Subject: Post-Katrina crime rumors ..excellent analysis at Romenesko

[SoCalDem]

http://www.poynter.org/forum/?id=letters




Subject: Post-Katrina crime rumors
9/27/2005 3:11:21 PM

From DAVID MILLS: It shouldn't have taken the major media this long to conclude that wild rumors of black criminality formed a "storm surge" of their own in Hurricane Katrina's aftermath. Local news organizations in Louisiana and Texas covered the rumor-mongering in real time. And their reports paint a fascinating picture of mass hysteria and race panic in progress.

On September 6, Houston television station KHOU reported this on its news website:

“Rumors are running rampant about conditions in the Astrodome where some 16,000 hurricane survivors are housed. Health officials say there's no truth to stories that a cholera outbreak has hit the Dome. … The other story making the rounds is that several women and children have been raped in the Dome. 'We've heard the rumors as well, and they're only rumors that sexual assaults are occuring daily throughout the hallways, the bathrooms, etc.,' said HPD Sgt. David Crain. Police say only two sexual assaults have been reported. One case was unfounded and the other remains under investigation.”

Also on September 6, in Lafayette, La., where New Orleans evacuees were sheltered in the Cajundome, the Lafayette Daily Advertiser pleaded with its readers in an editorial:

"The people taking refuge in Lafayette from Hurricane Katrina are described by police officers as completely cooperative and deeply grateful for the caring reception they have received. There is no lawlessness -- no crime spree. The rumors of criminal activity being spread by e-mail and other means of communication are without foundation. … We cannot emphasize too strongly: The stories being circulated about criminal activity by the refugees seeking safe haven here are false.”

Five days earlier, the Advertiser reported in its news pages that “rumors of armed robberies, carjackings, kidnappings and even a murder inside of a grocery store have sent residents flocking to local sporting goods stores where guns are being sold at a rate many have never seen before.”


much more.. very interesting

[RagingInMiami]

1. And yet the media refused to write about the "rumors" of a

Diebold-stolen election because they had no "proof". As if they were going to receive a fucking press release.

[bpilgrim]

2. it was ALL to provide cover for IGNORING the SURVIVORS

and ending POSSE COMITATUS

peace

[Solomon]

3. Willie Horton is alive and well. Works like a charm everytime they

need him.

[SoCalDem]

4. Exactly.. It was all about making the survivors into "undeserving"

and ungrateful people who "might riot", WOULD loot, and making them violent, so that people would not have sympathy for them..


It's interesting to see how fast the media picked up on the "They" are shooting at resuers..That made it "ok" to not rescue people..:puke: