Journalists as Heroes Again?
PressThink is one blog that realizes that there are multiple governments. Here are a few brief excerpts from a post entitled "From Deference to Outrage: Katrina and the Press."
I was away from blogging when Hurricane Katrina hit and New Orleans went down, but people kept sending me stuff. The article most often sent to me was a commentary by Matt Wells of the BBC, “Has Katrina saved US media?” Possibly it has, he said: “Amidst the horror, American broadcast journalism just might have grown its spine back, thanks to Katrina.”
The “timid and self-censoring journalistic culture” in the U.S. is normally “no match for the masterfully aggressive spin-surgeons of the Bush administration,” Wells wrote. “But last week the complacency stopped, and the moral indignation against inadequate government began to flow, from slick anchors who spend most of their time glued to desks in New York and Washington.”
Other observers made the same point: national journalism was awakening after a period of intimidation, and finding its voice by voicing its anger....
Meanwhile, in the Media Blog at National Review Online, Stephen Spruiell said he expected to see “a lot of these stories about how journalism has ‘gotten its spine back’— by which they mean that journalists are acting like a bunch of know-it-alls to whom the solution to every problem was obvious all along.” In his view, a pre-existing inclination to “blame Bush” was simply allowed more room to express itself.
Spruiell thought it was a highlight that “reporters put a lot of passion into their stories and brought the drama right into your living room.” But then the lowlight: “The reporters put a lot of anti-administration animosity into their analysis, failing to provide the context of state, local and federal failures and settling on the easy story: Blame Bush.”
Why did Giuliani get the credit in New York after 9/11, while Bush gets the blame in New Orleans? That’s what righty Hugh Hewitt wanted to know: “Who is in charge when bad things happen to big cities?”
"The MSM’s answer seems to be: Cities, when things go right and the mayor is courageous and telegenic; the President when the locals are in way over their heads. Not a very satisfactory answer, but MSM is hardly searching for answers, only ratings."...
What are the proper reponsibilities for city government, state government and the national government? If you haven’t thought about it, and drawn the necessary conclusions, all the backbone in the world won’t tell you where to aim your questions. The New Yorker’s press critic is Nick Lemann, who’s from New Orleans. He observes:
"The wetlands that protected the city on the south and west have been deteriorating from commercial exploitation for years, thanks to inaction by Louisiana as well as by the United States. It isn’t Washington that decided it’s O.K. to let retail establishments in New Orleans sell firearms—which are now being extensively stolen and turned to the service of increasing the chaos in the city."
What is realistic to expect in a chaotic situation like New Orleans faced in the week after the hurricane? It’s not an easy question. An intelligent and nuanced answer to that is worth a lot more to journalists than righteous indignation, because if your rage overcomes your realism you will eventually sound ridiculous even to those who share the feeling.
What are the differences in the way our political system handles a problem that is real and manifest (present to the senses) vs. a threat that is real but not manifest at all (abstract until it’s right upon us)? If you haven’t thought about it, you might find “lack of preparation” inhuman and incomprehensible. If you have, lack of preparation begins to seem all-too-human, and not to plan looks more like a policy choice....
A good analysis that throws away the red-tinted or blue-tinted glasses.
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