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September 02, 2005
CNN's Cold Fish
One word about CNN's Carol Costello: Yuck. The anchor of CNN Daybreak tried but failed to communicate genuine sympathy for an individual stranded inside New Orleans' Super Dome but was moved to tears (which she wiped away, discreetly, on camera) by a tape of CNN reporter Kathleen Koch visiting the remnants of Koch's childhood home. There Koch plucked up seven bricks as mementos for each family member, a gesture that triggered Costello's waterworks. And I'm not moved, I'm angry.
I'm angry because during Costello's stint this morning she's sounded more concerned about the lawlessness of a few individuals than the suffering of the great majority. When an eloquent man identified as Alan Gould was interviewed off camera about life inside the Super Dome, he was blunt. He said a "genocide" was underway there. He said (this is not verbatim), "We need the president to come down, take charge and get us out of here." He talked about the dead and dying, about his fears for his life and the lives of his wife and five-year-old daughter. He said it does not take five days to send a bus to New Orleans. When Costello reassured him that National Guards would be arriving "in the days to come," Gould was bitter and wondered how many more people would die before they arrived.
Costello didn't ask why Gould used the term "genocide" twice. Instead she asked about gunmen inside the Dome and Gould said there were no armed men there any more. People had banded together, Gould said, and asked the armed men to leave and they did. Costello asked why some people were shooting at rescue workers and the police, why wasn't everyone banding together to help each other like those in the Super Dome? Gould couldn't answer that question. His observation about the situation stays with me: "We're all we have," he said. "We're all we have."
Later Costello asked both a CNN producer stuck on a roof and a CNN reporter stuck on the roof with him why the police couldn't stop the lawlessness inside the Super Dome and go help a woman who had reportedly been held hostage. In the midst of explosions, apparently from the train yard, Costello said it was unknown if the fires have been set deliberately, then later implied that they had been set. During the time I watched she sounded much more indignant about the outbreak of crime in New Orleans than about the shortage of water and food and help that everyone CNN interviewed said was still needed. It baffles me: is she trying to channel imagined Middle American outrage or does the potential threat to residents from armed thugs (which existed way before the hurricane, by the way) scare her more than the immediate threat of dealth and disease to thousands of residents? Costello's reaction to the crooks seems out of proportion when measured against the suffering that CNN is showing. It's not like the dead people inside the Super Dome have died from gunshot wounds.
The hurricane coverage took a break at one point and CNN plugged an upcoming report on Iraq. Over the image of a burning car, a reporter soberly intoned that when there are attacks in Iraq, ambulances should come "right away. Frequently they don't. Such is the primitive state of Iraqi services." The timing was ironic because just before the break we'd learned that such is the primitive state of services in Louisiana that people in New Orleans can't get medical help either. Kathryn Jezer-Morton and Gray Miles, local freelance journalists, confirm that sad fact in Salon:
While chatting with some of the National Guardsmen, another guardsman approaches and informs us that a woman is in the middle of a stroke around the corner. The guardsmen shrug. There is no emergency medical tent in the downtown area, and many people in need of medicine have no way of getting what they need, even inside the shelters. On our way into the French Quarter, a wild-eyed man flags down our car, begging us for insulin or information about where some can be found. We cannot help him.
It is horrifying that some individuals are shooting at rescue workers and police officers. As the city's major explained in a radio interview rebroadcast by CNN, the looting got out of hand because most of the city's resources went to rescue operations. Now thugs and desperate drug addicts, he says, are roaming the streets and he can't stop them. That may be the biggest news angle to Costello but it's no news to the people trapped in the Super Dome. Criminals have always preyed on the poor and weak, just as politicians have always ignored them. And if Costello wants to get her panties in a knot, she can get indignant about that last part. People needed help several days ago. And it's not just poor black people who are pointing that out. Kathleen Koch, Costello's fellow CNN employee, said there may be help available but no one in the area can find it.
Posted by Deborah Branscum at September 2, 2005 10:51 AM