This Footage Is From When?

I'm not a big fan of surveys or polls. People who want to prove how dumb the public is--usually people in New York or LA--can always cite a survey showing that a significant slice of the populace can't locate China on a map. Or can't locate a map.

Nonetheless, Monday's release of a survey by the University of New Orleans on Americans' attitudes towards the Crescent City contains a notable semi-bombshell:

Roughly one-fourth believed parts of New Orleans remain under water; one-third believed the tourist-oriented French Quarter was one of the hardest-hit areas when, in fact, the Quarter was largely unharmed. The floodwaters, too, are long gone.

"It's amazing," (UNO Survey Research Center director Bob) Sims said of those responses. "But it just goes to show how little people really know."

Of course, one reason people know so little is that television news has abandoned one of its few honorable journalistic rules: disclosing to viewers when the footage being shown is archive or file footage. "B-roll", or wallpaper, as it's come to be called now, is footage that runs on a loop to illustrate a talking-heads segment lest you get bored with the heads. Such footage is undated, its vintage undisclosed. It runs so continuously through a segment that a casual viewer could be excused from thinking it's real-time and live. If it's footage of Britney Spears at a press conference or getting out of a limo, as it so often is, no harm, just a very little foul. But when it's footage of the floods from thirty months ago, floods that never reached the heart of New Orleans (at least from an historic and touristic point of view), then the news channels, far from combating ignorance, are contributing to it.

PS: After thirty months, that water's getting pretty foul.

Comments

[truth101]

Huck
We can't talk about NOLA because George really screwed this up so its can't be mentioned by
Republicans in the race.

Mitt
We can't talk about BALI because George really screwed this up so its can't be mentioned by Republicans in the race.

McCain
We can't talk about Bagdad because George really screwed this up so its can't be mentioned by Republicans in the race.

Rudy
We can't talk about China and its toys because George really screwed this up so its can't be mentioned by Republicans in the race.

News Director at Fox
Just show the same old clips of NOLA and
the others, no voiceover is even necessary
its just wallpaper you know. In the meantime
lets hear
what the REPUBLICANS ARE SAYING
...ABOUT
........THEOLOGY
FANTASTIC....THAT IS REAL NEWS..FOX NEWS

[joja]

Harry --

New Orleans will never be rescued from its abysmal predicament as long as there are people in charge in DC who have the DIY, up-by-the-bootstraps, 19th century mentality that currently is in vogue there.

Now, if New Orleans's residents were primarily oil company execs, it would be an entirely different story, but in Bushworld, that's just the way things roll. Sorry.

BTW, lovvvvvved you in "For Your Consideration."

[fogbreath]

just today one of the guests on npr's "science friday" commented that the formeldahyde levels in the fema trailers he inspected "were off the scale".

[DHFabian]

Network news is too preoccupied with reporting fun, food and fashion to find time for the news and issues that matter.

[j.gold]

Why help New Orleans?
1. It is the right thing to do, We would help your city like we did NYC after 911.
2.New Orleans will always be here because it is at a strategic point on the river. America needs a city here to bring goods in and out. It is why New Orleans was built in the first place there will continue to be New Orleans until the river dries up or changes course.
3. 1/3 of your oil comes from here and you need the oil. We also supply a large portion of the natural gas America uses. Without us you would be cold and walking or paying extremely high gas prices. Did you know that the reason the hurricane hit the way it did was because the oil companies have cut through our marshes and killed them ruining our natural barrier that had helped protect New Orleans for centuries? Did you know the federal government gets a percentage of profit from oil companies and Louisiana gets very little? If you don"t want to help us then stop using our oil! If we had control over our own natural resources we would be as rich as Kuwait and we wouldn"t need you to help us rebuild. Shall we seceded from the Union? We would be better off!
4. Do you blame the people that died on that bridge in Minnesota for crossing it? Was it their fault for being on the bridge? Or do you think one has a reasonable expectation of safety when our government provides us with something meant to help us and keep us safe? LEVEES ARE FEDERAL PROPERTY and the RESPONSIBILITY of the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT!!!! And the levees and my government failed New Orleans, they failed me, the children I teach, the lady at the corner store, the mailman, the taxi driver, the shrimper, and the old man who walks his dog by my house and waves to me everyday. Remember it could happen to you. SHAME ON YOU for even suggesting. . .!

[Janelynne]

The MSM, especially television, is not simply a poor historian, but complicit in creating and broadcasting the narrative it wants. The audience for television news is not the American public. The real audience are the sponsors and powerful owners who dictate the message. The public are the preyed upon dupes, who buy what they are told to buy.

[clarkbp]

The news media is downright irresponsible. The "B Rolls" are nothing compared to the subliminal messages...

http://thefiresidepost.com/2007/10/18/subliminal-bush/

[jackox]

Why doesn't anyone comment on the fact that the federal government (FEMA, Army Corps, and the Whitehouse) all knew that the levees and canals were cracking on Monday-- the day of Katrina- but did not tell the State of La because they wanted the damage to be attributed to Katrina. The damage happened because of defective Levees-- and so the State stopped evacuating people thinking that we had "dodged the bullet" when Katrina moved east to Biloxi. This means that the federal government is guilty of murder. Also, because the damage happened because of shockingly bad construction of the levee system by the federal government-it is the feds who should be paying for all of the damage. The Netherlands is protected from a 1000 year storm, which they did after flooding in the fifties. For far less money than paying for the damage of the storm- we could have had that protection too. I think the recurrent recent fires in California, plus the always present possibility of earthquakes, means that everyone should leave Calif-- by the NOla logic-- and boy oh boy-- hope they don't all go to New Mexico-because there really isn't enough water there to support our coastal populations. I am really tired of hearing that I deserved what I got for living in New Orleans. What a mean country we have become.

[wrabbitt]

No i'm not saying don't rebuild any of it. But, building houses in an area below sea level is crazy. How high do the walls need to be? 100'? Just in case someone of these people who say sea levels are going to rise are right,do we need to throw money away? FEMA don't help us when it snows, Federal funding wasted on rebuilding UNDER sea level! HELLO, Tornado alley ain't under sea level,and my taxes ain't paying to rebuild houses. My insurance rates reflect the industry losses. NEW ORLEANS is one of the most beautiful citys in America. But, like Atlantis it can still end up a memory...

[KarenZipdrive]

Virtually any celebrity and all millionaires should pony up the $150,000 cost of a house for Brad Pitt's Pink Project, which is rebuilding exemplarary housing in the 9th Ward.
Words without actions are worthless.

[wrabbitt]

As a taxpayer i would have to say don't rebuild New Orleans where it is, When it floods again and, it will,more money will be needed to repair the below sea level city, Am i missing something?? Isn't that like starting a campfire in a refinery? or selling furnaces in Aruba? What genius thought this up? Do you want to know why all the people didn't come back? Not, everybody has to lose everything they own more than once. It is a beautiful city but, when you have to look up to see ships go by, you are asking for trouble..Again, and Again, and Again,
HARRY RESPONDS: You don't think New Orleanians pay taxes? As a taxpayer, I'd wonder whether you want to help pay for the upkeep of Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu, which is subject to landslides from the unstable palisades above, again and again and again. For that matter, what's the problem with those people living where the disastrous ice storms struck this week? What is it they don't understand about "winter"? And "all the people:" who didn't come back number among their midst a large percentage who dearly want to--they express that sentiment to public officials and aid agencies--but they were given one-way tickets to God knows where, and their rental housing back home has been destroyed and not replaced. But thanks for your good wishes.

[carcinoid112]

At the time, the Government and engineering experts of the Netherlands (You know, that country that's built on land reclaimed from the North Sea?) offered no come and help in any way they could. Those people KNOW how to do what the Corps has been mishandling for decades. Did we take them up on the offer?? Oh, NOOOO, Prince Georgie took NO offers of aid from anywhere.

Of course, Prince Georgie is a rude and easily manipulated schmuck. Sister Molly Ivins done warned y'all, early on. Ya shoulda listened.

[gardenbookie]

Why would we be surprised at the usage of old film, stale details, and inflated (or restricted) information? We see and hear as much as we want to. The media gives us what they think we want to hear and see. Or what they DECIDE we should hear and see. We already know there's little truth in politics, and since it works so well in Washington, it works on TV, too.

The bubble we live in is filled with lies.

[TLV]

I loved the Big Sticks and Big Dick song the other day.

[Mair1]

And New Orleans is only part of the story as to how television news is lacking!

Thanks for a good piece, Mr. Shearer.