Two Anniversaries

I could not help but notice how much less sensitive the media have become during this last month. For nearly 5 years now, the television networks have exhibited very little inclination to revisit their video of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. One of the explanations given was that the media were sensitive to the feelings of the survivors. It was still too soon. Memories were too fresh. Nerves were too raw.
On the other hand, the media have exhibited considerably less consideration for Hurricane Katrina survivors. I don’t even watch all that much television and my eyeballs have been bombarded with previews for Katrina anniversary specials. For weeks now, I could scarcely turn on the television or pick up a newspaper without some mention of the upcoming (and now passed) anniversary of the landfall of Hurricane Katrina on the Louisiana coast and the subsequent destruction of New Orleans. Even sports programming channels were getting in the act.
Those same news networks that were too considerate to abuse Americans’ tender sensibilities with images of the Twin Towers falling on September 11, 2001 have no difficulty going wall to wall showing the devastation and suffering that began on August 29, 2005 with the landfall of Hurricane Katrina. In choosing the news and images they emphasize, the media exhibit at best a selective sensitivity.
On the other hand, we may be seeing situational sensitivity.
A more skeptical mind, mine for instance, suspects that we are seeing something other than a randomly uneven sensitivity. After all, I have seen reporters shoving microphones into the faces of the grieving to capture that riveting image of tragedy that might win a Pulitzer. I have seen the media camp out on the lawns of families who are dealing with inconceivable pain for the sake of ratings. If I were looking for paragons of sensitivity, I would not start my search within our aggressive, ambitious, venal and ratings hungry press corps.
I would consider the mainstream media’s thoroughly consistent ideology a more likely explanation for this variability than its inconsistent humanity. Any reminder of the evil that confronts us in the form of Islamic fascism would tend to serve the political interests of the political party that most of the media oppose. Hurricane Katrina permitted these same media to concoct tales of bureaucratic incompetence and racism that helped feed the media’s caricature of the Republican Party.
My personal favorite was an “investigation” by ABC News that condemned the Bush Administration for failing to have the relief supplies in place 48 hours before the storm hit. Let’s imagine that such materials could be acquired and moved to New Orleans within three days. Even that very optimistic scenario would have required the Bush Administration to predict the landfall of a category 4 Hurricane Katrina a full day before it struck South Florida as a minimal category 1 hurricane.
As regards racism as the explanation of FEMA’s supposedly slow response, one look at the collapsed bridges and all of the trees blown down across the roads should have clued the media that explanations other than racism might explain why relief supplies did not arrive within a day or two of Katrina’s landfall. But the observational skills of the investigative reporters who flew over the area in helicopters seemed to have failed them when they flew over these obstacles.
Not only are these old stories experiencing a resurrection, but fresh life is being breathed into the most absurd conspiracy theory. Spike Lee has reportedly lent his prestige to a Nation of Islam fantasy about the government blowing up levees to kill black people. I have no doubt that, based upon history, Spike Lee’s credibility and stature with the mainstream liberalism will not suffer for this madness. He might even earn a seat next to Jimmy Carter in the VIP booth at the next Democratic National Convention, the honor that was accorded the equally nutty filmmaker Michael Moore in 2004.
I never did buy the story that the media’s concern for traumatized victims explained their reluctance to revisit 9/11. Now I know that it’s balderdash, unless the media are prepared to argue that black people’s feelings are less worthy of consideration than those of people of pallor.