Local, State Officials Given 'Pass' on Katrina; Media Place Blame on Bush

[sabra]

http://headlines.agapepress.org/archive/9/72005d.asp

Analyst: Local, State Officials Given 'Pass' on Katrina; Media Place Blame on Bush Instead

By Chad Groening
September 7, 2005

(AgapePress) - A conservative media watchdog organization is calling the mainstream media to task for using the Hurricane Katrina disaster as another opportunity for "Bush bashing."

A spokesman for the Virginia-based Media Research Center (MRC) says the mainstream media has pulled out all the stops in blaming the president and members of his political party for the lack of response in the immediate aftermath of Katrina. MRC news analyst Geoff Dickens says the media, for the most part, has given local and state officials a pass.

"First responders, quite frankly, are the people in local government," Dickens says, adding that New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin and Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco "certainly should be taken to task first and foremost." And while he acknowledges that the federal government could have responded more quickly, he adds: "You've got to remember: the people first on the ground are the ones in the local government."

And Dickens says the president cannot be blamed for an act of nature. Any blame, he says, should "just be put on, quite frankly, the fact that it's just a huge, huge, devastating hurricane -- something that America maybe hasn't seen ever."

But the media, according to the MRC spokesman, is "finding ways to bash the president and Republicans," instead of just finding ways and discovering ways to better help these people ."

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