Unfortunately, journalists haven’t accurately reported the data involved.

Catastrophic events in America’s cities have a tendency to generate discussions about race, class, and poverty. The Watts riots in 1965, as well as the Rodney King riots in 1992 are fine examples. Hurricane Katrina has sparked another such debate. Unfortunately, America’s media are relying on consistently questionable or out-of-date statistics to not only exaggerate the problem, but to blame President Bush.

No, this is not about the Rev. Louis Farrakhan and his march in D.C. Instead, it’s about an article today (15 October) in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer entitled, “ 'Slave syndrome' may still affect black behavior.” The thesis of the professor appears in the early paragraphs:

“The troubling images of African Americans displaced by Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans' impoverished neighborhoods didn't startle researcher Joy DeGruy-Leary. ‘All Katrina did was reveal what was already there. I wasn't confused, wasn't surprised,’ she said....

“DeGruy-Leary, an assistant professor in Portland State University's Graduate School of Social Work, will discuss her theory of the relationship between race, culture, poverty and history today at the third Seattle Race Conference and tonight in a separate talk. Her theory of "post-traumatic slave syndrome" concludes that African Americans needed to adapt to survive more than two centuries of slavery, and that those adaptations are reflected in their behaviors today.”

CNN runs an AP article on King Midas, a 300-pound sea turtle from Louisiana. In one of the photo captions it says King Midas is "in his watery home with other fish at the aquarium in New Orleans."

They don't know fish from turtles and they want to preach to us about global warming and the environment?

A follow-up, with Friday morning coverage, to the Thursday night NewsBusters posting, “Shocked, Just Shocked Network Reporters Hype 'Staged’ Bush Event with Troops,” which detailed how the NBC Nightly News LED with the supposed scandal and how the other networks devoted full stories to it. The network obsession, with the ordinary preparation for a presidential event involving nervous participants, continued on Friday morning. Plugging upcoming stories at the top of Good Morning America, ABC’s Charles Gibson referred to “an embarrassing, staged photo-op.” Diane Sawyer soon cited the event as a “new embarrassment” for the administration and reporter Claire Shipman asserted that “an embarrassing White House blunder lifted the veil on the Bush administration's meticulously managed photo-ops." With “WAS TALK WITH TROOPS SCRIPTED?” plastered on-screen, NBC’s Today made the incident its story of the day as Katie Couric announced: "On Close-Up this morning, is the Bush administration using staged events to sell the war in Iraq?”

Over on CNN’s American Morning, co-host Miles O’Brien insisted to Major General Rick Lynch in Iraq that the participating soldiers were “coached.” Though Lynch repeatedly denied the soldiers were told what to say, O’Brien stuck to his claim they were “coached,” citing how the Pentagon official told them, “here's what he's going to say, here's what you might want to say in response, right?" Lynch maintained that “those soldiers yesterday were giving their opinion." To which an oblivious O’Brien replied: “Well, I guess it's too bad, if that's true, that people would have another impression this morning, because of the way they were coached." But the best O’Brien could come up with was how the Pentagon’s Allison Barber suggested how to segue to another soldier for an answer and that “a few smiles wouldn't hurt back here on the TV.” When news reader Carol Costello wondered: "Is anything spontaneous in politics, really? I don't think so," O'Brien heralded a left-winger: "Jeez. Dennis Kucinich, maybe?" O'Brien also had the gall to contend that “truth be told, if they were not coached, they would have said things that the administration would have liked to hear, I'm convinced. Because they are, you know, these troops are gung ho about their mission. And so it's a shame that they have cast this cloud." Wow, that’s chutzpah given it was O’Brien and the media which cast the “cloud.” (Full transcripts follow.)

Published just hours apart, but by journalists separated by thousands of miles and a huge cultural divide, articles at the Boston Globe and al-Jazeera concerning the voting just finished in Iraq had striking similarities in their views. In fact, the tenor of both reports was quite negative.

The key points raised in the al-Jazeera article were:

“In what the American President George W. Bush claims to be another milestone on Iraq’s road to democracy, Iraqi headed to polling stations today to give a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to the proposed draft constitution, expected to further divide the country into three mini-states.”

On this issue, the Globe stated:

AP reporter John Solomon publicizes Tom DeLay's congressional-campaign website TomDeLay.com, especially its page on The Facts about Travis County prosecutor Ronnie Earle. It's fairly straightforward until it talks to "the experts" about it.  There's this expert claim:

Bruce Yannett, a former Iran-Contra prosecutor, said DeLay's campaign effort might raise questions of trying to taint the potential jury pool but the legal standard for making such a case is hard to prove. Nonetheless, Yannett said he could not imagine President Reagan overtly using his campaign to attack prosecutors during the 1980s investigation of the Iran-Contra affair. "I would not recommend his campaign do it. It does seem a little unusual," Yannett said.

The Washington Post sent its ace reporter, Dana Milbank, to cover yesterday’s grand jury appearance by chief White House aide, Karl Rove. Milbank gave the reader a fascinating blow-by-blow of the proceedings, including letting the curious know that special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald does indeed use public restrooms:

“Almost three hours after Karl Rove entered the grand jury chambers yesterday morning, special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald walked hurriedly from the room and toward the waiting reporters.

“‘Just going to the men's room,’ he announced, continuing past the media pack. ‘Don't want to create any buzz.’"

Yet, never one to miss an opportunity to belittle a member of the Bush administration, Milbank relayed a vision of female protestors from Code Pink standing in front of the courthouse dressed as condoms: