Iraq has nuthin' on New Orleans...

[Immortal Wombat]

Clearly if there were no murdered bodies found, it is logical to assume that the media were no lying, but merely failed to report the widespread cannibalism resorted to by the hungry when fresh meat was supplied.

[germanos]

Re: Iraq has nuthin' on New Orleans...

from the first article

Indeed, Mayor C. Ray Nagin told a national television audience on "Oprah" three weeks ago of people "in that frickin' Superdome for five days watching dead bodies, watching hooligans killing people, raping people."
...
Nagin and Police Chief Eddie Compass appeared on "Oprah" a few days after trouble at the Superdome had peaked.

Compass told of "the little babies getting raped" at the Superdome. And Nagin made his claim about hooligans raping and killing.

second article

On Sept. 1, with desperate Hurricane Katrina evacuees crammed into the convention center, Police Chief Eddie Compass reported: "We have individuals who are getting raped; we have individuals who are getting beaten."

Five days later, he told Oprah Winfrey that babies were being raped. On the same show, Mayor Ray Nagin warned: "They have people standing out there, have been in that frickin' Superdome for five days watching dead bodies, watching hooligans killing people, raping people."

The stories were told by residents trapped inside the Superdome and convention center and were repeated by public officials. Many news organizations, including The Associated Press, carried the witness accounts and official pronouncements, and in some cases later repeated the claims as fact, without attribution.

Except from the underscored parts (by me), the articles clearly state that the origin of information lies with officials.

[BlackCat]

Originally posted by Immortal Wombat
Clearly if there were no murdered bodies found, it is logical to assume that the media were no lying, but merely failed to report the widespread cannibalism resorted to by the hungry when fresh meat was supplied.

How could I have overlooked that obvious explanation ? And hungry dogs of course took care of the remaining bones.

Glad that that mystery now is solved

[BlackCat]

Re: Re: Iraq has nuthin' on New Orleans...

Originally posted by germanos
Except from the underscored parts (by me), the articles clearly state that the origin of information lies with officials.

Yes and no. The officials outside the area saying that, clearly didn't get the knowledge from the the officials that were inside the area since they didn't see or report about such things. If they didn't report it, what was then the most probable source for the outside officials other than the news that presented the rumors ?

[Darkstar]

Originally posted by Immortal Wombat
Clearly if there were no murdered bodies found, it is logical to assume that the media were no lying, but merely failed to report the widespread cannibalism resorted to by the hungry when fresh meat was supplied.

This is the actual reason being reported as to why there have been so few bodies found. Expect it to be the lead on Oprah or 60 Minutes in just a week or so more.

Personally, I'd blame the 'gators.

[germanos]

Re: Re: Re: Iraq has nuthin' on New Orleans...

Originally posted by BlackCat


Yes and no. The officials outside the area saying that, clearly didn't get the knowledge from the the officials that were inside the area since they didn't see or report about such things. If they didn't report it, what was then the most probable source for the outside officials other than the news that presented the rumors ?

I don't know
But as a general rule of thumb, journalists report on what they hear from officials.
Officials generally rely on their subordinates, not journalists.

My best guess is that the outside officials reported from info from inside officials. And media reported what the outside officials said. So far there is little to contradict this.

[Barinthus]

Mad Max

[Ted Striker]

I thought you were going to compare the reckless spending in Iraq versus the needed spending in New Orleans.



I think it's beyond hypocritical to not give a damn about spending on an unjust war but to be all up in arms about taking care of your own damn people.

Pork my azz.

Tell that sh1t to Lockheed Martin or Raytheon.

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by BlackCat


If I understand it right, then the mayor and chief police has based their knowledge upon what the medias had reported and not on what their personnel had.

Make place for them both between the journalists.

As Arnie so rightly said, 'shoot them first.' Then you could likely stop shooting cause the real ass clowns would be dead.

[Colonâ„¢]

Dan: there was an article in Belgian paper as well about all the myths that had been spread around. Funnily enough, even though I had been following the whole ordeal pretty closely (or at least I thought I was), I had never previously read about many of the rumours.
I knew about the reports of murderering and raping inside the Superdome, but I was tiptoeing on believing/not believing on that one. I also had heard about tourists getting robbed on the street which I believed IIRC.
I had never heard of a 7-year old getting raped though, or army snipers shooting at refugees.

And many things that shocked me weren't disconfirmed either, either by Dan's article or the one I just read.

[DanS]

How can you disconfirm all the stream of falsehoods that was confirmed by the press and the non-federal Louisiana public officials?

Among other things, I am disappointed that I have to weigh the motives behind each piece of confirmed information so much. A lot of lies were told as well as the rumors being passed off as fact. Some falsehoods even have a whiff of slavery-era charicatures of both blacks and whites. For instance, it was reported that armed (presumably mostly black) gangs were trying to cross the bridge from the city into a predominately white suburb and that there was a huge gun battle on the bridge. But then we hear that the cops in the suburb were turning back all comers at the bridge, no matter whether the people were armed. Which is true? Knowing the peculiarities of the setup in New Orleans, both or neither could as easily be true. Also, these situations could be either intentional lies or rumors, if they are false.

I think the number and condition of the dead bodies is pretty much the only hard evidence in this whole situation. And I only trust what the Feds and non-Louisiana National Guard tell us with regard to that. Some may even dredge up the "gators ate the corpses" stuff that Darkstar mentioned above and won't believe the numbers the Feds give us. Who can blame them after this?

[DanS]

With regard to the 7-year old getting raped, the story goes that a drunken armed crazy man was stalking the women's restroom at the Astrodome and was raping and then slitting the throats of women. The corpses apparently are piling up by this point. He did this to a 7-year old girl, so everybody decided to take things into their own hands and throw him over the ledge outside, whereupon he fell to his death on the concrete below. This story was relayed to at least the nation and probably internationally on CNN.

When they collected the bodies, there was indeed a dead man on the concrete below. But who knows the reasons for his descent? Who knows, he might have been horsing around on the ledge, slipped, and fell to his death!

There weren't any corpses with their throats slit.

[Colonâ„¢]

Originally posted by DanS
How can you disconfirm all the stream of falsehoods that was confirmed by the press and the non-federal Louisiana public officials?

So that the living conditions at the dome were squalid and that situation was choatic shouldn't be believed either? It's a shame the media and officials got caught up in the stream of rumours but you shouldn't take it too far either.
The very existance of such outlandish rumours points out that the situation indeed was very bad. There were fertile grounds for them.

[chequita guevara]

Yeah, but if that rumor mongering hadn't been going full blast, people would still be waiting for the Fed's to show up.

[Dinner]

Re: Iraq has nuthin' on New Orleans...

Originally posted by DanS
Before Katrina, I thought Iraq had a particularly rumor-prone society. But Iraq's got nuthin' on New Orleans. Almost all of what CNN and the foreign press reported was false. How did this happen in the US? While watching the news after the hurricane, I felt like no information out of New Orleans was reliable, but I am surprised at the extent of the falsehoods passed on as fact.

Here's a very good article.



http://www.latimes.com/news/nationwo...home-headlines

What you ignore is that for the first three days the administration blocked the media from getting into New Orleans and reporting. The admin claimed that it was to dangerous for reporters who'd served in every war zone imaginable to go to New Orleans but the reality is the administration was showing the same desire to hide its mess as it always had. They blacked out the media because they were trying to do damage control on the story and to prevent the truth from being known.

More then anything else this media black out is what caused the misreporting. Reporters must still file and when the authorities, for their own partisan political reasons, prevent the reporters from learning facts then the reporters will report the only thing they can... rumors. You can feign shockl but we all know that if the reporters were allowed in to actually witness events instead of having second or third hand statements then it would have been more accurate.

You're false anger at the media is a joke since it is the administration's media blackout which caused this to happen.