[extropy-chat] Getting AId to people in need

[Olga Bourlin]

From: "Dan Clemmensen" <dgc at cox.net>
Sent: Thursday, September 01, 2005 6:53 PM
>
> What astounded me was the inattention the press gave to the levees. The 
> press did their hurricane thing, looking at the "standard" hurricane 
> damage in Biloxi and Gulfport,and they thought New Orleans was the same.

This is another interesting perspective on some possible inattention due to 
...?:

press box
Lost in the Flood
Why no mention of race or class in TV's Katrina coverage?
By Jack Shafer
Posted Wednesday, Aug. 31, 2005, at 4:22 PM PT




I can't say I saw everything that the TV newscasters pumped out about 
Katrina, but I viewed enough repeated segments to say with 90 percent 
confidence that broadcasters covering the New Orleans end of the disaster 
demurred from mentioning two topics that must have occurred to every 
sentient viewer: race and class.

Nearly every rescued person, temporary resident of the Superdome, looter, or 
loiterer on the high ground of the freeway I saw on TV was African-American. 
And from the look of it, they weren't wealthy residents of the Garden 
District. This storm appears to have hurt blacks more directly than whites, 
but the broadcasters scarcely mentioned that fact.


Now, don't get me wrong. Just because 67 percent of New Orleans residents 
are black, I don't expect CNN to rename the storm "Hurricane" Carter in 
honor of the black boxer. Just because Katrina's next stop after destroying 
coastal Mississippi was counties that are 25 percent to 86 percent 
African-American (according to this U.S. Census map), and 27.9 percent of 
New Orleans residents are below the poverty line, I don't expect the Rev. 
Jesse Jackson to call the news channels to give a comment. But in the their 
frenzy to beat freshness into the endless loops of disaster footage that 
have been running all day, broadcasters might have mentioned that nearly all 
the visible people left behind in New Orleans are of the black persuasion, 
and mostly poor.

To be sure, some reporters sidled up to the race and class issue. I heard 
them ask the storm's New Orleans victims why they hadn't left town when the 
evacuation call came. Many said they were broke—"I live from paycheck to 
paycheck," explained one woman. Others said they didn't own a car with which 
to escape and that they hadn't understood the importance of evacuation.

But I don't recall any reporter exploring the class issue directly by 
getting a paycheck-to-paycheck victim to explain that he couldn't risk 
leaving because if he lost his furniture and appliances, his pots and pans, 
his bedding and clothes, to Katrina or looters, he'd have no way to replace 
them. No insurance, no stable, large extended family that could lend him 
cash to get back on his feet, no middle-class job to return to after the 
storm.

What accounts for the broadcasters' timidity? I saw only a couple of black 
faces anchoring or co-anchoring but didn't see any black faces reporting 
from New Orleans. So, it's safe to assume that the reluctance to talk about 
race on the air was a mostly white thing. That would tend to imply that 
white people don't enjoy discussing the subject. But they do, as long as 
they get to call another white person racist.

My guess is that Caucasian broadcasters refrain from extemporizing about 
race on the air mostly because they fear having an Al Campanis moment. 
Campanis, you may recall, was the Los Angeles Dodgers vice president who 
brought his career to an end when he appeared on Nightline in 1987 and 
explained to Ted Koppel that blacks might not have "some of the necessities" 
it takes to manage a major league team or run it as a general manager for 
the same reason black people aren't "good swimmers." They lack "buoyancy," 
he said.

Not to excuse Campanis, but as racists go he was an underachiever. While 
playing in the minor leagues, he threw down his mitt and challenged another 
player who was bullying Jackie Robinson. As Dodger GM, he aggressively 
signed black and Latino players, treated them well, and earned their 
admiration. Although his Nightline statement was transparently racist, in 
the furor that followed, nobody could cite another racist remark he had ever 
made. His racism, which surely blocked blacks from potential front-office 
Dodger careers, was the racism of overwhelming ignorance—a trait he shared 
(shares?) with many other baseball executives.

This sort of latent racism (or something more potent) may lurk in the hearts 
of many white people who end up on TV, as it does in the hearts of many who 
watch. Or, even if they're completely clean of racism's taint, anchors and 
reporters fear that they'll suffer a career-stopping Campanis moment by 
blurting something poorly thought out or something that gets misconstrued. 
Better, most think, to avoid discussing race at all unless someone with 
impeccable race credentials appears to supervise—and indemnify—everybody 
from potentially damaging charges of racism.

Race remains largely untouchable for TV because broadcasters sense that they 
can't make an error without destroying careers. That's a true pity. If the 
subject were a little less taboo, one of last night's anchors could have 
asked a reporter, "Can you explain to our viewers, who by now have surely 
noticed, why 99 percent of the New Orleans evacuees we're seeing are 
African-American? I suppose our viewers have noticed, too, that the 
provocative looting footage we're airing and re-airing seems to depict 
mostly African-Americans."

If the reporter on the ground couldn't answer the questions, a researcher 
could have Nexised the New Orleans Times-Picayune five-parter from 2002, 
"Washing Away," which reported that the city's 100,000 residents without 
private transportation were likely to be stranded by a big storm. In other 
words, what's happening is what was expected to happen: The poor didn't get 
out in time.

To the question of looting, an informed reporter or anchor might have 
pointed out that anybody—even one of the 500 Nordic blondes working in 
broadcast news—would loot food from a shuttered shop if they found 
themselves trapped by a flood and had no idea when help would come. However 
sympathetic I might be to people liberating necessities during a disaster in 
order to survive, I can't muster the same tolerance for those caught on 
camera helping themselves in a leisurely fashion to dry goods at Wal-Mart. 
Those people weren't looting as much as they were shopping for good stuff to 
steal. MSNBC's anchor Rita Cosby, who blurted an outraged if inarticulate 
harrumph when she aired the Wal-Mart heist footage, deserves more respect 
than the broadcasters who gave the tape the sort of nonjudgmental commentary 
they might deliver if they were watching the perps vacuum the carpets at 
home.

When disaster strikes, Americans—especially journalists—like to pretend that 
no matter who gets hit, no matter what race, color, creed, or socioeconomic 
level they hail from, we're all in it together. This spirit informs the 1997 
disaster flick Volcano, in which a "can't we all just get along" moment 
arrives at the film's end: Volcanic ash covers every face in the big crowd 
scene, and everybody realizes that we're all members of one united race.

But we aren't one united race, we aren't one united class, and Katrina 
didn't hit all folks equally. By failing to acknowledge upfront that black 
New Orleanians—and perhaps black Mississippians—suffered more from Katrina 
than whites, the TV talkers may escape potential accusations that they're 
racist. But by ignoring race and class, they boot the journalistic 
opportunity to bring attention to the disenfranchisement of a whole 
definable segment of the population. What I wouldn't pay to hear a Fox 
anchor ask, "Say, Bob, why are these African-Americans so poor to begin 
with?"

sidebar
Return to article



Jack Shafer is Slate's editor at large.

Article URL: http://www.slate.com/id/2124688/
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