Most horror stoires of NO untrue.

[stevepaa]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050927/ap_on_re_us/katrina_urban_rumors_hk2_1;_ylt=AmWtR8zjquVS3U_Djl QFhP0bLisB;_ylu=X3oDMTBiMW04NW9mBHNlYwMlJVRPUCUl

link does not work, here is an excerpt.

The ugliest reports — children with slit throats, women dragged off and raped, corpses piling up in the basement — soon became a searing image of post-Katrina New Orleans.

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.

But now, a month after the chaos subsided, police are re-examining the reports and finding that many of them have little or no basis in fact.

They have no official reports of rape and no eyewitnesses to sexual assault. The state Department of Health and Hospitals counted 10 dead at the Superdome and four at the convention center. Only two of those are believed to have been murdered.



Not really surprising, I guess. Rumors feed on themselves.

[techweenie]

Yep, it's a tragedy for the neocons. Barely 1,000 dead and lots of exaggerations on Drudge, etc. Too bad for them. Obvioulsy the worse things were in NO, the more they could pin on the local and state governments.

I'm especially interested in hearing more about the 250 National Guardsmen stationed at the Convention Center who locked themselves in a room instead of trying to bring order to the evacuees' area.

[Jeff Higgins]

A headline-hungry press feeds those rumors more than anything else. They are so eager to provide the next "shocking story", to scoop their competitors, that any kind of journalistic integrity has been brushed aside. It's really a shame. In this particular case, the aftermath may very well be that the rest of America, and the world, starts to question how bad it really was. How sad would it be in the end if the average American's perception became that it really amounted to nothing more than a bunch of lazy, whiney welfare rats complaining about a little water in their basements? The backlash after these revelations could have a longer lasting impact than the hurricane itself.

[stevepaa]

Amen to that. Jeff.

[Mulhollanddose]

[bryanthompson]

There. is. no. fact. checking. in. the. media. whatsoever.

poor neocons

[juanbenae]

i heard something on (forbid forbid) the daily show last night that dubya said that killed me. he stated that he was going to look into how state, local and federal governing bodies work together to see what he can learn on how they work. seemed positive and that the feds may not have understood how best to have the agencies work together.

then i remembered just as jon steward said it that dubya was governor of texas. seemed like he might have remembered he was governor and how things worked in state government in regards to dealing with the feds. that jon steward kills me, how he digs around all, and everyday to find something dubya says that is dumb, contractive to what he said previously, or just a plain old lie. funny thing though, he finds something new everyday. that dubyas an easy mark.

and save the "bubba was getting oral when dubya was governor" its been played.

[legion]

The problem seemed to be how Louisiana dealt with the federal government. Looks like Texas did just fine.

[skipdup]

Originally posted by stevepaa
...
But now, a month after the chaos subsided, police are re-examining the reports and finding that many of them have little or no basis in fact.
...

Well, if the NO police say so, then it must be true. No way would that up-standing organization hide anything. Especially since they (NOPD) have nothing to gain by making the LE issue seem exaggerated.

NO Police is likely THE most corrupt in this country.

- Skip

[Z-man]

Originally posted by techweenie
Yep, it's a tragedy for the neocons.

IIRC, it wasn't just Drudge and Fox that were reporting these atrosities. CNN and other left-sided media was in there as well.

Why does everything here have to turn into a left/right thing? All of the media - conservative and liberal, republican sided and democrat sided were ALL saying the same thing. Why? The media just loves to sensationalize a story.

Rant over,
-Z.