MASS MEDIA TROUBLED RELATIONSHIP WITH GOVT.

Briefly, but dramatically, the political failures that turned NewOrleans and many other Gulf cities and towns into a human catastrophe, shattered the bonds of conformity between the mass media and the government. Critical reporters described the failure of the government's Homeland Security to evacuate vulnerable poor people andthe absence of basic food and water for the victims. The media contrasted Bush partying with Republican cronies in California, Vice President Chaney on the golfing green, Secretary of State Riceshopping in Manhattan and Homeland Security boss Chertoff claimingthat disaster relief was in excellent shape with the cries of desperation and destitution of tens of thousands of poverty-strickenand hungry African Americans and poor whites barely surviving in adark, filthy convention center and sports arena. By Day Four of the disaster, the critical impassioned voices were replaced by measured voices of official compassion. Photo opportunities of Bush abounded; the National Guardmen were arriving and the Government was responding. The "news" was about the heroic aid workers with photogenic white guards and nurses cradling black infants, bringing relief to the "refugees" and ending the growing lawlessness, violence and "looting" among the survivors. Interviews with top military officials focused on the threats to the soldiers from violent elements among the "refugees". Visual images of armored troop carriers, heavily armed Special Forces against a backdrop of angry desolate people, resonated with the war propaganda from Iraq.What was an exercise in humanitarian aid was converted into acounter-insurgency operation. By the end of the sixth day the mass media converted the national government's political failures toprotect citizens into a successful military occupation. The Militarization of New Orleans Nothing captures the "revised line" of the media better than the prominent place given to the government's order to "Shoot to killlooters". Not a whimper of protest, not a critical voice: The media converted the destitute city into a war zone: New Orleans became Fallujah. The media dredged up every rumor, hearsay, un-substantiated third hand report of child rape and murder to provide a "context" for the "new reality" the militarization of a devastated American city.The media are well prepared for that scenario: Embedded journalist featured soldiers handing out concentrated military field rations(totally useless for small children and dehydrated elderly) while thebeating of blacks carrying groceries (blacks 'loot' food; whites'find' food) was omitted. Over a hundred thousand people without homes, jobs and savings, water, food and sanitation, were first and foremost subject to military occupation to protect the banks,boutiques and jewelry stores from "looters". Sixteen thousand troops and Special Forces backed by armored carriers and helicopters have taken over the city.