So, in an earlier post I related a bit where I was upset about the reporting of vicious but unsubstantiated rumors of rapes and murders happening in New Orleans in the aftermath of Katrina. What upset me was the willingness of (in this case) CNN to put some jackass on the air repeating such stories. My point at the time was, “This is not fact, and this is not helpful. Why is he on the air?”
Now the NO Times-Picayune, a paper that was ruthless in its coverage of Katrina, announces “Rumors of deaths greatly exaggerated”.
Remember the supposed stacks of corpses at the Superdome? It turns out there was a total of six deaths at the dome, most of them natural causes and none of them the result of crime.
Rapes? No victims and no witnesses have come forward.
The homicide rate in NO during the week of Katrina was...the same as every other week of the year.
Remember when Ray Nagin predicted 10,000 deaths that would shock the nation? Thankfully, only around 1000 souls have been lost, and that’s for the whole storm across three states.
I hate to say it, but the MSM have a race problem. The willingness to report savage behavior of a largely black population is hard to countenance...
Update: The LA Times catches on. And, if you read to the end, they quote a professor who can’t help but avoid the race component.
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