an associated Press article stated that "there was enough blame to go around" for the floods, looting, death and lack of food and water after the levees broke in New Orleans last week. The writer listed, "The White House, Congress, federal agencies, local governments, police and even residents of the Gulf Coast who refused orders to evacuate" as those who could and should be blamed for what happened in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina striking landfall in Mississippi and Louisiana.
The article is typical in how the media never looks inward at times like this and ponders or even remotely considers whether or not they themselves bear any responsibility for events such as the one that has just occurred.
an excellent example of how the media covers weather was given by american columnist, Camille Paglia. Writing in the U.K.’s The Independent, Paglia last Saturday, Paglia wrote:
"Weather is daily theatre here, hawked by preppy broadcasters on local TV stations or dissected by grizzled meteorologists on a round-the-clock national cable TV station. Our annual ‘hurricane season’, as it is casually called, runs from June through November. We are quite used to suspense building over a week or two as a tropical storm registers over the atlantic, then gathers to careen as a hurricane through the Caribbean or bounce up the atlantic coast.
Dire predictions have often fizzled out, as hurricanes missed populated areas or weakened dramatically on hitting land. Despite a series of severely destructive hurricanes in the Florida panhandle, satirical jibes at overzealous weathercasters have multiplied in recent years. It was a prescription for disaster."
Paglia goes on to write how the media "professed cheerful relief" at the fact the hurricane had spared New Orleans while completely missing the state of the levees and the floods that eventually ensued.
There can be no doubt that the ever increasing competitive media, especially TV, does overdramatize and over-hype the weather. Toronto, with its hotter than usual summer, was a perfect example of how the daily weather is presented in an overly dramatic fashion. It seemed that everyday we were told that there was a smog alert or a heat alert or an extreme heat alert. This constant and continual presentation of the weather is bound to make people turn off when a real immediate emergency situation is taking place.
another example of this over dramatic presentation of the weather occurred in Toronto during Hurricane Katrina. after the storm hit the Gulf Coast, we were told constantly that Toronto would be getting the "remnants" of Katrina. and we did. For a few hours on Wednesday, we had a heavy rainfall. Then the sun came out and everything dried up. It was no big deal, but you would never have guessed that from the way the media hyped it up.
Part of this overzealousness in reporting the weather is due to ratings and the need to create a drama even where none exists. and part is due to the political pro-Kyoto political agenda of some of the media to show the dire (and most often, exaggerated) consequences of so-called man-made global warming.
Many people in New Orleans could not leave the city because they were poor and had no means to leave or their health was such that they could not leave their homes. But there were also those who simply decided to stay put because the media had cried wolf once too much about storms and other severe weather that either did not materialize or if it did, had little effect on the area that it hit.
Ron Fournier, who wrote the article for the associated Press was right — there is enough blame to spread around. But the media should also be held accountable for some of the deaths and misery that occurred in New Orleans last week.