Katrina's Challenge for TV News: Find a New Narrative

I spent some time today trying to figure out why I don't give a crap about the loads of Katrina anniversary coverage TV has been pushing at us.

I didn't put anything advancing it on the blog. I didn't even talk about it while it was going on. Only now, as Anderson Cooper is wrapping up the last of his earnest live shots from the French Quarter -- how many times is he going to talk about all the cool restaurants in town, I wonder? -- am I able to put keyboard to blog and figure this all out.

I didn't write about it, because I'm getting sick of it. Not the post-Katrina story, mind you; but TV news' tissue-thin treatment of the subject.

If you have watched any television news today, you've seen it. An earnest anchor stands in front of a still-devastated neighborhood, glowering with indignation and pity. They note the garbage which still lines the streets -- Brian Williams picked up an old videotape he said he saw there last year -- the desperate people still waiting for relief checks, the rising murder rate, the rampant homeless problem and something new, for good measure. On one station, the new thing was gangs of criminals targeting the illegal immigrant contractors who have flooded into New Orleans to do reconstruction cheap; the criminals call them "walking ATMS" because they carry so much cash.

But it's mostly an empty rehash of TV news' glory days two years ago, when just getting the human misery in New Orleans before a TV camera was enough. TV audiences have seen the occasional reports; they know it's not getting better nearly as fast as it should. And TV journalists are on the verge of losing the nation's attention, because they keep telling us what we already know.

It's time to dig deep. Anderson Cooper and Brian Williams can't just fly into town for a few days and hope to penetrate this morass of local ineptitude and federal obliviousness. Newspapers, especially the local Times-Picayune, have done a fine job of dissecting exactly why things aren't working, and it's time for TV news to follow suit.

Who exactly is to blame for this sluggish recovery? Where did the money go? Why have more than half of Americans given up on the idea that New Orleans will ever fully recover? Is New Orleans even prepared to survive another hurricane if it comes knocking this year? Where is that national conversation on these issues we've been promised by every politician who ran for office in 2006?

I watched Oprah Winfrey dissect the anniversary backed by her favorite news experts: Cooper, Lisa Ling and Dr. Oz. And while I'm not faulting these guys -- Dr. Oz, in particular, earned his stripes trying to treat those stuck in New Orleans in Katrina's early aftermath -- I kept wondering why Oprah wasn't talking to people who could really put a finger on what's going wrong. There's a small army of journalists who have been working this story non-stop for two years -- why aren't they facing Oprah's gigantic fan base and naming names?

(One local journalist who did appear on Winfrey's show, Pulitzer Prize finalist and Times Picayune columnist Chris Rose, wasn't even allowed to mention the name of his book -- a collection of Katrina-related columns titled 1 Dead In Attic -- on the show. He was tapped to talk about his struggle with depression.)

If she insists on featuring someone with showbiz credentials, just get Harry Shearer, who has been  tearing the press a new one on Katrina-related issues since Day One on the Huffington Post. (Dateline NBC didn't even try, offering yet another true crime confection)

My fear is that we've grown too used to the narrative we're stuck in now -- the poor, miserable Katrina victims, victimized again by a nameless bureaucracy and teflon politicians like Bush and Ray Nagin (CNN's Susan Roesgen scored one point, trying to get Nagin to look out his window and see homeless protesters camped right outside City Hall. Of course, he was way too savvy to fall for that one.)   

It's time for TV to start kicking some butt on this story again. Look at how much got accomplished when it happened last time. 

Comments

[anne]

In part I think it is because Americans don't care. It is not newsworthy anymore and the "most" the TV's can cover are these same stories. But you are right there are so many ground level people working hard that just don't get coverage in the mainstream media.

[erin]

I saw the most vapid, stupid headline on MSN.com yesterday about Bush's Katrina remarks. I can't remember exactly, but it was something along the line of "Bush hails Katrina efforts." I agree that the news organizations should take a much harder stance on this issue than a simple anniversary story. And Bush should have been ripped to shreds by the media for his totally empty, meaningless words.

[Oscar]

Bush is to blame, but by no means the only one. Obama, Hillary, et.al. have not said a word about N.O. neither has Nancy Pelosi, and the congress.

I feel that Katrina has become just one more thing. Gonzo, Iraq, home prices, katrina, global warming... the list goes on and on. After a while, beating up on Bush becomes too easy and everyone loses intrest.

[EXCELSIOR]

Intelligent people have moved past this story because the decision to rebuild was made by politicians, not scientists. Keeping this delta dry for so long has alllowed the sediment to compresses to a city with parts 10 feet below sea level. Now with a global rise in sea level certain, rebuilding this city, at least in its former state, is a waste of resources, because the same thing will happen again.
Save lives at the time of the disaster, help people relocate etc. If the city were to be rebuilt, envision some place like Venice where the wet areas are wet and the dry are naturally dry. Or, an engineered "floating city" using platforms not unlike the oil platforms offshore, or, over the short term, into a city of boathouses, to allow floods to fill the delta with fresh sediment. Many ancient coastal cities of grandeur have been lost, such as Alexandria. America will survivie if New Orleans is not the same city.
It is time that quantitative, science-based risk assessment became a cornerstone of urban and coastal land-use planning to prevent such disasters from happening again. Politicians and journalists must not make hollow promises for a future, safe New Orleans. Ten feet below sea level and sinking is not safe. New Orleans should be constructively deconstructed, not destructively reconstructed.