The Template Refuses to Die

The template of the New Orleans story was put in place by the mainstream media long since: the city got whacked, same as the Mississippi Gulf Coast, by Hurricane Katrina. What New Orleanians know--that the city was ravaged by floods caused by improperly designed and built federal floodwalls which breached under storm surge conditions weaker than those the structures were supposed to protect against--is known by few viewers and readers of mainstream media. Latest example: today's Los Angeles Times profiles some elderly people trying to rebuild their homes and lives in the lower Ninth Ward.

Report Richard Faussette, for example, writes:

Former handyman Charles Taylor, 81, knows that fixing Katrina's damage will be his life's last job.

And his lede says it all:

NEW ORLEANS -- For many elderly survivors of Hurricane Katrina
Another in a series of what newspaper reporters used to call sob stories, no sense of the context of the disaster, nor of the cause--malfeasance by a federal agency, bought and paid for by you and me.

ADDENDUM: Eric Alterman refers to the same phenomenon as "the narrative", and
thinks it only applies to campaign coverage. Or chooses to think so.

For the people who cover them for a living, elections are not about issues or evidence or even truth; they are about the narrative. Campaigns struggle to define it long before voters are paying attention--because once the narrative is determined, it's virtually impervious to revision.

Comments

[fferret]

Mr. Shearer:

May I direct you to Bob Somerby's The Daily Howler at http://www.dailyhowler.com? Bob's been after the media and it's penchant for sticking to it's own percieved notions of what the story is about for years. Bob's especially good on debunking myths promulgated by the MSM. I have been enjoying your show on KCRW for years, but could you possibly get them to update the RSS feed faster than a week behind? Thanks!

[Aunt Shecky]

I was just talking to someone about how every year the Princess Diana story re-surfaces.Evidently she was a nice lady, but we Americans and apparently the Brits like to wallow in tragedy. Ah, it's so much easier-- and it makes us "feel" good to dwell on tragedy, especially when it's "someone else's
problem." As far as the LAT goes, might they have fallen into the trap of what Laura Ingraham calls "emotional pornography"? (I don't often agree with what Laura says, but she
is the GOP's "good cop" compared to the "bad cop," Ann Coulter.)
And I'm just asking: the word to describe the opening of a newspaper feature story-- is it "lead" or "lede"? I know it's pronounced "leed."

[jubal8]

From Wikipedia:

The most important structural element of a story is the lede or lead "namely contained in the story's first, or leading, sentence. Lede is a traditional spelling, from the archaic English, used to avoid confusion with the printing press type formerly made from lead or the typographical term "leading". The lede is usually the first sentence, or in some cases the first two sentences, and is ideally 20-25 words in length.

The top-loading principle applies especially to ledes, but the unreadability of long sentences constrains its size. This makes writing a lede an optimization problem, in which the goal is to articulate the most encompassing and interesting statement that a writer can make in one sentence, given the material with which he or she has to work. While a rule of thumb says the lede should answer most or all of the 5 Ws, few ledes can fit all of these.

Media critics often note that the lede is often the most polarizing subject in the article. It can be said that often critics find "bias" based on an editor's choice in headline and lede.

[ReportFaussette]

Hello, HuffPost. This is "Report Richard Faussette," aka Richard Fausset, the ink-stained wretch who wrote the story. I"d like to respectfully take issue with Harry's post today.
First: Yes, the disaster was the result of a failed levee system, but it was also the result of a tremendously powerful storm. The storm and its surge waters bettered the protections that humans built to stand up to them. So when the hack at your local paper calls someone a "victim of Hurricane Katrina", it doesn"t seem like that grave of a sin to me.
Second: the LAT has been all over the levee issues. A smattering of our post-K headlines:
¢ "Despite Warnings, Washington Failed to Fund Levee Projects: To cut spending, officials gambled that the worst-case scenario would not come to be."
¢¢ "Levee Engineers Were Unaware of Pooling Water: New Orleans residents say they reported the problem in their yards months before Katrina."
¢ "Probe Launched of Levee Breaks in New Orleans"
¢ "Files Show White House Knew Levees Had Failed on First Day."
¢ "Army Corps Admits Design Flaws in New Orleans Levees: Its report says the defects were to blame for most of the flooding and damage from Katrina."

Third: This story was a meant as a brief intro to a photo essay by photographer Genaro Molina. We"re always looking for new ways to tell the Katrina story, and in this case, we were hoping to let Genaro"s powerful pictures give a sense of the complex story of the elderly in New Orleans. And yeah, some of their stories will indeed make you sob.

The LA Times has published more than 350 stories with "Katrina" in the headline since the storm. The way to judge whether we"re doing our job, in my opinion, is to look at the day-to-day mosaic of coverage and then determine whether the job is getting done. Not every story can tackle every issue.

OK. Thanks, y"all. Let the online vivisection continue. Meanwhile, viva Derek Smalls! And Go Saints!
--Richard F., Atlanta
HARRY RESPONDS; Sorry about the typo. Now, to substance: Katrina was indeed a"tremendous storm" in the Gulf, and when it made landfall on the Miss. Gulf Coast. According to the Nat'l Huricane Center, at the time of its arrival near NO, it was either a strong Cat 1 or a weak Cat 2. That's crucial, because the Corps had been committed to Cat 3 protection. So, is that a storm story, or a failure story? Addittionally, the Corps' initial explanation of the incident was, to be charitable, a tapestry of inaccuracies. Some old-style journalists think exposing such crucial misstatements in the wake of a disaster is big news, The TP reported the findings of UCBerkeley's Dr. Bob Bea, exposing those inaccuracies, starting in mid-Oct 2005, when the template was just starting to harden. One wonders, at least rhetorically, when Dr. Bea's findings were first noticed by the LAT. I know the date of the "Army Corps admits" story you cited: June 2006, when the Corps' own report echoed, in attenuated form, the findings of three independent reports, including that of Dr. Bea's panel, issued months earlier. That's like waiting nine months to report that President Kennedy's motorcade mishap was in fact an assassination. So, yes, I finf the contined use of phrases like "victims of Katrina" to be worse than sloppy. It's perpetuating the template of what happened to New Orleans being a natural disaster, when, according to Dr. Bea's (and his colleagues') report, it was a "man-made engineering disaster". A journalist who purports to care but does not keep that distinction firmly in mind is contributing to the climate of ignorance that has so far cost us two wasted years in not addressing the problems with the Corps (and the associated problem of coastal wetlands erosion). With friends like that. to quote the old punchline, we don't
need enemies.

[yellowdogSC]

Richard Faussette,

I'm one of the wayward who wrote in support of your article.

Is there any way to link to the story? I'd genuinely like to read it.

Thanks, Richard (and for responding to us.)

[timf]

Can we agree that were it not for a hurricane named Katrina the levees would not have been breached? I guess the point of the initial rant is that semantics matter. However, I think the bigger issue is that stories like Fausset's are told at all. Why attack the messenger?

Yellowdog: A link to Fausset's story:
http://tinyurl.com/2kx8q6

Harry: "A journalist who purports to care..." -- again, Mr. Fausset is from New Orleans, I think that he does more than "purport" to care. Backhandedly referring to him here as an enemy is pretty lame.
HARRY RESPONDS: We can all also agree that had Kennedy not gone to Dallas, he wouldn't have been assassinated...that day.

[backhandpath]

Here's a good recent article on Corps culpability.
http://www.motherjones.com/news/featurex/2007/08/broken-the-army-corps-of-engineers.html

[timf]

Harry, not every column can be a Corps of Engineers column. You're simply demanding a different "template."

Two things I'd like to note:

1) Richard Fausset (you could take the time to spell the man's name correctly), besides being a top notch reporter, is FROM New Orleans. I think that he understands the "context" better than many who have commented here.

2) Fausset has compiled a body of work that continues to keep Post-K NOLA in the news (and continues to do so). I think it is wrong to call a reporter onto the carpet on the basis of one story.

[jubal8]

As for the media, the MSM anyway, I am just about ready to surrender to the idea that it is a lost cause. And that's hard for me; my grandfather was an old-time newspaperman in Louisiana. If we could tap the energy of him spinning in his grave over the state of journalism now, you could power all the pumps in NO.

But recent articles I've read here and elsewhere seem to have it right -- that what matters to media outlets is their cash flow, their bottom line, and that comes in large part from the advertisers. Some of these media outlets can lose a hundred viewers, maybe even a thousand, and hardly know it, but lose one regular advertiser and now you're hurting the business. So when those advertisers express opinions about the directions that news stories are taking, the boys at the top snap to and quick.

News isn't a product of the media anymore, it's a lure. We are the product, the catch. The newspaper, or magazine, or broadcaster, is like the operator of a fishing boat. They go trolling the waters of public access throwing out chum -- blood and guts -- tossed onto the waves to get the fish to rise to the surface. The advertisers, who paid for their spots on deck, toss their lines into the water hoping to reel in a big catch. Then they bag and tag you... well, OK, analogy stops here... almost.

Following this line of reasoning, if you want the media to change course in their reporting, you've got to make the advertisers want to see things your way, and then vote that way with their advertising dollars. That's the rudder; you just need to be the trimtab.

[luziannagirl]

Jubal8, I like your fishing metaphor! Yes, we need to quit biting. A national citizen consumer strike, a "Buy Nothing" day looks better and better. That'll get the right folks' attention. The hard part is deciding what message to send.

[jubal8]

The message is "I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore!"

But a Buy Nothing 'day'? That's at best a signal to Wal-Merde to send workers home for the day, as long as they know that people will come in tomorrow to buy what they didn't today.

I applaud the sentiment, but at the very least what's needed is a Buy Nothing Lent. You need to affect bottomlines for a month or more to achieve honest-to-God blipdom.

And it needs to be directed at the rudder that you want to move.

[Brainspore]

The government failed its duties at every level from the levees to the relief effort, but that doesn't mean that New Orleans should rebuild in the most threatened areas either.

One of the many lessons we've learned from this disaster is how dangerous it is to put an entire city at the mercy of a system designed to hold back the strongest forces of nature instead of trying to live alongside it.

[Bienville]

That kind of thinking would cause evacuation of every city subject to blizzards and tornadoes, downstream from a dam, near a faultline or a volcano, and so on...

That list would be quite long.

[showme54]

It is painfully obvious why NOLA's levee failure is continually referred to as the 'Katrina' damage...Number 1 reason is because to the victims...their lives are defined as either 'before Katrina or after Katrina' and secondly the recovery, rebuilding, etc, is hung up with the 'Appropriated 2005 Hurricane Funds', their lives and the rebuilding of their city is dependent on and intertwined with the a/k/a 'Katrina Money', not the 'Levee Failures Money'.

IMHO the levee failure should have been a separate 'declared emergency'. For example, if the bridge in Minnesota had collapsed near the time the remnants of Hurricane Humburto went through the Midwest it would be a different story if their rebuilding the bridge depended on the money appropriated to the States that were affected by Humburto's original impact, rather than a separate event. It is my understanding that NOLA's funding is mostly coming out of the appropriated hurricane funds that provide money, not only for rescue, relief and recovery for NOLA for the damages from the federal levee failures, but also for the rescue, relief & recovery expenses for Katrina damage to NOLA and other parts of southeast Louisiana, MS, AL, & FL...AND money for damages caused to LA and Tx for Hurricane Rita (3 weeks after Katrina)...AND money for damages caused by Hurricane Wilma for Florida...AND include the payouts to the people that HAD federal flood insurance and all the other 'expenses' involved in these 'declared emergencies'.

The sad fact is if they had written 'Elderly survivors of levee failure', many readers could care less like Wigwamwag...choosing to blame the residents ancestors for living near a levee for the past few hundred years. Even though these critics are ignorant to the fact that MANY cities & towns are safe-guarded by levee systems and dams which were built & maintained by the feds.

[backhandpath]

Forgive me for going a bit off topic but I am a fan of your comments, 54, and for some reason you have me thinking of the fellow who originally developed the first subdivision of land for home sales in America, in the bywater of New Orleans.

Bernard de Marigny also brought to the continent the dice game "Craps" and in fact named one of the streets in his new development after the game.
The irony just kills me.
Guess God really did play dice with the universe?

[knife]

Harry tells the non-New Orleanians what we've been saying for over 2 years: it wasn't the hurricane -- we survived the hurricane. It was the flood because of the criminally designed, constructed, and maintained federal levees.

I remember the few hours when "we dodged the bullet". Then the floodwalls and levees were breached.

[InsaneDisabled]

Most of the country doesn't care who or what was responsible for the devestation of New Orleans. They just don't want to pay to reconstruct it. Americans just don't want to pay period.

But the bills always come due. And since we're not paying for an ounce of prevention, we'll have to pay for pounds of cure. And too many of those pounds will be flesh -- lives lost because of our skinflint ways.

The American government didn't do its job in New Orleans. It didn't buy enough prevention, and didn't make sure it got what it paid for. That would have cost more.

So the people of New Orleans paid their pounds of flesh and blood for America's lack of foresight. Now it's time all of America stepped in to help rebuild that city because America isn't about who does it. America is about getting it done -- and getting it done right.

Too bad the original builders of the levees lost sight of that.

[Bienville]

It wasn't the original builders, most likley. It was the "upgrade" built by the Corps of Engineers in the aftermath of Hurricane Betsy. The same levees held during that hurricane.
In fact, my grandparents lived near Filmore and Elysian Fields then. They rode out the storm, there. While my home in Metairie was without power, we stayed with them - until the London Canal was so full of rainwater (pumped from the city's stormdrains) and nearly overtopped. (We "evacuated" back to Metairie.) I'm quite certain that the Betsy stormwater elevation exceeded the Katrina surge elevation by a couple of feet.
When the Corps built the floodwalls, they drove sheetpiles into the levees and split them down the middle, weakened them, and caused them to fail in Katrina.

[luziannagirl]

Realitytrumpsbull, blaming all those who did not evacuate New Orleans pre-Katrina does not reflect reality.

Reality: Much of New Orleans is EXACTLY like the postcard, except that people actually live in that postcard. The French Quarter is not the only quaint, zero lot line residential area. Those street cars are not just Disneyesque tourist props. New Orleanians by the tens of thousand ride them, and the city buses, and the ferries every day to and from work, school, and shopping ("making groceries"). People, entire families, WALK to the corner bar on Fridays and have a cold one, a round of po-boys, and talk "who dat gonna beat da Saints?" They actually do dance at funerals, it's true. In the street. New Orleans is quaint. It's charming. And it's real. And all because it's walkable, on a human scale.

Bull: Every day living in New Orleans was and is an act of faith in the government that built and maintained the levees and locks. That faith was misplaced.

[Bienville]

Wonderful post!

[seawolf77]

Excellent post. I love your description of the city, brings back fond memories of a displaced New Orleanian. Yes it was misplaced, but the degree that they failed is shocking. That there was no inland levess is amazing to me. A breach or breaches should not have flooded the whole city. They built a bowl when they should have built a waffle.

[Bienville]

Waffle versus bowl: It really depends on how much storm surge we're talking about.
The East Bank and the West Bank are separated to a pretty high elevation, by the River levees; but once those levees are exceeded, it's all the same bowl.
On the East Bank, Jefferson, Orleans and St. Bernard parishes are all held separate by levees of various heights that are all lower than the River levees. The Harvey Canal levees and the Gretna/Algiers divide the West Bank to a certain degree, too.
Likewise, the levees along the four East Bank canals provide the waffling effect you desire, but only up to a certain elevation. In addition, the Metairie, Esplanade and Gentilly Ridges provide some compartmentation. (A friend who lives along Esplanade believes that a surge of about 6-12 inches less would have been kept from Mid-City - an area lower than much of Lakeview and Gentilly.)
The principal problems are as described by Harry: "most of the area of the city that flooded had historically never flooded during a previous hurricane" and yellowdogSC: "It's a matter of promises broken. and Stated obligations not met."

[WigWamWag]

NOLA should rebuild at its own rate and at its OWN expense. Enough already, Harry. The seemily endless Big Easy Party died out. Now it time for a big deep sigh after the final revelry, drunkeness and debauchery. The old city has seen its better days when crime, corruption, graft, high taxes, poor service, prostitution and immorality ruled as norm. It is time to rollup those sleeves and expend some real honest sweat. Nola should now model itself after Mobile AL, a much more respectable town on the Gulf Coast. Gulfport and Biloxi MS might also be good role models if they did not have the casinos.
The world will not miss one less SIN CITY like NOLA or Las Vegas.

[antispin]

You know, it's stuff like this that makes me want to go out and buy a gun. Can pinko commie liberal intellectuals buy guns? I expect it's allowed. Better yet, a parabolic mirror so I can focus the rays of the sun on the BW leeches and fry their asses where they stand. Poof. Pick off Prince from his prancing horse and leave it riderless, save for a smudge of asshen fluff on the saddle.

[showme54]

WigWamWag, just a note to clarify a few things: 1) Mobile is a nice city but it has its 'shadier' sides...not exactly Mayberry RFD. 2) Katrina made landfall nearly 125 or so miles West of Mobile, yet managed to slap the crap out of Alabama. Otherwise, how do you explain their NEED for all that Katrina Money? You know, like the 'University Condos' and such? 3) If Katrina had made a direct or a closer near-miss on Mobile wouldn't it be a major disaster since Mobile sits directly on Mobile Bay which directly funnels into the Gulf of Mexico? ( Unlike NOLA which has 70 or so miles of marshland between her and the Gulf.) I mean there isn't LEVEES or something man-made that keeps Mobile Bay out of Mobile is there? Or did I miss the MOUNTAIN that Mobile sits on? and finally, 4) If we look into the history of corruption and crime in Alabama...need I say more?

By the way, I am not slamming Mobile or Alabama, I have friends and relatives there... it is just tiring when bs is thrown around as 'gospel'.

[showme54]

WigWamWag, just a note...1) Mobile, Al has its 'shadier' side also, not exactly Mayberry RFD; 2) Katrina landed about 150 miles WEST of Mobile and evidently still managed to slap the crap out of Alabama...otherwise, how do you explain their need for so much 'Katrina Money'? Such as the 'University Condos', just as a mention. 3)if Katrina had made a direct or even a closer near-miss hit on Mobile, it would have been a major disaster...mainly because Mobile sits directly on Mobile Bay which is directly opened to the Gulf of Mexico unlike NOLA which has 70 miles or so of marshland separating it from the Gulf. 4) if we check into Alabama's history of corruption, crime, etc...need I say more?

BTW, I have nothing against Alabama, I have friends and family there and have visited there many times...just like to keep facts on the up and up and am increasingly tired of the bs that keeps being promoted.

[knife]

So, WWW, why is it that God spared the French Quarter but destoyed the ninth ward and New Orleans East?

[backhandpath]

I guess no body likes my crucifixion metaphor, but that is what I saw after those levees failed in the city that care forgot and the presidente left for dead. Bodies...floating in the land of the free and the home of the brave.

I made a promise knee-deep in bloody flood water to never let anyone ever forget what I saw happen to the people of New Orleans.

My reality trumps your bull.

[yellowdogSC]

WWW,

It's a matter of promises broken.
and
Stated obligations not met.

THAT won't go away until (duh) promises ARE kept,
and
obligations ARE met.


It's not MY choice. It's a choice the federal government made, and NOT at gunpoint.

If you were driving down the highway, and your car suddenly fell into a HUGE sinkhole, because the road was knowingly and deliberately built over a brand new landfill that hadn"t even BEGUN to settle, and the federal government came out publicly and said "It"s all entirely our fault, and we promise to put everything back EXACTLY as it was before."

Wouldn"t you have certain expectations?

Well, THERE ya go¦.

[andvoodootoo]

Harry,
National Geographic Magazine, August 2007, did a cover story on New Orleans titled "New Orleans Should It Rebuild?" The first line of the article reads (in part) as follows:

"Hurricane Katrina, the costliest natural disaster in United States history..."

So, National Geographic magazine, which can't even get it right as to what caused 80% of New Orleans to flood, is going to pass judgement on whether or not we should rebuild.
And now, just when we thought the feds had finished, had their cigarette, and gone home, we learn that the New Orleanians lucky enough to finally get their Road Home checks (which are supposed to be GRANTS) will have to pay 35% federal income tax on those "grants".
We would probably get more help from the feds if we did secede and the U.S. invaded us for our oil. Then maybe we could get OUR hospitals and OUR schools rebuilt.

[Bienville]

That's three (votes for secession): me, andvoodootoo, and philistine. How many more do we need?