Dateline NBC (8/22/10) did a special look back at Hurricane Katrina last weekend in anticipation of the disaster’s five-year anniversary. Watching the collage of 2005 footage and Brian Williams’ present-day commentary, I was struck by his characterization of the violence:
You know, I’ve been around a lot of guns and a lot of dead bodies, and a lot of people shooting at people to make dead bodies. But you put them all together and you put it in the United States of America and boy, it gets your attention. You can’t shake that….
It was clear already there weren’t going to be enough cops. Everywhere we went, every satellite shot, every camera shot, we were at the height of the violence and the looting and the–all the reports of gunplay downtown. Well, who’s bathed in the only lights in town? It was us.
The sweltering heat in New Orleans. The more we learn about what this hurricane did, the worse it gets. We had to ask Federal Protection Service guys with automatic weapons to just form a ring and watch our backs while we were doing Dateline NBC one night. We made a decision the French Quarter was no longer safe. Things were getting too dicey and we pulled out to the suburb of Metairie, Louisiana…. I’ll be candid. We heard CNN pulled out. That had some influence on our decision. We had no weapons. We don’t work that way. That has to separate us as journalists. But it wasn’t safe. So here we are driving through town in our rental cars.
State troopers had to cover us by aiming at the men in the street just to tell them, “Don’t think of doing a smash and grab and killing this guy for the car.” There was no government. There was no semblance. There was no organization. There was no New Orleans for a few days there.
In the days after the levees broke, corporate media outlets were abuzz with stories of looting, rampant murder, snipers shooting at doctors and rescue helicopters, even the raping of babies at the Superdome (stories backed by the local police chief and mayor). But a month later, the New Orleans Times-Picayune revealed (8/26/05) that “most of the worst crimes reported at the time never happened”–no babies raped, no snipers, and only four confirmed murders in the entire week following the hurricane, a pretty typical week for New Orleans. (The New York Times four days later (8/29/05) reported six or seven confirmed homicides.) And while “looting” did occur, much of it was for survival in a city where no help–no food, no water–arrived for days.
Unmentioned by Williams was the documented police and white vigilante violence in which at least 11 civilians and possibly many more were shot in the days following the hurricane. Investigative journalist A.C. Thompson, who has done much of the digging on that story, reported yesterday that in the aftermath of Katrina, “an order circulated among New Orleans police authorizing officers to shoot looters.”
No doubt the media-stoked hysteria over rampant violence fed into the atmosphere of fear and anarchy that made such policies and shootings possible. Rather than rehash that hysteria, media should be apologizing for the part they played in it.
Somewhat surprisingly, Dateline also replayed this clip from Williams in 2005:
The politics of all this are very simple. If we come out of this crisis and in the next couple of years don’t have a national conversation on the following issues: race, class, petroleum, the environment, then we, the news media, will have failed by not keeping people’s feet to the fire.
So what’s the verdict?
Now, about that national conversation I said we should have about all those issues of race and class and poverty and petroleum, whatever happened with that? Well, in the five years since Katrina, America did elect its first African-American president, but our economy remains crippled. And the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico put petroleum front and center again as an issue that needs our attention. There is one thing, a great thing that happened in New Orleans, a city that’s always been inhabited by both saints and sinners: The Saints won, the Super Bowl, that is, putting New Orleans on top after a long struggle after a bad storm.
Huh? So then the media didn’t fail, since Obama was elected president and they’ve covered the biggest environmental disaster in recent U.S. history? Or they kind of failed because we’re in a recession? None of that seems to have a lot to do with media keeping anyone’s feet to the fire.
Doug Latimer
“The Saints won, the Super Bowl, that is, putting New Orleans on top after a long struggle after a bad storm.”
A bunch of highly paid entertainers are victorious in a meaningless gladiatorial spectacle, and that’s supposed to gladden the hearts and relieve the despair of folks hanging on by their fingernails?
If that doesn’t define America, and how the corpress presents it to us … well, call me LeBron James.
(Although I did win the free throw contest in junior college.)
Yachtscrew
Yes, I stand in awe of this unfolding of “the great American dream”, the selective media fantasy that the USA is “the world’s MOST POWERFUL DEMOCRACY”
the WORLD’S MOST POWERFUL BSer! is more like it. And thus recognized by the rest of the world.
One has to wonder how long the US public will allow themselves to live this fantasy before waking up.
The vast amounts of money spent (- hundreds of BILLIONS of dollars – doubled since the last elections already) to maintain an unjustifiable Disneylike fantasy of democracy.
Rick Mitchell
This article seems to be criticizing Williams first for again highlighting (or “rehashing”) the story of chaos and violence in NOLA and then second for not “holding our feet to the fire.” So which is it?
The story of Katrina and the inadequacy of government preparation and response was part of the reason for Obama’s victory. Even now, five years after Katrna, people refer back to it in terms of some incident or problem being “Obama’s Katrina,” etc.
W
Bogwart
@Rick Mitchell: Almost 40 years afterwards, people are still referring to a wide variety of happenings with the suffix ‘gate’ as in Watergate. And so it will prove with Katrina.
Boots
Those like Brian Williams and Tom Brokaw get their intel from those who catapult the propaganda. They’re all part of the still in existence Operation Mockingbird. We can’t depend on them for accurate intel, we have to go to the alternative media groups who get out the relevant news stories from local papers that don’t get the coverage in the MSM. And then we have to connect the dots on our own.
Nightgaunt
Yes Brian Williams keeps that torch lit for myths that must continue to supplant the reality. His is a holy mission for the corporations and their owners wishes and demands. He is just another kind of slave, a mind slave that spouts whatever he needs to see and is quite happy on that leash. Good thing he believes it in the first place and is comfortable with his position. It ads to his sincerity factor for those who find that to be important. Any who would disagree just wouldn’t ever get to his position. Such culling goes down to the street reporter and even if they don’t they dare not contradict or they will be fired for “not producing” as their editors and managers are there to see is hewed to. A self correcting system of the few news organizations that employ any reporters at all these days. Most are imbeded whether overseas or right here with the police. That is the state of things and the oligarchs are pleased. But there can always be “improvements” for how they want us to perceive the world.
J "Rolin" Stone
Brian Williams is part of the media elite establishment. His primary job is to continually reinforce the corporate-run-political narrative in order to keep the sheeple in check. It’s all very typical George Orwell’s 1984. He may even believe the things he says…
I’m grateful for FAIR and the too few other orgs and blogs who try to sift through the garbage for the truth, but there is really no reason for any of us who know these things to ever be surprised by what we read here.
DemocracyNOW had a really good story (8/27) about a Katrina hero who was recast as a terrorist because of the requirements of this absurd “narrative”; the man is a Muslim, and therefore his actions had to be evil.
It’s the same kind of propaganda soldiers are trained by that allows them to view the enemy as something not human, in order for them to more easily commit murder. If we can be so impartially distracted and dehumanized, the war machine can continue to plod along, unimpeded by rational evaluation, and common sense.
We’re into the second “Century of the Self” as the Adam Curtis’ documentary of the same name and his other “The Power of Nightmares” illustrate so well…
J "Rolin" Stone
I just read a Katrina recollection on truthout which matches much more closely the memories of my witness to events there in the days following. I live on the Florida Gulf Coast, so it is a mandate that we here pay close attention to anything happening along the coast that might effect us as well. Like the Deepwater Horizon spill that Williams will likely help recast into a future fake version or reality, and as they are actually already doing now. I see BP commercials on local TV and wonder about human gullibility. PT Barnum understood it. Our leaders also understand it.
The story I mention is here: http://www.truth-out.org/no-home-sweet-home62723. Warning: It’s extremely emotional and easily shows Williams to be the journalistic amateur hack that he has become. Maybe always was…
Gregory Kruse
How did Brokaw, Williams, and Gregory get to where they are today? The same way a donkey gets to where its owner wants him to go, by following the carrot and avoiding the stick. The making of a top corporate news reporter is something like straigtening teeth, with constant firm pressure. The discovery of a new world was destablizing enough to allow democracy to bloom for a time, but that blossom has fallen off now and the same old fruit is developing. The meek may inherit the earth, but the greedy will soon steal their inheritance.
Carol
Brian Williams never struck me as one who seeks the truth. He just repeats what he hears is the MSM echo chamber. Guys like Williams, Browkaw, and Schieffer repeat these myths because they believe that just because someone says it, it must be so.
Carol Crown
Yes Brian’s focus was skewed, but did anyone catch ABC’s GMA show? They featured poor Laura Bush lamenting how her husband was so very misunderstood through all this. So not to be outdone with misunderstood repubs, NBC’s Saturday morn report honored the much maligned “Brownie” who was head of FEMA at the time. MSM is going to keep shoving these great leaders down our throats til we “get it”. I get it, turn them off.
genierae
Tom Brokaw glorified war with his Greatest Generation, and the only people who swallowed the baloney was the “Greatest Generation”. It is amazing to me that just because they kept their horrific memories to themselves, they were honored. There is no such thing as an honorable war, every warrior knows that. As for Brian Williams, his manner is attractive, he seems like a good guy, and so people trust him when they shouldn’t. He is obviously a corporate shill and I don’t know how he manages to sleep at night. I think that having a lot of money is like cocoon, separating you from reality.
Celes King IV
Here again weget all the news highlights of yesterday. Where is mention of the huge disparities in insurance approvals both in valuation and time low income people are getting shafted Black and low income arfe losing their property or can not get money to re build. Truth is NEW ORLEANS is a GENTRIFICATION CENTER and the affluent are so happy Katrina came to visit and do what they want to do for upteen years. Urban Renewal is really code for GETTING POOR PEOPLE OUT
Yes New Orleans is coming back and it is coming back with affluent people, others not wanted and soon not tolerated. The new suttle sophiscated Jim Crow.
Emily
I agree that Brian Williams failed to tell the whole story. I’m not sure it’s “FAIR” to say he was being dishonest, not having been in the situation myself. I also think he did a good job of showing how the government left people, well not high and dry, but low and wet, and without food and water and dying. Why does the commentary here fail to at least mention that?
As far as the violence myth, well, I’m not sure how it felt to be him there at that time. But after having also watched the Frontline “Law and Disorder”, which is about the very issue that Williams failed to touch upon, it is obvious he left out some essential facts. Much of this disorder was caused by the police themselves. And I also question why, if Williams was being helicoptered in food and water, if NBC had the resources to do that, why weren’t they bringing some extra for all those people who were dying.
I read the graphic novel A.D. New Orleans After the Deluge and there were accounts there of the so-called thugs that were so vilified in the media, were actually distributing water and food to old people and babies who were dying.
Perhaps William’s life was in danger, and perhaps rightfully so if he was hoarding food and water for himself while the people around him were dying. At some point this code of journalistic integrity just becomes a smokescreen for cowardice and hypocrisy. At some point, if it were me, I know what I would have done. Having saved a person’s life before, I know I would not hesitate to put the resources together in that situation, and done what needed to be done ad hoc, as many individual heroes did at that time, far sooner than the government.
The only excuse I guess that I can see, is that the journalists like Williams felt that if they kept showing what was happening that the feds would pay attention, and that he, like all the other people stuck in New Orleans, felt at any moment that help would come.
And in response to the previous commenter, first I listened to NPR talk about New Orleans now, and how it is a less poor city, because many of the poor haven’t come back, and one commenter felt that was positive because the city was previously overburdened by providing services to the poor. Then I was watching Rachel Maddow who had several activists on her show talking about how low income housing, which was not even damaged by the storm, was demolished post-Katrina, and now not fully replaced to even accommodate those who stayed, much less those who left. I’m left with a bad taste in my mouth. The whole series of events from start to finish seems like a violent WAR AGAINST THE POOR.
phylliskunz
This bashing of Brian is unfair, an awesome anchor, and I am a big fan of him and the NBC
team: Lester Holt, David Gregory and Ann Curry.
Jodster
The U.S. is no longer a Democracy – maybe never was. When was the last time majority ruled instead of corporations? Media now is divided between Oligarch supporters and backers of the rest of us. Can we stop hashing unimportant stuff and have a real attempt to create a government for our nation that’s responsive to it’s citizens.
Sahila ChangeBringer
Not the same topic, but the same issue – telling truth and allowing more than one side of an issue its fair share of participation/airplay…
Over the past 48 hours, I’ve been involved in a little dance with NBC.
My problem with the national education “SUMMIT” NBC is hosting next week is that the ‘invitation-only’ panel is stacked with pro education privatisation reformers and not a parent in sight…. nor any working teachers… http://www.educationnation.com/
The guest list is here:
http://ofprincipalconcern-educationworld.blogspot.com/
Guests range from Michelle Rhee to Joel Klein to Arne Duncan; the guests are all Broad or Gates Foundation people or charter school chain owners.
National education system reform under discussion – where are the parents?
And look at the Sponsors…
http://www.educationnation.com/index.cfm?objectid=EB7AF3A0-A41B-11DF-A44E000C296BA163
All have a vested interest in making sure this education ‘deform’ agenda implementation is completed.
I challenged NBC on why its leaving out of the discussion the biggest stakeholders in this equation, and so far, no response….
I pointed them in the direction of highly informed, articulate people who were well qualified to participate in this ‘dialogue’ – no response except to block me….
Yesterday they were trying to buy my silence by offering an op ed space on the Education Nation website, today they’ve unfriended me and taken all my critical comments (and the research and references supporting those comments) off their pages…
Here’s the chronology, starting yesterday morning (Wednesday 15 Sept)…
Just finished an interesting (power and control) phone conversation with Ryan Osborn, the producer of this website/programme…. http://www.educationnation.com
http://www.facebook.com/educationnation?v=wall&story_fbid=114784968577609&ref=notif¬if_t=feed_comment_reply
I couldnt get him to agree to put parents on the panel (he said they tried to get Diane Ravitch but she wasnt available – I suggested Prof Zhao as an alternative) but to buy me off and shut me up they’ve offered me an op ed piece on their website…
Who has anything they want to say??????? No limit, just no slander!
Here’s what I wrote back (on the Education Nation facebook page):
I’d like to thank Ryan at NBC for contacting me and having a telephone conversation a few minutes ago. Ryan and I have something in common – we are both journalists with an ethical responsibility for providing both sides of an discussion/issue.
While Ryan said he/NBC had heard our concerns he could not offer parents (the largest stakeholders in this education reform equation) and other critics of the education ‘reform’ agenda a place on the panel.
He said that Diane Ravitch had been invited but was not free on these dates… I suggested he invite Professor Zhao – he did not give me an answer one way or another.
He did very generously offer me the opportunity to write an op-ed piece for the Education Nation website, which I will gratefully accept… though I did point out that an op-ed hidden somewhere on a website that people have to search to find, is no match in terms of airing contrary perspectives for the public exposure the very wealthy education reformers will be getting from this summit.
Sadly, most of us parents around the country do not have the billions of dollars that the Gates, Broad and Milken Foundations and Raytheon, Phoenix University and Microsoft etc have to throw at this effort to mould and control the discussion… But I will take what I can get, albeit a very small bone….
Ryan did give me some feedback I shall bear in mind – he felt my many posts were repetitive, intimidating and shutting out of other points of view… I will think on that – though how that is possible on a facebook page, which has no limit on comment postings, I dont know….
And I then added the comment:
I just had feedback from someone in contact with Diane Ravitch that while she is in California on the dates of the Summit, she did offer to provide a taped segment as her contribution to the debate… apparently that was not good enough… quite sad, really…
Then this morning, I got this message from Ryan:
We are getting complaints from other users that you are dominating conversation. Please consider this is a warning. If your tone continues, we will have to block you. Moderation is a necessary part of keeping a civil discussion online. Thank you.
If you want to write an op-ed for our website you can submit it to my email.
Thank you.
I wrote back and asked who was complaining, saying it was only fair that I know my accusers – anyone can google me and find out all about me, but anonymous complaints, not made directly to me are rather hard to prove and not quite playing fair.
I noted that there were first amendment issues at stake here, that NBC as a ‘news’ organisation had a public duty and ethical responsibility to present both sides of the issue and it currently was not… and that, as a fellow journalist, I was concerned about that….
I posted a list of links of material that people might like to check out that put forward a view alternative to the panellists and also listed some parent groups around the country NBC could approach, who would be more than happy to give the parent voice to this ‘SUMMIT’…
No response – just unfriended…
I note the several financial conflicts of interest NBC is caught in by hosting this summit….
BlueChicory
It wasn’t so bad the first time Brian Williams said the myths about the violence here in New Orleans… but when they were repeated in his Fifth Anniversary Show about Katrina… that was outrageous!
He and his producers should have been aware of the truth of the situation after five years… and made a comment in the Anniversary Show about the errors made by the Media… himself included. I had thought Brian Williams really cared about New Orleans, but after watching the Anniversary Show, I thought well Brian only cares about himself and his reputation of being a brave ‘war time’ reporter.
Shame on him.