Katrina, US and us

One of the most noted trends in the media coverage of Hurricane Katrina has been the aggressive and critical tone some journalists have adopted towards the White House and Bush administration officials. A headline at the online magazine Slate read, "The Rebellion of the Talking Heads" (9/2/05). "Katrina Rekindles Adversarial Media" is how USA Today put it (9/6/05)--implying, of course, that an...

For Campbell Brown, the anger peaked when she reached the New Orleans Convention Center. In the area for days covering the landfall and aftermath of Hurricane Katrina for NBC News, Brown had seen plenty of devastation. But the sight of 20,000 people trucked to the facility amid promises of provisions and comfortable shelter, only to find nothing, made the reporter's blood boil. "Watching the power...

NEW YORK: Forced to defend what some critics consider its slow response to the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina, the Federal Emergency Management Agency said on Tuesday it does not want the news media to take photographs of the dead as they are recovered from New Orleans. FEMA, which is leading the rescue efforts, rejected requests from journalists to accompany rescue boats as they went out...

Recent research by Richard Nisbett and his colleagues at the University of Michigan suggests that Asians and Americans quite literally look at the world differently. Broadly speaking, Americans tend to focus on a single image where Asians take in the bigger picture. Is that because Asians are taught to think in terms of larger groups -- family certainly, perhaps society at large -- where Americans...

A September 7 Reuters article reported that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) "asked the media not to take pictures of those killed by Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath" and "refused to take reporters and photographers along on boats seeking victims in flooded areas." FEMA's actions, along with further reports that the government is obstructing journalists in New Orleans, have drawn...

Every day -- sometimes every hour -- brings dramatic change and unimaginable repercussions as television follows the Hurricane Katrina fallout. Much in the same manner of Sept. 11 coverage, it has become one of those events where history is televised and it's nearly impossible to look away. And because television is this nation's shared experience and remains the most powerful medium on the planet...

It is not only the shocking incompetence of the US authorities in dealing with the disastrous aftermath of Hurricane Katrina that has surprised people in India. What is no less disturbing is the complete collapse of law and order over vast areas in America's Gulf Coast region. The contrast between what happens in India during such a time of trouble is too stark to be missed. In America, the...

WASHINGTON (AFP) - In the emotional aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, US television's often deferential treatment of government officials has been replaced by fiercely combative interviews and scathing commentary. As the scale of carnage became clear and the government was seen as tardy in its response, TV news anchors and reporters dropped their dispassionate reserve in favour of stinging comments...

Hurricanes and floods are ‘natural’ calamities only up to a point. New Orleans has been devastated by both, working together as never before in the generally cursed Gulf Coast of the United States of America. The aftermath of Hurricane Katrina was not only the breach of the Mississippi levees, unleashing the waters for two days, killing several thousands and rendering many more stranded, homeless...

As President Bush scurries back to the Gulf Coast, it is clear that this is the greatest challenge to politics-as-usual in America since the fall of Richard Nixon in the 1970s. Then as now, good reporting lies at the heart of what is changing. But unlike Watergate, "Katrinagate" was public service journalism ruthlessly exposing the truth on a live and continuous basis. Instead of secretive "Deep...