Victor Davis Hanson:
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But the media's coverage turned out to be almost as disturbing as the natural calamity and initial bureaucratic ineptness — in both the falsehood it spread and the truth it ignored. Political commentators proved more disturbing, seeking to turn death to partisan advantage.
The public was given few facts about what really happened among those trapped, especially the human mayhem that took place. Most would appreciate evidence before sweeping cultural analysis of half-reported stories that were not followed up because they were either untrue or politically incorrect.
Too many of the hysterical pronouncements of ill-informed officials were reported as gospel truth — and then forgotten — in 24-hour bursts. So "25,000 body bags!" and "10,000 dead" beneath the muck of a submerged city were quietly superseded by the matter-of-fact news reports that the airport would open shortly.
Now we are also told that Mardi Gras may be back on schedule. How could such radical improvement happen at ground zero in a city of corpses that supposedly would not recover for decades?
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Reporters' cliches about "racist" America were often at odds with the evidence of their own film footage. Black and white pulled together in Mississippi and thus avoided social chaos. Billions in aid, both private and public, poured into New Orleans from Americans worried sick over their fellow citizens, regardless of race.
After the initial shock, that enormous relief effort turned real catastrophe into salvation: levees patched, thousands of troops on the street, tens of thousands bused and flown to safe quarters across the country.
But New Orleans also confirmed how a 24/7 hyper media create and then deflate controversies of the day, from the Aruba embarrassment to Cindy Sheehan's circus.
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