NewsTrust - Hurricane Katrina - Most Recent Stories: Opinion (Mainstream)

Catastrophe on camera: Why media coverage of natural disasters is flawed

Thu, 20 Jan 2011 00:00:00 -0800

The Independent - By Patrick Cockburn - Jan. 20 (Comment) - The media generally assume that news of war, crime and natural disasters will always win an audience. "If it bleeds, it leads," is a well-tried adage of American journalism. Of the three categories, coverage of war has attracted criticism for its lies,

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Viewpoints: Dispelling myths about Katrina helps us learn from mistakes - Sacramento Opinion - Sacramento Editorial | Sacramento Bee

Sun, 19 Dec 2010 00:00:00 -0800

Sacramento Bee - Dec. 19 (Opinion) - Read Sacramento opinion, letters and editorials at The Sacramento Bee

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How did this wastrel ever find his way to the White House?

Wed, 10 Nov 2010 00:00:00 -0800

The Independent - By Matthew Norman - Nov. 10 (Review) - May the Lord the former president so ostentatiously worships have mercy on my soul, and those in Iraq without water, electricity and medicine forgive me, but I just cannot suppress a twinge of sympathy for George W Bush.

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This crime was a symptom of a wider sickness in the police

Thu, 15 Jul 2010 00:00:00 -0700

The Independent - By Tracie Washington - Jul. 15 (Opinion) - These charges have been a long time coming. I was in New Orleans throughout the floods and in the days after, and I still remember the sense that something had gone amiss when we first heard of the incident on Danziger Bridge, the way our anger grew.

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Letters: Anger Rises as the Oil Keeps Spewing

Wed, 26 May 2010 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - May. 26 (Opinion) - Readers respond to articles about the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

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Sex & Drugs & The Spill

Mon, 10 May 2010 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Paul Krugman - May. 10 (Opinion) - If there’s any silver lining to the disaster in the gulf, it is that it may serve as a wake-up call, a reminder that we need politicians who believe in good government, because there are some jobs only the government can do.

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Welcome to Confederate History Month

Sun, 18 Apr 2010 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Frank Rich - Apr. 18 (Opinion) - Obama opposition increasingly comes wrapped in the racial code that Gov. Robert McDonnell revived in endorsing Confederate History Month.

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The real crisis in government

Mon, 11 Jan 2010 00:00:00 -0800

Washington Post - By Paul C. Light - Jan. 11 (Opinion) - The government crisis behind Flight 253, tainted meat, toxic toys, Katrina and more.

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More Than Beads, Booze and Boobs

Wed, 25 Feb 2009 00:00:00 -0800

The Root - By Chandra R. Thomas - Feb. 25 (Opinion) - There is admittedly a Girls Gone Wild element to Mardi Gras. You know, the intoxicated young women raising their shirts for beads and engaging in salacious sexual activity on the streets. That may be so for many tourists, but for natives like my family, Mardi Gras is a family-bonding time: cooking out and dancing to the bands marching by, all the while screaming for the beads and other trinkets thrown from the vibrantly decorated floats. I have never once seen anyone in my family flash their assets, to claim worthless, plastic jewelry.

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Gustav upsets the GOP Convention but may be good for the GOP

Mon, 01 Sep 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Slate - By John Dickerson - Sep. 01 (Opinion) - For the moment, the disaster benefits McCain, because like all great political moments, it allows him to act authentically and yet benefit politically. One of the worst political clichÃ©s actually is true at this moment: Good policy is good politics. All McCain has to do is keep his aides off the phones talking about the politics of the storm, and he'll be in a position to benefit from it. (And so far, he looks like he's done that, too.)

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Campaigning after Katrina

Fri, 29 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Boston Globe - Aug. 29 (Editorial) - The third anniversary of that storm today - not to mention the advance of Tropical Storm Gustav across the Caribbean Sea this week - offers an apt occasion to consider how the response might have been different under Democrat Barack Obama or Republican John McCain.

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Forgetting New Orleans

Fri, 29 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Time - By Steven Gray - Aug. 29 (Opinion) - So far, however, New Orleans' fate has been largely absent from the campaign conversation. Its few appearances have been more rhetorical than substantive -- a way for the Democrats to attack the GOP's record rather than to propose what to do about a city that remains in crisis.

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Katrina Recovery: Outrageous delays

Mon, 17 Mar 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Seattle Post Intelligencer - Mar. 17 (Editorial) - It's been 2 1/2 years, already, and folks in Louisiana, where rents have skyrocketed, are still living in those luxurious Federal Emergency Management Agency trailers. But ICF is doing just fine, what with posting strong profits (up to $9.6 million by the end of December, according to the Washington Business Journal), somehow managing to land more government contracts (a $42 million job with the Environmental Protection Agency) and maybe even scoring a raise from the state, something that angers Louisiana's new governor, Bobby Jindal.

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Steve Chapman: Drowning our money in New Orleans

Sat, 01 Sep 2007 11:30:00 -0700

Minneapolis Star Tribune - By Steve Chapman - Sep. 01 (Opinion) - But there are worse policies than inaction. Before the nation undertakes the extravagant project of rebuilding New Orleans and securing it from the elements, we might ask if there isn't a better option, not only for the nation but for the victims. The Democratic debate over the future of New Orleans somehow passed over the instructive example of Valmeyer, Ill. In 1993, the town of 900 was swamped, not for the first time, by a rain-swollen Mississippi River. It hasn't been swamped since, because it's not there anymore. Rather than remain in a vulnerable spot, the residents voted to relocate their village to a bluff 400 feet above the river. But no one wants to suggest similar discretion in Louisiana.

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Relocating may be better than rebuilding

Thu, 30 Aug 2007 11:30:00 -0700

Chicago Tribune - By Steve Chapman - Aug. 30 (Opinion) - When they assembled in New Orleans this week to note the second anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, they were in an affirmative mood. Yes, they told locals, your problems are the fault of President Bush's disgraceful inaction, and yes, we should spend whatever it takes to restore the city to what it used to be. But there are worse policies than inaction. Before the nation undertakes the extravagant project of rebuilding New Orleans and securing it from the elements, we might ask if there isn't a better option, not only for the nation, but also for the flood victims.

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Not so easy

Wed, 29 Aug 2007 09:44:02 -0700

Los Angeles Times - Aug. 29 (Opinion) - Statistics provide a sketch of a community that's making progress, albeit with a long way to go. In Orleans Parish, where about 437,000 people lived before hurricanes Katrina and Rita, about 265,000 reside now -- some 100,000 more than the post-storm low. The numbers of cargo shipments at the port of New Orleans and passengers at the local airport are only 10% lower than they were pre-Katrina. However, aid programs to rebuild schools, hospitals, sewer systems and homes have sputtered, delayed by red tape and excruciatingly slow planning. Mayor C. Ray Nagin and other city leaders have seemed paralyzed by the enormity of the task, unable to make tough decisions about where and what to rebuild.

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Vindicated Katrina Doc Tells Her Story

Tue, 28 Aug 2007 14:20:00 -0700

Newsweek - By Julie Scelfo - Aug. 28 (Interview) - Almost a year after the storm, in July 2006, authorities arrested Dr. Anna Pou, a well-known head and neck surgeon. She was eventually accused of murdering nine patients who were in a long-term acute care unit on the seventh floor run by LifeCare Hospital of New Orleans. (Two nurses were also arrested but their charges were later dropped.)

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Reckless Abandonment

Sun, 26 Aug 2007 08:06:44 -0700

Washington Post - By Douglas Brinkley - Aug. 26 (Opinion) - Two full years after the hurricane, the Big Easy is barely limping along, unable to make truly meaningful reconstruction progress. The most important issues concerning the city's long-term survival are still up in the air. Why is no Herculean clean-up effort underway? Why hasn't President Bush named a high-profile czar such as Colin Powell or James Baker to oversee the ongoing disaster? Where is the U.S. government's participation in the rebuilding?

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U.S. Anti-Poverty Efforts Fall Short

Tue, 26 Sep 2006 13:43:46 -0700

Forbes - Sep. 26 (Opinion) - The scenes of devastation and poverty projected from New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina made landfall in August 2005 struck many U.S. citizens and foreign observers as disproportionately experienced by African Americans. Given that 40 years have passed since the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and President Lyndon Johnson's War on Poverty, such public suffering dismayed proponents of anti-poverty measures. It did the same for advocates of such race-conscious public policies as affirmative action in employment and education.

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Spike's Storm

Mon, 21 Aug 2006 02:52:14 -0700

Weekly Standard - By Sonny Bunch - Aug. 21 (Opinion) - Spike Lee's new documentary about Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath, When the Levees Broke, is an interesting piece of work. The film is alternately moving, depressing, and annoying. It is also long. Exceptionally long. Clocking in at just over four hours, and broken into four one hour acts (the first two air tonight, the last two tomorrow night), it is an emotionally overwhelming presentation of an American city beset by a tragedy from which it may never recover. As in Lee's first documentary, 4 Little Girls, the director eschews the use of a narrator; allowing his subjects' stories to tie the piece together instead. Another holdover from 4 Little Girls is the composer, Terence Blanchard, whose music is both touching and haunting.

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Are We Paying FEMA to Watch TV and Complain?

Wed, 05 Oct 2005 00:00:00 -0700

Fox News - By John Gibson - Oct. 05 (Opinion) - FEMA should stop watching TV and get housing and emergency plans together. And if they have any extra time they should come on TV and explain what they're doing. Are we really paying federal bureaucrats to watch TV and complain?

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Where has all the leadership gone?

Tue, 27 Sep 2005 00:00:00 -0700

The O'Reilly Factor - By Bill O'Reilly - Sep. 27 (Opinion) - President Bush built a first-term legacy on leadership, and that was reflected in his re-election. But now the leadership is in question. Former FEMA head Michael Brown has basically defended his agency's dismal performance in the days after Katrina.

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