunch, which provides a more
complete picture of the Bush administration's
underfunding of hurricane
defenses.