Katrina anniversary TV coverage relives Bush administration failure

[DeepModem Mom]

NYT: TV Watch
An Anniversary With Strong Images, Sorrow, Self-Congratulation and Blame
By ALESSANDRA STANLEY
Published: August 30, 2006

....A year ago, television coverage — especially those split screens that showed marooned Americans screaming and dying at the Convention Center on one side and on the other officials insisting that the situation was under control — turned a natural disaster into an international scandal....

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As Mr. Bush visited New Orleans yesterday and described his commitment to help the region recover, news programs gustily relived how he had failed in the first place....

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Laura Bush spoke to Harry Smith, co-anchor of “The Early Show” on CBS, from a school library in New Orleans and glowingly described residents’ gratitude for the volunteers — and financial assistance — still arriving a year later.

Mr. Smith, dressed like a war correspondent in a khaki shirt, spoke to her via satellite from a more desolate part of the city. With a skeptical sigh, he replied, “The message I hear so often, people just say to me, ‘Don’t let America forget we are down here.’ ’’

Perhaps understandably, not many other officials were eager to go on television to defend the administration’s handling of the relief effort.

On Fox News, Neil Cavuto turned to the boxing promoter Don King, a longtime supporter of Mr. Bush who held an American flag across his chest as he praised the president. The Fox News caption read, “Don King: Stop blaming Pres. Bush for Katrina.”...

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/30/us/30watch.html