Months after Hurricane Katrina, a Media “Whitewash”

Vincent Fiore

Lately, those sounds emitting from your television set these days is the constant “siss, boom, bah!” of the Democratic Party as they demonstrate why it is that they are not to be trusted with this nation’s security.

Dutifully, the old media echo chamber plays and replays the latest verbal outrages of our liberal friends. Recent statements by DNC Chairman Howard Dean, Senator John Kerry (D), and Congressman John Murtha (D) have invested heavily in Al-Qaeda and terrorism, and little in America and the Bush administration.

All the while, the old media eagerly leap and perform journalistic jujitsu making sure that all the news that’s fit to batter Bush gets out there continuously, and uninterrupted.

But what of the media responsibility to right the record in regard to misrepresentation and misconception of previous news? Such a case would surely be this week’s story from CNS news that was titled: “Statistics Suggest Race Not a Factor in Katrina Deaths”
(www.cnsnews.com/ViewNation.asp?Page=\Nation\archive\200512\NAT20051214b.html)

Stunningly, the only other sound you hear from your television set--besides the Democrats latest grievance against Bush--is the deafening roar of a media blackout of this at once inane but necessary news story. For if the story revolved on race, the media gleefully reported on it in excess-as they did in the days after Hurricane Katrina blasted New Orleans. But not this one, it seems.

Some choice words by certain minority and liberal iconoclasts come to mind, words intended to divide, not heal. If I had a nickel for every time I heard the media not only parrot but formulate the words for these professional race hustlers to charge that “Bush ignored the sufferings of blacks,” I would be able to fund the rebuilding those long-suffering levees myself.

From the story by CNS news, here are some of those choice words:

-Damu Smith, founder of the National Black Environmental Justice Network, stated that the federal government “ignored us, they forgot about us ... because we look like we look.”

-Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan stating that the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, wasn't fit to help the storm's victims because “there are not enough blacks high up in FEMA…certainly the Red Cross is the same.”

-Everyone’s favorite “gangsta” rapper/supreme idiot, Kanye West, decided to use a telethon being held to benefit the victims of Hurricane Katrina to tell the world that “George Bush doesn't care about black people.”

From my own previous research and writings, here are a few others:

-Black activist Randall Robinson, incredibly, stating that “black hurricane victims in New Orleans have begun eating corpses to survive.” Robinson also claimed to “have finally come to see my country for what it really is--a monstrous fraud.” (Robinson has since retracted the claims of black cannibalism.)

-Al Sharpton, another black leader, was reported saying: “I feel that, if it was in another area, with another economic strata and racial makeup, that President Bush would have run out of Crawford a lot quicker and FEMA would have found its way in a lot sooner.”
(www.opinioneditorials.com/guestcontributors/vfiore_20050910.html)

How the mainstream media flocked to those “leaders” whose statements were uttered within the heady emotions of partisanship. But how the truth has come back to haunt those who tried to make you believe that they, those gatekeepers of “truth,” the mainstream media, were in fact reporting truth:

“Statistics released by the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals suggest that fewer than half of the victims of Hurricane Katrina were black, and that whites died at the highest rate of all races in New Orleans.”

Well, well, well. You mean Bush failed to kill enough blacks, or killed too many whites? Did Bush screw-up by making sure that Hurricane Katrina took “sensitivity classes” before pulverizing the Gulf? Or is this just a clever story put out by Karl Rove, since anyone who really knows anything knows that it was Rove who let those sharks loose in New Orleans--specially trained to attack blacks?
(http://urbanlegends.about.com/b/a/199389.htm)

Here was a typical media storyline from the Washington Post: “Bush's Approval Rating Drops to New Low in Wake of Storm.” The sub-heading to that was what the media was really trying to trumpet: “He (Bush) Says Race Didn't Affect Efforts; Blacks in Poll Disagree.” There were literally thousands upon thousands of slanted copy such as this.
(www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/12/AR2005091200668.html)

If one were to do a “Google” search using the words “Hurricane Katrina + race + Bush,” you will get nearly 3 million possible hits. This would seem to flesh out what cooler and apolitical (if only for a moment) heads had been saying since all this became an issue of race instead of what it was, a natural disaster. And that is that the mainstream media is in the business of making news, as opposed to reporting it.

We “idiots” labeled the public await the efforts by the media to clarify the record, and put to rest any fears that blacks, or anybody else for that matter, need fear that their government ignores their sufferings. I would hope that this effort--at least as much effort as they exerted to brand a sitting president a racist--would balance the scales and show that responsible journalism has not also succumbed to the indiscriminate ravages of Hurricane Katrina.

Vincent Fiore is a freelance political writer who lives in New York City. He receives e-mail at: Anwar004@aol.com

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Vincent Fiore writes for a host of web sites as a featured and guest writer, including Gopusa.com, Newsmax.com, Opinioneditorials.com, acuf.org, Instituteforliberty.org, Washingtondispatch.com, ChronWatch.com, Intellectualconservative.com, and is a staff writer for Commonconservative.com. Vincent’s work has been cited by U.S. Congressman, radio talk show hosts, and foreign news service’s worldwide. Vincent continues to market his brand of conservative thought throughout the World Wide Web as well as print media. Your comments, yea or nay, are always welcomed.

ANWAR004@AOL.COM