Posted 9:35 AM by Robert

Over The Top With The Mainstream Media II

Tom Maguire has lots more particulars, especially whopping examples of media gore-and-gash-hype. And he has some further media confessions. Here and here, for example.

Tom points out that NBC News claims that its reporting was "responsible" and that "the only deaths we reported were the ones we actually saw." But he found this example of NBC's concept of "responsible" reporting right away: "There are so many bodies that medical staff are using the baggage conveyor to carry the stretchers." Read the whole thing and the great links.

And remember, Mr. Bush cut back on flood spending in Louisiana to help finance his Iraq adventure, appointed an incompetent to head FEMA, and, of course stole the election in 2000 and dodged the draft. So it was responsible for the media to run all those gore-and-gash stories, just the way NBC says it was. In a tit-for-tat sense, Mr. Bush's bad behavior essentially entitles the media to rely on assumptions and refuse to correct an unsupported fact ... at least until well after the damage is done.

Sure, that flood spending didn't really decrease under Bush at all, and was thought by many to be increasing the risk of flood damage. The programs were also wracked with corruption, and locally elected federal politicians preferred their pork prepared a different way, as the Washington Post noted: [O]ver the five years of President Bush's administration, Louisiana has received far more money for Corps civil works projects than any other state; California was a distant second with less than $1.4 billion, even though its population is more than seven times as large. .... In fact, more than any other federal agency, the Corps is controlled by Congress; its $4.7 billion civil works budget consists almost entirely of "earmarks" inserted by individual legislators. And, OK already, that "incompetent" at FEMA did a good job in the Florida hurricanes last year and FEMA's Katrina's response wasn't slow compared to FEMA performance in other hurricanes, including those during the Clinton years. But all of that is beyond living media memory! Can't we all just move on!

But about that election in 2000 and that all-important 1970's draft issue ....