"Katrina Coverage"...

With the first anniversary of the Katrina hurricane upon us there are many media programs out there right now looking back on the disaster and what has happened since then. As with many major events like this it is interesting to watch how the media covers the event and the “feeding frenzy” that they seem to get caught up in trying to be the “First to report the story”…

It will be interesting to see how many of the “First Reports” will be portrayed now or even mentioned…Remember some of the stories coming out of New Orleans during, after, and to this day about “what happened” in New Orleans from the hurricane?

The book “The Politics of Disaster” written by Marvin Olasky notes many of the media reports that came out of Katrina:

* “Police Chief Compass spoke of little babies getting raped”…

* Mayor Ray Nagin described hundreds of armed gang members killing and raping people inside the dome and requested 10,000 body bags”…

* “Reporters circulated rumors of hundreds of gang members killing people at the Superdome and thirty to forty bodies stored in the Convention Center freezer“. (Actual number: Zero)…

* “The Los Angeles Times reported Snipers and armed mobs terrorizing seething crowds of refugees” (Never Happened)…

* “CNN’s Paula Zahn speaking of bands of rapists going block to block”. (There were no such bands)…

* “NPR Radio told listeners that a thirteen year old was reportedly raped and killed in a Convention Center bathroom”. (Did not happen)…

* “Fox News Geraldo Rivera’s novelistic sense was as good as ever when he spoke of how “The sun set on a scene of terror, chaos, confusion, anarchy, violence, rapes, murders, dead babies, dead people”…

* “Oprah Winfrey told her fans that in the Superdome “gangs banded together and had more ammunition, at times, than the police.”

* “On AIR AMERICA radio, Randi Rhodes repeatedly urged poor listeners in hurricane areas to loot away, avoiding discount centers and hitting the high-end stores”…

“Orleans Parrish DA Eddie Jordan later said that four murders had occurred in the entire city during the week after Katrina hit, making it a typical week in a
city that anticipates more than two hundred homicides per year”…

“New Orleans coroner Frank Minyard said he had only seven gunshot victims during hurricane week: “Seven gunshots isn’t even a good Saturday night in New Orleans.”…

And then there was the fraud and looting that happened. The American people responded by providing millions of dollars in private donations to the victims of the Katrina hurricane. Unfortunately many took advantage of the situation where possible as reported here in a newspaper article by Eric Lipton:

Auditors Find Huge Fraud in FEMA Aid
By ERIC LIPTONFebruary 11, 2006WASHINGTON, Feb. 10 —

Thousands of applicants for federal emergency relief money after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita used duplicate or invalid Social Security numbers or bogus addresses, suggesting that the $2.3 billion program was a victim of extensive fraud, a Congessional auditor will report Monday.

The auditors did not try to estimate the total dollar amount of fraudulent claims. But the report says that FEMA itself had found that 900,000 of the 2.5 million applications for all forms of individual assistance were "potential duplicates."Still, the auditors found signs of fraud nearly everywhere:

¶ Nearly half of the 11,000 individuals who received special debit cards as payment — an approach used in the immediate aftermath of the storm in Texas — got a second $2,000 payment in emergency aid.

¶ Inspections of 200 properties in Texas and Louisiana listed as home addresses turned up 80 that were vacant lots or nonexistent apartments.

¶ More than half of a group of 248 other applicants had used Social Security numbers that were never issued, belonged to dead people or did not match the name provided.In one case, auditors found 17 individuals, some with the same last name and addresses, who used 34 bogus Social Security numbers to collect more than $103,000 in payments.Auditors found isolated instances where the electronic debit cards were used to pay for "adult entertainment," a .45-caliber handgun, jewelry or bail bond services.