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After the storm, US media held
to account for exaggerated tales of Katrina chaos
By Andrew Gumbel in Los Angeles
Published: 28 September 2005
Found
here !
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article315511.ece
After the storm, US media held to account for
exaggerated tales of Katrina chaos
By Andrew Gumbel in Los Angeles
Published: 28 September 2005
The stories out of New Orleans in the immediate
aftermath of Hurricane Katrina were little short of sickening: armed gangs
terrorising evacuees in the Superdome and convention centre, bodies piling
up by the dozen amid the stench and human waste, bodies stuffed into a
freezer, children raped, murdered and thrown into waste bins.
One month after the storm, however, it appears
that few, if any, of the most lurid reports breathlessly repeated on American
television, echoed in official statements and duly reported in many of
the world's newspapers, had any basis in fact.
Several reporters and officials who have revisited
the emblematic sites of the peculiarly chaotic hell that was New Orleans
in the wake of Katrina now say the death toll at the Superdome was just
six - and four of those were the result of natural causes. The fifth victim
overdosed on drugs and the sixth committed suicide. If there were shootings
or stabbings, none were fatal.
At the convention centre, where The New York
Times recently reported a death toll of 24 amid scenes of gun violence
and rank fear, health and law enforcement officials have now told the New
Orleans Times-Picayune newspaper that they recovered four bodies, of which
only one showed signs of having been murdered.
Police have confirmed just four homicides in
the city in the week after the hurricane - about average for one of America's
most crime-ridden metropolitan areas.
While it now seems certain the initial lurid
stories were exaggerated - some, including the purported rape of a seven-year-old,
were repeated by the city's mayor and police chief, only to be disavowed
much later - it may still be too soon to paint an exact picture of what
happened in the chaotic days following the collapse of New Orleans's levee
system, when 80 per cent of the city was submerged and the federal government
became ever more glaringly evident by its absence.
Some of the distortions were due to the collapse
of communications and the sense of horror at what was unfolding. Some were
the hallmark of an over-eager, under-informed news media - who, six years
ago, managed to get wronng almost all the basic details of the shootings
at Columbine High School in Colorado. And some of it appears to have been
fuelled by fear of - occasionally bordering on bigotry towards - a poor,
desperate, largely black population.
In New Orleans' whiter, affluent western suburbs,
stories spread after the hurricane of gangs of looters taking over one
community after another. No such thing happened. Residents openly described
the urban poor as " animals" and indicated they were willing to believe
just about anything about them. Once the National Guard arrived in the
city, soldiers charged with securing the perimeter of the Superdome warned
journalists they would not be safe going inside.
The inside turned out to be chaotic, fetid
and stiflingly hot, but very far from the violent hellhole advertised.
"It just morphed into this mythical place where the most unthinkable deeds
were being done," Ed Bush of the National Guard told yesterday's Los Angeles
Times. Only now, one month later, is the record being set straight.
Even as far afield as Baton Rouge, the state
capital 80 miles to the north-west, rumours of a crime wave created by
thousands of evacuees from New Orleans triggered such a panic that the
campus of Louisiana State University was locked down for almost a day.
Police later said the only crime they had logged in the city was a single
minor incident involving a knife at a temporary shelter. Nobody was hurt
.
Fact and fiction
* MYTH: Shootings and stabbings at the Superdome.
TRUTH: If there were, they were not fatal.
* MYTH: 24 dead at convention centre amid gun
violence.
TRUTH: Four bodies recovered, one showed signs
of murder.
* MYTH: Affluent suburbs taken over by gangs
of looters.
TRUTH: Looters did not take over communities.
* MYTH: In Baton Rouge, evacuees created a
crime wave. (In the atmosphere of panic Louisiana State University was
locked down.)
TRUTH: One crime occurred in the city; a minor
incident involving a knife at a temporary shelter. No one was hurt.
The stories out of New Orleans in the immediate
aftermath of Hurricane Katrina were little short of sickening: armed gangs
terrorising evacuees in the Superdome and convention centre, bodies piling
up by the dozen amid the stench and human waste, bodies stuffed into a
freezer, children raped, murdered and thrown into waste bins.
One month after the storm, however, it appears
that few, if any, of the most lurid reports breathlessly repeated on American
television, echoed in official statements and duly reported in many of
the world's newspapers, had any basis in fact.
Several reporters and officials who have revisited
the emblematic sites of the peculiarly chaotic hell that was New Orleans
in the wake of Katrina now say the death toll at the Superdome was just
six - and four of those were the result of natural causes. The fifth victim
overdosed on drugs and the sixth committed suicide. If there were shootings
or stabbings, none were fatal.
At the convention centre, where The New York
Times recently reported a death toll of 24 amid scenes of gun violence
and rank fear, health and law enforcement officials have now told the New
Orleans Times-Picayune newspaper that they recovered four bodies, of which
only one showed signs of having been murdered.
Police have confirmed just four homicides in
the city in the week after the hurricane - about average for one of America's
most crime-ridden metropolitan areas.
While it now seems certain the initial lurid
stories were exaggerated - some, including the purported rape of a seven-year-old,
were repeated by the city's mayor and police chief, only to be disavowed
much later - it may still be too soon to paint an exact picture of what
happened in the chaotic days following the collapse of New Orleans's levee
system, when 80 per cent of the city was submerged and the federal government
became ever more glaringly evident by its absence.
Some of the distortions were due to the collapse
of communications and the sense of horror at what was unfolding. Some were
the hallmark of an over-eager, under-informed news media - who, six years
ago, managed to get wronng almost all the basic details of the shootings
at Columbine High School in Colorado. And some of it appears to have been
fuelled by fear of - occasionally bordering on bigotry towards - a poor,
desperate, largely black population.
In New Orleans' whiter, affluent western suburbs,
stories spread after the hurricane of gangs of looters taking over one
community after another. No such thing happened. Residents openly described
the urban poor as " animals" and indicated they were willing to believe
just about anything about them. Once the National Guard arrived in the
city, soldiers charged with securing the perimeter of the Superdome warned
journalists they would not be safe going inside.
The inside turned out to be chaotic, fetid
and stiflingly hot, but very far from the violent hellhole advertised.
"It just morphed into this mythical place where the most unthinkable deeds
were being done," Ed Bush of the National Guard told yesterday's Los Angeles
Times. Only now, one month later, is the record being set straight.
Even as far afield as Baton Rouge, the state
capital 80 miles to the north-west, rumours of a crime wave created by
thousands of evacuees from New Orleans triggered such a panic that the
campus of Louisiana State University was locked down for almost a day.
Police later said the only crime they had logged in the city was a single
minor incident involving a knife at a temporary shelter. Nobody was hurt
.
Fact and fiction
* MYTH: Shootings and stabbings at the Superdome.
TRUTH: If there were, they were not fatal.
* MYTH: 24 dead at convention centre amid gun
violence.
TRUTH: Four bodies recovered, one showed signs
of murder.
* MYTH: Affluent suburbs taken over by gangs
of looters.
TRUTH: Looters did not take over communities.
* MYTH: In Baton Rouge, evacuees created a
crime wave. (In the atmosphere of panic Louisiana State University was
locked down.)
TRUTH: One crime occurred in the city; a minor
incident involving a knife at a temporary shelter. No one was hurt.