Reporting and Implications of the New Orleans disaster – viewed from Canada

REPORTING AND IMPLICATIONS OF THE NEW ORLEANS DISASTER - VIEWED FROM CANADA

---------------------------- Original Message ----------------------------
All the opinions and notations you have sent [comments from the Western Mass activists web page] were in the mix. I tell
you, the whole of North America spent the weekend glued to the media
watching and listening as the city died. There is mass outrage at the way
the black poor have been treated. "Good form" has been breaking down
everywhere in the mainstream media. Two CNN journalists on the scene more
than once broke down and one ended up shouting angrily into the camera
asking where the rescue was for the people. Another, a big time evening
interview-presenter, was allowed to run program after program in which he
interviewed high federal officials with blunt withering questions which
they (of course) tried to spin to which he would go silent and stare right
into the camera with a look of disgust so profound that the clips are now
circulating everywhere. In one mainstream TV fund raiser (on NBC) one of
the nation's top rappers "broke from the script" and said direct to the
camera (millions watching in prime time) "President Bush is a racist. He
has no time for blacks" His co-presenter is seen having a fit of nerves.
In another mainstream media fund-raiser a female country-rock star (can't
remember name) broke down and launched into an unscripted speech for about
5 minutes just destroying the Bush regime before the screen went blank. It
has been high drama. Interestingly, CNN has been the most effective US TV.
They have had cameras and correspondents everywhere. The situation has
been so appalling that the CNN presenters have often been obviously wiping
away tears as the camera cut back to them from some on-site situation -
I've never seen anything like it on mainstream US media. For a period of
Saturday afternoon CNN and a few other networks sent one cameraman up in a
helicopter, not a reporter. They pooled the footage live, with the
photographer making little comments about where they were and what they
were doing and seeing - no hyperbole. It was silent cinema verite. It was
moving and disturbing, looking from overhead as buildings burned out,
whole malls consumed by fire, people apparently drowning trying to get
food packages dropped by Coast Guard helicopters, people waving trapped on
roofs and balconies.

Nobody came to save them and CNN and the other networks silently
reverently filmed it all. The footage quickly gripped the nation and other
networks (including Canada's CTV) ran news stories showing people in
public places everywhere - malls, airports, bars etc. standing and
silently watching the silent CNN camera footage. It was very hard to
watch, very emotional and tense - those few hours of video are going to be
history like the Kennedy killings. The deep burning regime-destroying
question seldom asked but always there was "if all the media could get
there right away, where was the relief rescue?" Some of the most
disturbing and riveting newspaper reportage came from the Toronto Star,
which has now been re-produced all over North America. By a series of
flukes three Star journalists got right to the center of New Orleans on Tuesday
afternoon ahead of just about all outsiders. They reported police rioting
against black people. When people asked for help they were shot. Much of
the looting and reported sniper fire was evidently in response to the
police action on the Tuesday. One Star photographer was beaten by Police
and some pictures of the riots were taken and destroyed. Another was held
at gun point by out of control police. None of this was reported in the
mainstream US media. I gave the Star (they published a whole section on
this with pictures on Friday) to Fred and Lucy and they are saving it as a
historical document.

We got into a rhythm of watching the minute by minute coverage on CNN and
then turning to the BBC World TV which (luckily the CBC is not operating)
was piped in via CBC. The BBC took a different approach - rather than blow
by blow their correspondents (at last count they 5 reporters and crews in
the region) did kind of visual essays. I saw things no one else was
showing or reporting. Their interviews were sober but direct and
devastating.

So what to take from all this beyond the sadness and pain of the end of
New Orleans.? The 'aftermath" talk show buzz like 'On Point' (by the way I did
some web research and found out that Dick was fired the first week in July
and nobody at WBUR is saying why but speculation is that there was a
budget crisis and Trumpets was more expensive to produce than 'On Point')
is that there has been a monumental fuck up in the Homeland Security
department (this was predicted at the time of the creation - remember
people saying that it takes decades to amalgamate departments into a new
one?) the main fuck up being that FEMA was incorporated into Homeland as a
minor office and therefore lost all its ability to co-ordinate disaster
relief. The resulting massive communication and control burn out
disconnected all the resources FEMA could bring to bear on a situation.
There are many reports today of how resources FEMA had deployed in other
crises the past 5 years were waiting for the call as early as the Friday
before the storm and never got it because the FEMA officials are now
required to go through 4 or 5 layers of Homeland before a decision can be
made and implemented.

It is a tragic way to demonstrate what I was predicting in the Africa
chapter on the Bush doctrine: that the imperial edifice will crumble
through its own contradictions.



See also a very interesting eyewitness account at:  http://www.socialistworker.org/2005-2/556/556_04_RealHeroes.shtml

The real heroes and sheroes of New Orleans
LARRY BRADSHAW and LORRIE BETH SLONSKY are emergency medical services (EMS) workers from San Francisco and contributors to Socialist Worker. They were attending an EMS conference in New Orleans when Hurricane Katrina struck. They spent most of the next week trapped by the flooding--and the martial law cordon around the city. Here, they tell their story.