watching GMA covering the victims of the CA fire, I'm struck by several things

[Lerkfish]

They're doing heartfelt interviews of the victims: discussing their loss of property in emotional palpable terms. One fellow had 12 acres burned. Think about the cost of land in california, and then think about 12 whole acres of it.

but the point is: they're interviewing people and their loss...the way the story SHOULD be covered.

Now think back, in the way back machine, to New Orleans. Do you recall ANY black family being interviewed, do you remember ANY reporter saying "sorry for your loss" in terms of their lost PROPERTY?

all I remember, from the time, were more well to do WHITE families, north of NOLA being interviewed, people that owned BUSINESSES and discussing the loss of their BUSINESS.


Kanye West was right, but he should have included the media.

[Kutjara]

1. self delete.

[Uben]

2. Sorry,but.........

....there were literally thousands of interviews of black families in NOLA. And, there is a film being made about it as well! As I remember, you couldn't turn on the TV without seeing people being interviewed about their losses, blacks as well as whites.

[whistle]

9. I recall that also, not thousands but certainly a lot and news helicopter fly overs

...of hundreds of stranded victims and families standing and sitting on the roof-tops of their flooded out homes and the hundreds of bloated floating corpses of drowned victims and the dozens of elderly who had been left in their nursing home beds and wheelchairs to die and the young girl who went into the diabetic coma for lack of medications that were never made available and the hundreds of other grime images of official and deliberate neglect by a shameful administration and their policies of little or no federal emergency assistance.

[Lerkfish]

18. we have differing memories.

I'm talking about as it happened, not in the aftermath several months later.

[soothsayer]

3. I recall lots of tearful african americans talking about dead loved ones.

Very heartwrenching. Don't you remember all of Anderson Cooper's coverage of stuff? You are probably thinking of dumbass * talking about how he hopes his good white friend senator/congressman whomever will rebuild his mansion so they could sit on the front porch, or whatever stupid thing he said.

[Lerkfish]

17. I'm mainly talking about GMA

and the mainstream morning news

[BrklynLib at work]

4. The REAL co ntrast is the way the people in QualComm Stadium are being treated as opposed to the

way those that were forced into the stadium in NO were treated.....
The word is that they have learned from previous mistakes... riiiiiiiiiiiiight.

[Marrah_G]

5. It is also a very different situation

The stadium isn't flooded. Volunteers and Donors can drive up and drop things off. Most of the infrastructure of SD is still intact.

NO had to rely on help from the Government. Ordinary people could not just drive over and help. The Gov failed.

SD is working because of local organizers and ordinary citizens coming out to help....probably in part because they saw the horrors of the Superdome.

You really cannot compare the two situation.

[Rockholm]

7. Finally. An accurate comparison.

We were talking about this last night. People could drive and park at Qualcomm Stadium.
A fair number of people had to cut themselves out of their attic, swim through disgusting water, walk and drag themselves to the Superdome and then wait.
Nothing could get to them.
What happened in NOLA and what is happening in California is tragic. They however do not compare.
The only comparison is that the federal government failed NOLA and will certainly fail in CA.

[SammyWinstonJack]

13. Thank you! nt

[Breeze54]

8. A lot of the help at QualComm Stadium is from private citizens

who volunteered their time, donated items, etc.

[Breeze54]

6. Yes, I remember many interviews with black familes, mexican families, etc.

Yes, I remember many reporters saying "sorry for your loss" in terms of their lost PROPERTY and lives.

[Lerkfish]

19. AS it was happening, or afterwards?

Sorry, all I recall from GMA was interviews of white business owners.

[Breeze54]

25. Well, no! Not as it was happening because no one could

get in there but shortly afterwards.

I'm sure if you just google "Katrina"; you'll find lots of articles with interviews.

-----------------

CNN's coverage of Katrina and the aftermath won a 2006 Peabody Award, the oldest honor in electronic media

http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2005/katrina/

Editor's Note: This special report was archived in September 2006.

Voices from the Gulf Coast
August 29, 2005: Hurricane Katrina made landfall on the Gulf Coast, destroying lives, leveling homes and leaving thousands of survivors with the same story: We lost everything. One year later, many still coped with Katrina's devastation. Some had moved forward, but for others recovery was at a standstill. CNN.com visited the region to get their stories.

--------------------------

'Take care of the kids and grandkids'

Victims deal with deaths of loved ones, devastation

Tuesday, August 30, 2005; Posted: 6:47 p.m. EDT (22:47 GMT)

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WEATHER/08/30/katrina.people/index.html

------------------------------

To ABC's Surprise, Katrina Victims Praise Bush and Blame Nagin

By Brent Baker | September 16, 2005 - 00:50 ET

http://www.newsbusters.org/node/1201

-----------------------------------

Laotian-American Victims of Hurricane Katrina Seek Refuge in Wat Lao Thammarattanaram of Louisiania.

By Vannasone Keodara

02/09/2005

Katrina victim interview audio clip
Listen to Katrina victim interview audio clip

http://www.voanews.com/lao/archive/2005-09/2005-09-02-voa2.cfm?CFID=146594442&CFTOKEN=61914615

[RB TexLa]

10. Pretty simple, America and Americans weren't sorry for any losses in Louisiana

You didn't surprise us, we know how little Americans think of us.

[soothsayer]

11. Actually, I recall Americans donating TONS of money that just seems to have vanished.

We were horrified by the flooding, the death, and most of all the gov't failure to do ANYTHING helpful...to this day! I'm still horrified, in fact.

[Lerkfish]

20. quite a broad brush there

I started this thread because I DON"T fit into your broad brush.

[SammyWinstonJack]

12. I remember quite a few actually.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

14. Stop it.

You're getting in the way of the narrative. ;-)

[Lerkfish]

22. Or, we're talking about different points of time in the story.

[Lerkfish]

21. Proportionately, I don't.

I recall INTERVIEWS with black families AFTER they were relocated to FEMA trailers, etc. But those stories were weeks after the event.

I'm talking about AS the disaster was unfolding.

our memories differ

[NorthernSpy]

15. the Katrina news stories turned into impersonal "social issues" reporting pretty quickly...

... coupled with the usual magnitude-of-the-disaster sensationalism characteristic of coverage of such foreign catastrophes as the big earthquake that struck Pakistan in the weeks after Katrina.

The opinion-makers in the mainstream media do not represent everybody. They are not inclined to identify with the Katrina victims. They may sympathize, but they do not take what is happening to these "others" personally, and this is the element that is missing from the Katrina stories generally.

[Lerkfish]

16. and (what turned out to be false) stories of looters and lawlessness

and you make a goodpoint: the reporters are taking it PERSONALLY

[NorthernSpy]

23. the false stories were the ones that didn't sound even remotely plausible to begin with...

I remember some insanity about people at the convention center supposedly running amok and raping babies, and murdering children, and stuffing their bodies in a big freezer. Some little shit in the National Guard got his name in the papers telling one such lie (Mikel Brooks), and the reporter didn't insist on seeing the bodies. Turns out, Brooks hadn't seen the bodies either, because there weren't any murdered children. It was a rumor, and the press reported it as fact.

Early on, there was that supposed "attack" on Children's Hospital that the hospital's own director informed the media it was pure invention: no such event had occurred. Then, in response to questions about rescue aircraft supposedly coming under fire, the FAA said that they had received no reports of any such thing. But even these prompt official debunkings didn't stop the flood of slanderous false news about survivors attacking hospitals and trying to shoot down their rescuers.

I'll never forgive that.


There was looting in New Orleans, and no one has said otherwise. What outrages me is that the ransacking of a friggin WalMart quickly displaced the 1,420 people who died in the flood as the main story. At least, the prospect of a relative handful of people making off with stolen TVs seemed to be what really got the fires of indignation burning for many.

For contrast's sake, the WTC site also suffered some looting during the recovery operation, at a time when access to the site was strictly controlled. The basement gold vault of Scotia bank showed evidence of an attempted break in. But this has NEVER been allowed to overshadow the courage and selflessness of the rescuers, or the human suffering and tragedy of the thousands who died there, or the moral significance of any of those people's lives.

Once the blacks were evacuated, the press seemed to lose their interest in the Katrina looting. Figures, because that's when we started seeing a new batch of opportunists (white this time) coming in from outlying areas and getting arrested when they tried to leave with pickup trucks loaded with other people's things. And then the (white) police chief of dinky little Mermentau, LA got caught stealing expensive sunglasses from a French Quarter shop...

[WinkyDink]

24. Has Blackwater trained its machine-guns yet on Californians? Any moved to camps in Utah?