I have confessed in other diaries that I turned to Faux News yesterday and (briefly) today, because I was interested in finding out what the Republican Party party line now is on Bush and Katrina.
I could have discovered some of what has been going on there if I had signed up for a site pass to the Salon site, because Farhad Manjoo has written an article there about the Faux coverage, and how it varies from that of some other cable news operations.
I screwed up by posting the entire article initially. I hope that I have managed to correct that, and, if you want to read the entire article, you'll have to go to Salon and get your own site pass.
KATRINA ACCORDING TO FOX
"There are a lot of good stories out there" on the right-wing cable channel. And did we mention President Bush is pouring out relief?
By Farhad Manjoo
Sept. 3, 2005 | "After the storm, a storm -- and I mean a storm! -- of aid!" Fox News anchor Neil Cavuto began his broadcast on Friday afternoon, as the screen flashed with images of National Guard convoys motoring in to the broken city of New Orleans, and troops doling out food and water to victims of Hurricane Katrina. To watch a few hours of Fox on Friday was to experience reassurance, some relief that things were getting better on the Gulf Coast. While the situation may have been bleak this week, Fox's anchors and reporters acknowledged, and while there still were some pockets where "law and order" -- a Fox obsession -- had not been restored, help was on the way. Or as Cavuto put it, police were "attempting to take back the city of New Orleans ... as the president of the United States takes in the damage and pours out the relief."
On other networks -- and, more important, in reality -- the president's visit to the affected areas didn't merit the same measure of optimism.
big snip
On Fox, instead of race relations, viewers were offered religion. How should victims cope with the disaster? They ought to reconnect with God, and they ought to remember that their extravagant earthly possessions are unimportant, Rick Warren, the author of "The Purpose-Driven Life," told Cavuto. "I would say play it down and pray it up," Warren said. "In other words, you know when you lose everything it forces you to redefine your life. If your view of who you are is based on all the things you've accumulated -- your car, your pool, your house, your boat -- and all of a sudden you wake up one day and those belongings are absolutely blown away, you have to redefine what your life is. If your definition of family is tied to the neighborhood you live in or the security gates you live behind or your made-over home, and suddenly that's gone, then you're going to have to rethink what your family is ... In the next few days millions of these Gulf State residents and millions of us who are watching it unfold are going to have to struggle with these questions. What is life really all about?"
Cavuto did not mention to Warren that many of the victims in this storm are not worried about having lost their cars, their boats, their pools, or their gated homes for the simple reason that they never had -- and probably never dreamed they could have -- all those things. If Fox asked any of the people stranded in the convention center what life is really about, there's a good chance food, water and shelter would have topped the list.
But Fox didn't do that. Because on Fox, as Cavuto said, "There are a lot of good stories out there."