People from NOLA angry at TV coverage

[jasons2k]

An update from my brother-in-law, helping FEMA to set up temporary housing.

He said last night in Jackson, there was no gas on the freeways and refugees everywhere. He also said that many of them were upset at the TV news from NOLA. They said it was sugar-coated, and the conditions in the city were much worse than what you see on TV.

He got to Biloxi today, said it was unimaginable - he was just numb.

[LSU2001]

of course they are sugar coating the mess. They want to create big drama down the road when the scandals start.
TIm

[therealashe]

I think most people know that it's much worse than it seems... however are most people prepared to see how bad it really is?

[sponger]

I think sugar coating is a bit much. It looked like hell on earth. The worst I have ever sen. If it was worse than that, I cant imagine.

[LSU2001]

I think sugar coating is a bit much. It looked like hell on earth. The worst I have ever sen. If it was worse than that, I cant imagine.

Count on it, It is worse than is being shown.
TIm

[Persepone]

The coverage on Tuesday was much more "sugar-coated" than it was on Wednesday and by Thursday, the coating was totally gone, I think--except, of course, that there is no way you can convey the smells, the incredible heat, the humidity, etc. There is sight, sound, taste, touch, and smell--but the TV camera can only show sight and play sound. Also, they did not show the extent of the flooding, etc. until helicopter shots were available! So there was no sense of the extent of the damage to Biloxi, etc. or the extent of the flooding in New Orleans, etc.

So at least some of the "sugar coating" was due to the fact that there was a time lag of actually showing the situation at all, then how it was shown, and of course the fact that you somehow can't quite wrap your mind around the magnitude of the devastation! I'm not sure how accurate the comparison is, but I think the analogy that would make sense to us would be like having the coastline destroyed from NYC all the way up through Maine or so! But it was only today that I heard such an analogy--the reporter said it would be like the entire state of Kansas! Of course that analogy may not make sense to someone who has never driven across Kansas....

There is always a sense of disbelief. Even after all this time, what New Yorkers feel in the city is that something is missing--the light is wrong somehow (or at least this is what this New Yorker feels)... I watched on TV--I talked to friends on the phone--I saw a good friend on TV running for her life down the street, her long black hair totally white (as was her skin) from the dust--and no, I could not get my heart around what my head told me I was seeing.... And even today, the light is wrong in New York City even though I predate the Twin Towers by many years and the light has gone back to what it was when I was young.

I'm sure that for those familiar with New Orleans there is and will perhaps always be this dichotomy between the city of their emotions and the city of their intellect. They will hold the two in their heads and hearts simultaneously but will never be able to reconcile them properly.

My father mourned a town in France called Saint Lo--it was destroyed in World War II. Until he died a few years ago, he never quite got over the Saint Lo he had known as a child and the one that was no longer there when he went back towards the end of World War II. How can you show something like that on film (there was no TV then, but I have seen film).

Why is this story relevant? Perhaps it is because I finally understood, as I watched TV last week what my father tried to tell us all those years about a different city in a different time... And now perhaps I understand... and I understand the sense of outrage and frustration that he had because no one seemed to understand what he was trying to say. It's true. We didn't understand him. We loved him, but we did not understand.

So yes, the people who have lived through this are always going to think the coverage was terrible. The people of New Orleans are going to think the coverage did not begin to tell the story. And people from other parts of Louisiana--names that are of unfamiliar places to many of us who were glued to our TV sets--Metarie, Kenner, Picauyne, Pass Christian, Bay St. Louis, Gulfport, Biloxi and 200 other places--some of which apparently no one has gotten to yet and haven't been shown on TV--someone's "home"--well those people are going to be upset as well! And everyone is going to say, "but they did not show how horrible it was."

I think that is because TV cameras cannot show what is in people's hearts.

[LSU2001]

Bravo, Wonderful post and I totally agree.
TIm

[vbhoutex]

Another reason the coverage is "sugar coated" is that the general public generally does not stomach to well pictures of floating corpses, etc. all the time. There is plenty of that to see if one really wants to. How do I know. My wife works with a woman whose husband has been there since Tuesaday doing SAR(he is with HFD).

[Hurricane_Apu]

They're *really* not going to be thrilled with the networks' full weekend of wall-to-wall Rehnquist/SCOTUS coverage upcoming...

[Mattie]

I don't believe it should be sugar coated in the least! Get the word out there - ugly as it may be - but it needs to be seen! We all know from watching disasters in other countries that it is not "truly real" because we are not "smelling/tasting/feeling" etc. the horrific tragedies that cross our globe/continent. The fires in Colorado/the earthquakes in California - yes we all have opinions on how things could have been done differently, but we weren't there. Same is the case with the New Orleans disaster. You don't know the truth unless you lived the truth.

As a hurricane survivor (Betsy - between Baton Rouge/NO and Camille in Gulfport) a flood survivor as a South Louisiana resident when water/silt/chit* (sorry) from the river bottom is in your living room is witnessed), most people that have not survived a tragedy like this first hand and cannot possibly understand the clean up - the danger - the LONG aftermath of any natural disaster.

The sugar coating will make the rest of the nation feel that it is all under control when we know that it takes months and months (and in the case, years and years) to totally get back to a semblance of life that we knew before the tragedy.

We can't afford to sugar coat anything when we are going to need the to assist us in sustaining the lives, the well being and the heath care for all of the survivors. Otherwise - they think - hey - TX/AK/MA/LLA has taken care of all of the needs with the assistance of our monetary and people assistance.

These people and the City of New Orleans/the coasts of MS/AL/FL will all need continued assistance for many, many months to come. We can't let these issues fall to the back burner.

[NFLnut]

I don't know, it looks pretty horrible to me! I don't know where you can find any "sugar coating!"

[JTD]

They're *really* not going to be thrilled with the networks' full weekend of wall-to-wall Rehnquist/SCOTUS coverage upcoming...

You got that right.

[Windy]

I think the reason it feels candy coated is that television cannot possibly convey the horror going on down there without making the viewers vomit, which is counterproductive to getting people to watch. I've noticed they haven't been showing a lot of bloated bodies or baby carcasses stuck up in trees or the faces of children who've been raped, but then how can they? Who could keep watching the televison after something like that?

Don't worry. The photojournalists down there are taking those pictures and the writers are writing down those details. Years from now, history is going to be very, very harsh in its reporting of this catastrophe.

[SouthFloridawx]

I think the reason it feels candy coated is that television cannot possibly convey the horror going on down there without making the viewers vomit, which is counterproductive to getting people to watch. I've noticed they haven't been showing a lot of bloated bodies or baby carcasses stuck up in trees or the faces of children who've been raped, but then how can they? Who could keep watching the televison after something like that?

Don't worry. The photojournalists down there are taking those pictures and the writers are writing down those details. Years from now, history is going to be very, very harsh in its reporting of this catastrophe.

thanks for that .. really i mean that.

Americans can't deal with it they don't want to see it. We don't learn unless it happens to us.

[thunderchief]

Look, the networks almost never show bodies on TV. From airline crashes to 9/11 to anything other disaster, war, or accident... its always worse than what you see on the news.

[Doc Seminole]

An update from my brother-in-law, helping FEMA to set up temporary housing.

He said last night in Jackson, there was no gas on the freeways and refugees everywhere. He also said that many of them were upset at the TV news from NOLA. They said it was sugar-coated, and the conditions in the city were much worse than what you see on TV. He got to Biloxi today, said it was unimaginable - he was just numb.

I am not saying that it wasn't sugar coated but in what way was he saying it was sugar coated? Just curious as to what they mean by that.

It was reported that at the convention center some demon possessed man raped and killed a 7 year old girl and then a bunch of people beat the guy to death. Sounded like it was hell on earth. How much uglier can it get?