You must bear in mind that the media have an unalterable bias toward telling good stories. One thing a good story needs is focus -- you can't go wandering aimlessly all over the map -- and this story is *literally* scattered all over the map. So even though the storm didn't hit New Orleans nearly as hard as it it hit the places the eye passed over, it was quite a long time before I was aware that New Orleans wasn't the only city damaged. Cultural icon, major port, industries of immediate importance to everybody, last-minute disaster just as you are drawing a sigh of relief, lots of casualties in one handy location -- New Orleans is where the story is at.
Another thing a good story needs is a theme. With a bungled evacuation, followed by the failure of a levee that should have been able to take much worse, the theme of *incompetence* was forced upon the media. Put theme and focus together, and it's inevitable that the rotting bodies in New Orleans are reported repeatedly while the people using school-bus routes to find and care for survivors in Bay Saint Louis, Mississippi are not reported at all. -- Joy Beeson http://home.earthlink.net/~joybeeson/ http://home.earthlink.net/~dbeeson594/ROUGHSEW/ROUGH.HTM http://home.earthlink.net/~beeson_n3f/ http://www.timeswrsw.com/craig/cam/ (local weather) west of Fort Wayne, Indiana, U.S.A. where we're getting tired of clear sunny weather. To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace-chat [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
