Katrina or how the media fails the public

To put it in the common vernacular, WTF? CJR Daily reports on NBC photojournalist Tony Zumbado's filming of the chaos at the convention center in New Orleans. We've already blogged on the heart rending details of the sick, the hungry, the dehydrated and the dying on the streets, so I won't repeat it, but here are the money grafs.

Then followed an extraordinary exchange -- not included in the transcript of the interview on MSNBC's Web site -- well worth noting. Stewart mentioned that many of the images Zumbado had shot of the dead and dying "couldn't" be run on the air. Zumbado added that there was much more footage that he could have shot but did not, precisely because he knew it would never make it on the air.
It was clear that the footage that we did see was whatever material had made it through the network's own filter of self-censorship. As horrifying as the images shown were, they didn't come close to Zumbado's own stunned and graphic descriptions of what he had seen.

So it is that we come to an eternal debate among journalists on the scene of such horrors as those occurring at the New Orleans' convention center. How much of the dead and dying can we -- or should we -- show on television?

Why is this even a question? These folks are supposed to be reporting the news. As in real life, this isn't some staged reality show, or actually it is - but it shouldn't be. Isn't the news supposed to report the true facts, not some filtered view?

Gal Beckerman goes on to say,

Obviously, no one wants to view, say, the death rattle of an infant perishing from dehydration. But if the nightmare unfolding right now at the convention center is the result of negligence, or even of triage being practiced by government responders, and if a little graphic film might arouse both those responders and the larger citizenry, is not that a public service?

Someone, or several someones, made the decision to leave those people dying at the convention center to their own devices. Should the television press let those persons off the hook -- in order to spare a queasy public from graphic images?

But it's not the public who are queasy. We want and need to see the real story. The media has failed us in the occupation of Iraq. It gives us only Pentagon approved news and images. God forbid we honor our dead by acknowledging their arrival or get un-embedded stories that don't come directly off the White House wire. Of course, it's easy to get away with withholding uncomfortable truths when reporting on a distant land.

This story is about Americans who were abandoned by our government in their time of need. It's illegal to treat animals like this much less human beings. So let's put aside all this talk about the tender sensibilities of the public, when it's so obviously a ploy to cover up the criminal neglect of our politicians. Show us the death rattle of a dying infant. It's about time we put a face on the "collateral damage" caused by the irresponsible policies and priorities of this administration.