Is it just me who thinks that pushing ones personal political agenda in the face of thousands of people who have lost their lives, their relatives or "just" everything they own incredibly cynical? The latest example currently spreading through blogs and chat rooms is an apparently outragious example of racism in the coverage of the aftermath of hurricane Katrina. But what is really going on here? If you take a closer look at both press agency notices you'll find that the one which is talking about "finding bread and soda" (which is, of course, unfortunate wording) is from AFP, while the other one, which is correctly describing it as "looting", is from AP -- two entirely different agencies, photographers and editors. This, per se, is hardly an example for racism, especially as AFP is a French agency and the caption probably was translated from French incorrectly.
Update 20:45: As cybasheep mentions in the comments section, the excellent folks at snopes.com have already researched the background of the finding bread and soda caption.
Comments
cybasheep.livejournal.com 18 years, 8 months ago
I honestly don't think it's cynical. The simple fact is, a very many people aren't affected by the catastrophic events in New Orleans themselves at all, neither directly nor indirectly.
They are however hit by shrapnels of the massive media focus, so they are concerning themselves with those - that's nothing to be disgusted about (and quite frankly, I don't buy anyone's being disgusted there except perhaps from people who do happen to have a direct connection to people or property in NO).
That particular discussion is indeed quite silly, but people discuss silly issues in a silly manner and happily ignorant of tragedies happening elswhere all the time. Tongues gotta keep wagging.
Link | Replyzefirodragon.livejournal.com 18 years, 8 months ago
Well, I read http://www.livejournal.com/community/blackfolk/2420240.html and there is, besides the two different sounding news from AP and AFP, also one from AFP which has a picture of black men coming out of a store and the words 'looting' in it. Ok, there's no water visible, but still.
So best way to prove your point would be to show examples of AP calling white guys looters and AFP calling black guys 'residents finding bread'. I haven't searched, so I won't deny it - but according to your theory there should be news like this.
And do you blame Cargoweasel for faulting Mr. Bush?
Link | Replywoelfisch.livejournal.com 18 years, 8 months ago
Well, the first one (the AFP and the AP news item) where originally set against each other to construct the racism accusation, I didn't see the second AFP item before. Whether the second item really shows people looting a supermarket is a good question, you can either believe it or not, a picture and its caption do not make a proof. Also, if you compare the two AFP items you can construct a much more convincing claim of racism. But for some reason it is the AFP vs. the AP caption which is spreading like a wildfire. And this is the point: the original claim was founded on two independend, separate press agency news items, stuck together in a way that it made a complete new meaning, accusing the press being racist. This is a perfidy example on how to manipulate the reader, and as we have seen it works very well -- it has spread in no time.
After thinking a bit longer about it I wonder whether the captions are really the ones distributed by the news agencies. I only see the same supposedly screen shots of some kind of news aggregator over and over again. I haven't heard any acknowledge nor disclaimer from AFP on it yet. Or if it is genuine, maybe it was just an error by a bleady-eyed editor. Don't assume malice if it can be explained by simple reasons.
The problem I see is that, while spanking the news agencies, the underlying problem of the very real racism does not get any attention. Why did we see almost only white people rushing out of the city in their cars before the hurricane came? Why do we see almost exclusively black people being stuck in a flooded, destroyed city or in shelters? An answer to that would be much more interesting and important than a poorly phrased caption of a press photo.
And by the way, while I do think that cargoweasel is slightly missing the point, he as a U.S. citicen has the right and duty to voice his opinion (which is clearly recognizable as that: an opinion) And so even the religious right in the U.S. has a right to blame whatever and whoever for what they think being a punishment by God for the sins of the citicens of New Orleans, as nonsensical, cynical and heartless these claims are.
In my opinion, this isn't the time to point fingers, though. And it is definately not the time for us Germans to give smart ass comments on how the US government could have avoided this catastrophy by signing the Kyoto protocol -- a comment exactly as reasonable as blaming the sinners of New Orleans for the desaster, by the way.
But if you want to learn about and from what went wrong so terribly I recommend the article by Ronda Hauben in Telepolis. One observation from myself after reading through some American reports: as far as I can tell from the distance, the most severe problem with the precautions for and (re-)actions to the hurricane and its consequences were and are unclear competences and (thus) a paralysed beaucracy. And that sounds kind of familiar to us Germans, doesn't it?
Link | Replycybasheep.livejournal.com 18 years, 8 months ago
Snopes.com has the looting vs. finding issue rounded up pretty well in the meantime.
Link | Replywoelfisch.livejournal.com 18 years, 8 months ago
Ah, thank you for the update! I would not have expected Snopes being that fast!
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