In defense of reporters working live on the scene, their work is extraordinarily difficult. The scope of damage caused by these hurricanes is beyond comprehension. The up-close sight and smell of death is unfamiliar to most of us, and reporters are human, too. When you're the only bridge between suffering and relief - and you're exhausted besides - emotional weather joins the landscape.
Moreover, reporters depend on officials for information. It was New Orleans' own Mayor Ray Nagin who told Americans via the cameras that tens of thousands might be dead. It was New Orleans' police chief, Eddie Compass, recently resigned, who told Oprah Winfrey about "little babies getting raped" at the Superdome. With so much information and disinformation circulating, and so little organization at the top, how does one confirm or negate such statements?
But of course they're raping babies! This always happens when angry, destitute people finally are released from the shackles of oppression, right? Well, maybe not, but I saw a movie once .
Compounding the stress of disaster and chaos is the pressure on reporters to produce "news." In the absence of verifiable facts, rumors fill the void.
Excuses and encomiums aside, there's no question that media presence alters reality. Even abnormal circumstances ratchet up a notch when someone of, say, Geraldo Rivera's celebrity materializes. Whatever the news (ITALICS) was, (END ITALICS) it immediately becomes something else that is, at least in part, about Geraldo.
This is not a new insight, of course. Social scientists long ago hijacked Heisenberg's Principle of Uncertainty to explain the effect observers have on the thing or person observed. Even so, it's useful to keep in mind, as hysteria seizes the land and fear absconds with reason, that what we're "seeing" on TV is not always to be believed.