The NYT, lauded by a commenter here recently for its diligence on the New Orleans story, plays catchup ball today on the continuing story of the Corps of Engineers rebuilding the damaged levees and floodwalls. This chapter began in January, unreported in the Times until now, when two nationally prominent engineers denounced the soils and compaction methods being used by the Corps to rebuild the levee along the MR-GO canal. On Saturday, the Corps and the engineers, Drs. Bea and Seed, held a detente-style meeting, and today's NYT story is an outgrowth of that resolution. What's left out: news, reported in the T-P, that the road to the detente was paved by the Corps deciding to rebuild parts of the levee that the engineers had called into question in the first place.
What's worse: way down in the jump comes the news, never reported by the NYT until now, of last week's admission of culpability by the Corps for the 17th St. floodwall breach, drowning central New Orleans. If this is diligence, I'd hate to see lassitude.
UPDATE: Yes, I'm harshing on the Times, and for good reason. As everybody at that paper knows, it enjoys, and suffers under, a unique agenda-setting responsibility for the rest of the "respectable media"--newspapers, TV news, newsmagazines. As the Times covers a story, so do they. As the Times doesn't, likewise. Even the Washington Post, which should know better, looks over its shoulder at how the Times evaluates stories. So when the Times so misses the boat on newsworthy aspects of the New Orleans story, like the Corps' belated admission of responsibility, you can bet that other major media will do the same.
