Of looters and rapists

I guess because his piece relates to the media, David Carr's important report on the media's hyping of so many urban myths relating to Katrina's aftermath is unfortunately stuck in the Business Section. It should be on the front page.

First, anyone with any knowledge of the events in New Orleans knows that terrible things with non-natural causes occurred: there were assaults, shots fired at a rescue helicopter and, given the state of the city's police department, many other crimes that probably went unreported.

But many instances in the lurid libretto of widespread murder, carjacking, rape, and assaults that filled the airwaves and newspapers have yet to be established or proved, as far as anyone can determine. And many of the urban legends that sprang up - the systematic rape of children, the slitting of a 7-year-old's throat - so far seem to be just that. The fact that some of these rumors were repeated by overwhelmed local officials does not completely get the news media off the hook. A survey of news reports in the LexisNexis database shows that on Sept. 1, the news media's narrative of the hurricane shifted.

The Fox News anchor, John Gibson, helped set the scene: "All kinds of reports of looting, fires and violence. Thugs shooting at rescue crews. Thousands of police and National Guard troops are on the scene trying to get the situation under control. Thousands more on the way. So heads up, looters." A reporter, David Lee Miller, responded: "Hi, John. As you so rightly point out, there are so many murders taking place. There are rapes, other violent crimes taking place in New Orleans." After the interview, Mr. Gibson did acknowledge that "we have yet to confirm a lot of that."

Later that night on MSNBC, Tucker Carlson grabbed the flaming baton and ran with it. "People are being raped," he said in a conversation with the Rev. Al Sharpton. "People are being murdered. People are being shot. Police officers being shot."

For all the talk of preznit's lack of empathy for the poor and, specifically, black Americans, the media need to be taken to task as well. Just as "wilding" became a watchword for young black men gone crazy in New York 15 years ago, the urban myths out of New Orleans gained so much currency among the Gibsons, O'Reilly's, Carlsons because the stories matched up so well with their perceptions of what young black men are like when not under the steady gaze of armed police.

And I've yet to hear any corrections.

But Carr does confirm one of the most incredible stories coming out of the rubble of the storm:

And yes, true story, a Louisiana congressman under investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation hitched a ride on a National Guard truck to his flood-damaged home to pick up, among other things, a box of documents. A rescue helicopter was diverted from picking up survivors after the truck became stuck.

Even now, the real, actual events in New Orleans in the past three weeks surpass the imagination. Who needs urban myths when the reality was so brutal?

Ah, but Carr's being unfair. Those probably weren't just any documents.