One of the current themes on right-wing blogs is the mainstream media's (MSM) horrible coverage of Hurricane Katrina, specifically in reporting the number of expected dead and the conditions at the Superdome and Convention Center. However, most of these blogs fail to report how the death estimates were calculated, and instead blame the number on either racial stereotyping, media sensationalism, or the Mayor himself.
In many interviews, Mayor Nagin noted that the death toll in New Orleans due to Hurricane Katrina could be as high as 10,000.
New Orleans Mayor: 10,000 Feared Dead
In New Orleans, Nagin upticked his estimate of the probable death toll in his city from merely thousands, telling NBC's "Today" show, "It wouldn't be unreasonable to have 10,000."
Right-wing blogs have used reporting this overestimation to accuse
the media of pushing these numbers due to sensationalism or racial
stereotyping. Here are a few excerpts:
Captain's Quarters
That prediction by Mayor Ray Nagin may yet still come to pass as more of the city emerges from the floodwaters. At this point, though, it will provide yet another example of the hysteria that finds its home with the unprepared and the passive, those who want others to do the work that should have already been done by themselves. The figure got a lot of press play because of its spectacular nature and because of the official status of the man proclaiming it.
The Exempt Media should ask themselves whether the estimate of 10,000 casualties had any other basis in fact. If so, they need to explain what else prompted them to report that as a reliable range. If not, then they need to rethink using reports from overwhelmed local politicians who used such estimates to shove attention off of their own performances.
It's my view that even the MSM's suggestion that the death count would reach 10,000 was based on stereotyping -- the view that the poor and predominantly African-American residents who didn't leave New Orleans couldn't save themselves and, as a class, needed government intervention to survive.
A Google blogsearch for 10,000, Katrina, and MSM gets about 106 hits (most related to criticizing either Nagin or the MSM for the 10,000 dead figure), showing that this meme isn't isolated. Many are upset at Mayor Nagin for reporting the figure, and the "MSM" for reporting on this figure. With this, there are a few questions to ask. First, did the mainstream media overhype this figure? And second, where did Mayor Nagin get this figure? Hysteria? Racial stereotyping? Or something else?
Let's first take a look at a sampling of the headlines reporting the 10,000 figure (taken from a Google news search, and is no way an exhaustive list of all the news articles; bold mine):
Mayor: Katrina Death Toll May Hit 10,000
Mayor says 10,000 could be dead
Mayor: 10,000 deaths possible in New Orleans
10,000 feared dead as flooding recedes
Mayor: As many as 10,000 feared dead
New Orleans mayor says 10,000 could be dead
New Orleans mayor warns 10,000 dead 'wouldn't be unreasonable' ...
Most of the headlines qualified the 10,000 dead figure, with only a handful of headlines without some sort of qualification to the death toll. Here are a few examples of truly alarmist headlines:
'10,000' dead' in hurricane hell
10,000 dead, New Orleans mayor says
These last two are truly alarmist headlines (for shame, Manchester Evening News and Canada East) but the majority of the headlines and reports noted that Mayor Nagin's numbers were a high end estimate. Now if the majority of the media reported that there was definitively 10,000 dead, then that would be truly sensationalist. But most of the headlines and articles made it clear that the Mayor's estimate was high-end.
Furthermore, the media has reported inflated estimated death tolls in the past (see 9/11 and the Asian tsunami). These estimates usually come from experts that use the available evidence to give a number as to how many dead there could be. It's possible that the experts that make these estimates are poor at their jobs, or that because of the dearth of available information, these estimates are extremely difficult to make. Regardless, one can't say that these estimates are based on stereotyping or "overwhelmed local politicians who used such estimates to shove attention off of their own performances" when this happens after nearly every major tragedy.
Secondly, where did the Mayor's figure come from? Media-induced hysteria? Stereotypes? Nope...it looks like this high-end estimate came from a computer model.
Nagin told The Early Show co-anchor Harry Smith that he thinks there will be thousands of deaths in New Orleans, adding, "Some computer models say 10,000. I don't know what the number is. But it's going to be big. And it's going to shock the nation."
And more from The Guardian:
Mr Nagin has put his name to a figure of 10,000 as what he sees as the likeliest figure of dead.
A total of nearly 40,000 are officially unaccounted for but it is accepted that the vast majority of them have probably either survived the storm or had already left the city without necessarily informing anyone of exactly where they were going.
The figures of those still unaccounted for in this city of just under 500,000 people have been used to draw up a computerised estimate of the dead which is double that of Mr Nagin's. But some believe that the true figure will be far, far smaller, even just in the hundreds.
"The estimates are always far in excess of the reality," said one American reporter who specialises in covering disasters as the rescue operations were coordinated outside Harrahs casino in New Orleans. "I would not be surprised if we were looking at as few 200 to 300."
Such enormous discrepancies are not unusual. When the World Trade Centre was attacked in September 2001, initial estimates of the dead were between 30,000 and 40,000. These were gradually revised down to a figure of 10,000 which was accepted initially as a likely total. In fact, the final figure was fewer than 3,000.
Furthermore, a senior military official estimated that the death toll would be between 3,000-5,000 dead, and hoped it wouldn't reach 10,000.
When death estimates are made, they often overestimate because of a lack of information. The overestimation of Katrina deaths, although inaccurate, were based on some sort of evidence. The areas hit hardest by flooding in New Orleans were those with people that are least likely to make it out. This made sense, as poor, high-density areas of New Orleans were hit hard by flooding. Fortunately, it looks like many more of the city's poor either evacuated or made it to shelter and the death tolls are lower.
Now the Mayor's estimates were almost assuredly wrong. But I see nothing wrong in the media reporting these estimates, considering that they came from computer models based on existing knowledge of the situation. As long as the media doesn't report these numbers as fact (which was likely done only in the occasional headline), this is fair reporting.
What isn't fair is to say that these estimates were "based on stereotyping", when a few minutes of research would show that they were based on models. And it isn't fair to challenge the mainstream media to "ask themselves whether the estimate of 10,000 casualties had any other basis in fact" without actually reporting where these estimates came from.
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