'Katrinagate' fury spreads

2005-09-06 17:59

Gabrielle Chwallek

Washington - "For God's sake, are you blind?," a woman shouts at the head of the federal emergency management agency (FEMA), Michael Brown.

"You're patting each other on the back, while people here are dying."

The woman is not a victim of Hurricane Katrina. She is a reporter with US television network MSNBC who is so affected by the misery she has witnessed she can hold back no longer.

"Katrinagate" is the term being used by the media to describe the biggest challenge facing the political establishment in the US since the Watergate affair in the 1970s toppled Richard Nixon.

Not for decades has there been such merciless questioning of the president and his administration by the US media.

Even now, as the rescue operation gets underway in earnest and the flood waters in New Orleans are starting to subside, the federal government's inadequate reaction - in the run-up to the hurricane and directly afterwards - is still being criticized by the media in reports which are anything but detached.

Never before, say some observers, have US reporters been so emotionally involved in a story to the point of being enraged.

They are not just telling a story, they have become part of it.

"Has Katrina saved the US media,?" asked BBC reporter Matt Wells who sees the shift in tone as a potentially historic development.

A number of US journalists who cover federal politics, especially television presenters, had become part of the political establishment, says Wells.

"They live in the same suburbs, go to the same parties. Their television companies are owned by large conglomerates who contribute to election campaigns."

It's a "perfect recipe" for fearful, self-censoring reportage, he says, but thinks "since last week, that's all over".

The 'Big One'

But if the Bush administration's reaction to Hurricane Katrina was slow, so too was the media's.

On Friday, reporters at the scene were still having difficulties establishing the scale of the disaster and the number of dead.

Used to reporting on comparatively harmless storms, heroically riding out the storms with windblown hairdos, they were then confronted with the "Big One".

The television reporters, particularly, were left scrambling in the first few hours of coverage as they tried to comprehend the scale of the disaster.

Then came the emotion. A CNN reporter broke down as she described the cries of help of people stuck on rooftops in Louisiana.

Other journalists also related what they saw in broken voices.

Then the federal officials rolled into town and the press conferences started, with politicians thanking one another for their tireless efforts.

Next came anger. "This isn't Iraq, this isn't Somalia, this is our home," one NBC television reporter shouted.

The usually stoic ABC television presenter Ted Koeppel lashed out at FEMA head Brown in a interview, when he could not give any details on the number of refugees waiting to be rescued from the Convention Centre.

"Don't you people ever look at television?," the veteran presenter raged.

"Don't you ever hear the radio? We've been reporting on the crisis at the Convention Centre for a lot longer than just today."

Supplies

A CNN journalist also attacked Brown. "How it is possible that we have better information than you? Why aren't supplies being dropped in (by plane).

"In Banda Aceh, in Indonesia, they did it two days after the tsunami."

Another CNN reporter interrupted senator Mary Landrieu during an interview in which she was praising congress for passing an emergency aid package.

"Excuse me senator, I'm sorry for interrupting. I haven't heard anything about that, because I was busy these past four days seeing dead people on the street.

"And when I hear how one politician congratulating the others...Yesterday there was a corpse on the street which had been eaten by rats because it had been there for 48 hours."

If the alarm bells are not already going off in the Oval Office, they should be, because the previously staunchly pro-Bush Fox News is also starting to show signs of disaffection.

As one of their reporters was being directed to another area because of the danger caused by looting, he spoke quickly into his microphone, saying: "These people are desperate.

"Why shouldn't they try to steal water and food from us?" - Sapa-dpa

- SAPA