Don’t believe what you read
As if we needed any more reminders not to believe what we read in the papers or are told in the electronic media, Reason magazine chronicles the spread of false and exaggerated media stories in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
“Katrina evacuation halted amid gunfire—shots are fired at military helicopter” screamed one headline that was featured on at least 150 news outlets around the globe. Except that it didn't happen. Subsequent investigation showed that the evacuation was not halted at any time because of gunfire at a helicopter, military or otherwise. In fact, there is no evidence of any helicopter being fired at, full stop.
The same is true of the story of the seven-year-old rape victim with her throat cut, the story of the Convention Centre freezer stacked with 30 or 40 bodies, and the reports of widespread rapes and gang violence—all either completely untrue or wildly exaggerated.
There are two plausible explanations for this rash of of bad journalism. The first is the chaos and pressure of the emergency situation. In the heat of the moment, and under the intense pressure of deadlines, journalists swallowed rumours and fabrications that they might otherwise might have regarded with more scepticism, and checked more carefully.
The second is the power of the ‘story filter’. All journalists have a series of convenient templates or story filters in their brains which they use to cope with the daily pressure of writing stories with limited time based on limited facts. We see it with the reporting of Christianity all the time: there's the ‘church persecutes women and gays’ story, the ‘out-moded church in decline’ story, the ‘unconventional priest trying new tricks to win converts’ story, and so on. When a piece of information comes along that seems to fit into one of these templates or filters, the journo can quickly write the story.
In the case of New Orleans, one suspects it was the ‘humans descending to primitive savagery when under pressure’ story; or even the more sinister ‘blacks reverting to dangerous violence’ type story.
Or perhaps there's a third reason for all this, the one that the Psalmist points to: “And in my dismay I said, ‘All men are liars’” (Ps 116:11).