hold it on the self-praise

during the immediate aftermath of hurricane katrina, the news media appeared very happy with its own performance.
a bit more time allows for some perspective on the some of the 'uncritical' reportage

Before self-appointing itself the role of discovering all the failures of the Bush administration in the ongoing national disaster, perhaps they should try to account for how they could have spent so much time informing the American people of a catastrophic loss of life that never occurred. Much of the public perception of governmental incompetence and failure in the relief effort was based on their vastly exaggerated projected body count.
[snip]
Tales of anarchy at the Superdome with large numbers of rapes and murders did not turn out to be true (though they have done enormous damage to our international reputation), as police reported no claims of rapes and few weapons were found.

aside from the high death toll predictions which fortunately have not proven true, the early characterization of new orleans as 'toxic' proved to be an exaggeration according to tests

Despite descriptions of the floodwater as a "toxic soup" and a "witch's brew" of contaminants, the preliminary tests reveal it contains little that is different from what has been seen after past floods in other cities and here.

the news media's tendency towards the sensational--specifically the sensational and dire--must be taken into account in other events such as the iraq war

¶ - nitish @ 11:23 AM