Category: Opinionated

How interesting!

Eric Scheie of Classical Values received an e-mail from someone claiming to be Brian Thevenot of the New Orleans Times Picayune.

Did you somehow miss the portion of the follow-up story in which I debunked my own myth about the 40 bodies in the freezer? Did you not bother to read the whole story? I admitted my own mistake, under my own byline, and in again in interviews with news stations and newspapers that interviewed me about myths at the Dome and Convention Center. And now you purport to expose me after I exposed myself?

Mr. Scheie is unsure as to whether or not this e-mail really is from Mr. Thevenot. But if it is, I assume the writer refers to this story, printed on Sept. 26.

One widely circulated tale, told to The Times-Picayune by a slew of evacuees and two Arkansas National Guardsmen, held that “30 or 40 bodies” were stored in a Convention Center freezer. But a formal Arkansas Guard review of the matter later found that no soldier had actually seen the corpses, and that the information came from rumors in the food line for military, police and rescue workers in front of Harrah’s New Orleans Casino, said Edwards, who conducted the review.

[SNIP]

But other accusations that have gained wide currency are more demonstrably false. For instance, no one found the body of a girl – whose age was estimated at anywhere from 7 to 13 – who, according to multiple reports, was raped and killed with a knife to the throat at the Convention Center.

Many evacuees at the Convention Center the morning of Sept. 3 treated the story as gospel, and ticked off further atrocities: a baby trampled to death, multiple child rapes.

Salvatore Hall, standing on the corner of Julia Street and Convention Center Boulevard that day, just before the evacuation, said, “They raped and killed a 10-year-old in the bathroom.”

Neither he nor the many people around him who corroborated the killing had seen it themselves.

“Rumors of deaths greatly exaggerated, Widely reported attacks false or unsubstantiated, 6 bodies found at Dome; 4 at Convention Center,” by Brian Thevenot and contributing taff writers Jeff Duncan and Gwen Filosa, Times-Picayune, Sept. 26. 2005.

Mr. Thevenot’s original “Bodies found piled in freezer at Convention Center” story did not include a statement that needed to be there, a statement he belatedly includes in his follow-up: “Neither he nor the many people around him who corroborated the killing had seen it themselves.”

At least one other reporter managed to stick in a “lacks independent verification” disclaimer during the public insanity that followed Katrina. Mr. Thevenot could have easily done the same.

Yet Mr. Thevenot and the Times-Picayune could be forgiven for this error, if only they hadn’t immediately blasted Compass and Nagin for spreading false rumors. Compass and Nagin, whatever their faults, were in the trenches, so to speak. They repeated what their men, also in the trenches, told them.

The Times-Picayune‘s subscribers pay their newspaper to fact-check and verify rumors before they are printed as fact.

UPDATE:

Mr. Scheie has written to Mr. Thevenot to determine if the e-mail really was from him.

I called the San Diego hotel referenced in the IP lookup for “Thevenot’s” e-mail. I thought hotel management concerns for privacy would prevent front desk staff from giving me any information, but they were willing to look up Brian Thevenot for Oct. 1.

I had trouble communicating the spelling, but she seemed to get it finally and said there was no Brian Thevenot staying there on Oct. 1.

hurricane katrina

NPR’s Alex Chadwick dropped the ball in a recent Day to Day audio segment: “New Orleans Update: Death Toll, Top Cop Quits: Alex Chadwick speaks with James Amoss, editor of the New Orleans Times-Picayune, about the latest developments in New Orleans, including the downward revision of the death toll related to Hurricane Katrina and the resignation of Police Superintendent Eddie Compass.”

No mention of any ball-dropping there, so I’ll point it out for you.

CHADWICK: …During the height of the crisis there were reports of law and order breaking down in New Orleans, of shootings and murders at the city’s Superdome and Convention Center and of scores of bodies being stored there. Local officials now say those reports may have been overblown.

“New Orleans Update: Death Toll, Top Cop Quits“

This interview aired Sept. 28, one day after the Times-Picayune‘s editorial expressed relief that “New Orleans didn’t descend into some kind of post-apocolyptic [sic] orgy of violence following Katrina” as was reported. “May have been overblown” is an odd way to rephrase this.

CHADWICK: Joining us again is the editor of the New Orleans Times-Picayune Jim Amoss. Jim, welcome back to Day to Day.

And let me note that the mayor of New Orleans Ray Nagin was among those repeating the stories of rape and murder, uh, after the storm. Do you now believe those stories were false?

Note how Alex Chadwick wastes no time in telling us Mayor Nagin was “among those repeating the stories of rape and murder,” conveniently overlooking the Times-Picayune‘s part — not to mention NPR’s part — in relaying that misinformation.

Heck, let’s mention NPR’s part in relaying that misinformation.

Let’s look at All Things Considered reporter John Burnett’s sensational audio segment entitled “‘Hell on Earth’ at the Convention Center,” dated Sept. 15, 2005.

In interviews with 30 people evacuated from the convention center — and National Guard and police officers — we hear a story of anarchy and filth, described as “hell on Earth. Evacuees described gangs of young men roaming the center, preying on people at night; and dead bodies pushed to the side or left in bathrooms for days.”

From the press blurb for the audio segment “‘Hell on Earth’ at the Convention Center,” by John Burnett, Sept. 15, 2005.

In this audio segment, Mr. Burnett reported multiple witnesses claiming a young girl had been raped and murdered, and that multiple witnesses heard a woman and her baby dying in childbirth. According to Burnett’s research, there should have been two dead children found in the Convention Center.

Yet less than one week before “‘Hell on Earth’ at the Convention Center,” aired, Eddie Compass had told the world that no children’s bodies had been recovered from the Convention Center.

This means Mr. Burnett told NPR’s listeners that at least two children died in the Convention Center (one of them brutally raped and murdered) without bothering to check if any children’s bodies had actually been recovered from the Convention Center.

So I ask again: how can Mr. Chadwick only focus on Ray Nagin’s part in repeating “the stories of rape and murder,” without mentioning NPRs part in repeating “those stories” that were “false”?

Instead, Mr. Chadwick asks James Amoss a question similar to the one I already asked Mr. Amoss, but for which I have not yet received an answer.

Amoss could do the right thing and say, “Yes, Alex, these stories were false. Not only were they false, but my newspaper printed some of those false stories as if they were the truth. Compass and Nagin are not journalists, and should not be held to the same standard my newspaper should. I am sorry.”

Amoss doesn’t take that route.

AMOSS: I think they were certainly greatly exaggerated, you know the mayor was not the only one who was repeating them. Many of us in the media were doing so. Um and he like many other officials were relying on yet other reports from the ground and in particular from his police chief Eddie Compass who was getting them from, I suppose from his men.

Greatly exaggerated?

On September 6 the Times-Picayune published an article by Brian Thevenot entitled, “Mayor says Katrina may have claimed more than 10,000 lives, Bodies found piled in freezer at Convention Center.” The article quotes Mikel Brooks, an Arkansas National Guardsman, as he described the bodies of children in the Convention Center, one of which he said had been 7, gang-raped, and murdered when her throat was cut. The other body was “estimated” to be that of a 5-year-old.

This story was widely circulated all over the world and is more than just “greatly exaggerated.” Remember, only 4 bodies were recovered from the Convention Center. Only one victim died of violence, and none of the dead were children.

At least Mr. Amoss admits that “many of us in the media” were spreading rumors. Then he goes on to make some excellent points about how difficult it was for anyone to know what was true and what was rumor.

AMOSS: …There was this fertile ground for these rumors because communication was nonexistent. Cell phones didn’t work, phones didn’t work, walkie talkies didn’t work and on top of that just this apocalyptic atmosphere made everything horrific and everything bizarre seem likely or plausible.

I agree that the chaos of post-Katrina New Orleans made factual reporting difficult (just ask Compass and Nagin). Mark Egan of Reuters also worked in that “apocalyptic atmosphere,” and yet he managed to do what Times-Picayune reporters could not: fact check his story.

Sitting with her daughter and other relatives, Trolkyn Joseph, 37, said men had wandered the cavernous convention center in recent nights raping and murdering children.

She said she found a dead 14-year old girl at 5 a.m. on Friday morning, four hours after the young girl went missing from her parents inside the convention center.

“She was raped for four hours until she was dead,” Joseph said through tears. “Another child, a seven-year old boy was found raped and murdered in the kitchen freezer last night.”

Several others interviewed by Reuters told similar stories of the abuse and murder of children, but they could not be independently verified.

“Murder and mayhem in New Orleans’ miserable shelter,” by Mark Egan, Reuters, Sept. 2, 2005

The Times-Picayune could not even toss off that little “independent verification” concession to journalistic ethics in the infamous stuffed-freezer story, and yet one day before Chadwick’s interview, its editorial board had the gall to attack Eddie Compass and Ray Nagin for repeating stories they had heard from Compass’ men.

I wish James Amoss had been willing to apologize for the major part his newspaper played in spreading the Katrina rumors.

I wish Alex Chadwick had asked Mr. Amoss about the Times-Picayune‘s very own “greatly exaggerated” story, the one about all those nonexistent bodies piled in a Convention Center freezer.

And finally, I wish that if Mr. Chadwick couldn’t admit that NPR played a role in spreading rumors, he could have at least pointed out the hypocrisy of the Times-Picayune‘s attack on convenient scapegoats Compass and Nagin.

hurricane katrina

Some might call this New Orleans Times-Picayune editorial an example of righteous indignation. I call it an example of the best defense.

Nearly a month after the storm, officials have come up with no hard evidence to back up stories of murder, rape and other violence that supposedly happened among those who took shelter in those places. No matter how convincing the eye witness accounts, the bodies that back up their stories aren’t there.

“OUR OPINIONS: Hurricane-force rumors,” an unsigned Times-Picayune editorial dated Sept. 27, 2005.

This stern disapproval comes from a newspaper that didn’t exactly count any bodies before hatching its own set of lurid rumors.
Continue reading “Post-Katrina Times-Picayune points a righteous finger”

Tonight I listened to an All Things Considered broadcast as I drove the carpool. One segment grabbed my attention: “‘Hell on Earth’ at the Convention Center.”

For this audio segment, reporter John Burnett said he interviewed more than 2 dozen eye witnesses who were present inside the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center Aug. 30 through Sept. 2, witnesses who had since relocated to evacuation centers in places like Austin, where Burnett finished interviewing them.

Mr. Burnett says a common refrain among the Convention Center survivors was, “they brought us here to kill us.” He also repeats many of the extremely disturbing stories he collected, including this one:

“…They told of a woman who died in childbirth along with her baby one night, her screams echoing throughout the cavernous lobby…”

John Burnett, Sept. 15, in his NPR report, ‘Hell on Earth’ at the Convention Center.

If this heart-rending report is true, then the number of alleged deaths of children goes from two (as reported by Brian Thevenot) to three.

As I posted on September 11, New Orleans Police Superintendent Eddie Compass said no children’s bodies were found among the dead in the Convention Center.

Police reject ‘vicious rumors’ of dead children; no confirmed sexual assaults

NEW ORLEANS (CNN) — New Orleans Police Superintendent Eddie Compass rejected what he called “vicious rumors” Friday that bodies of dead children had been found inside the convention center, where Hurricane Katrina evacuees stayed for days.

“We have swept the entire convention center,” he said, and no children were found dead.

CNN, The latest on Katrina’s aftermath, September 7, 2005

Yet Mr. Burnett repeated one of those “vicious rumors” when he included his interview with a young woman named Darice Bailey (I do not have a transcript of the broadcast, so the spelling of her name may be incorrect.)

The one death that stood out to most of the people I spoke with was that of a young girl, whose name no one knew. Darice Bailey is a 24-year-old medical technician who was stranded at the Convention Center with a co-worker. She had also evacuated to Austin.

[Darice Bailey begins speaking]

“In one of the bathrooms, you had a little girl, she could have been maybe 13, she had her, her neck was slit, her clothes were, um, like ripped, so she could’ve been, I could’ve think she could’ve been raped. She was lifeless.”

From John Burnett’s interview with Darice Bailey in ‘Hell on Earth’ at the Convention Center.

Both of these stories appear to have been repeated by more than one person to reporter John Burnett. Unfortunately, no one seems to have told him, “I actually saw the body/bodies.” This is even less confirmation than we got from Brian Thevenot’s interview with Mikel Brooks, where at least Mr. Thevenot reported he saw a “smaller human figure under the white sheet.”

Ms. Bailey’s recounting also leaves us unsure as whether she actually witnessed the 13-year-old’s “lifeless” body, torn throat, or ripped clothing.

Mr. Burnett could not give his listeners a definitive Convention Center body count, either.

The exact death toll is unknown. Police say they recovered four to six bodies. Evacuees told of scores of corpses. News reports put the body count as high as 24.

John Burnett, ‘Hell on Earth’ at the Convention Center

I wish Mr. Burnett had pushed a little harder. For “the one death that stood out to most of the people” he spoke with, he could’ve at least done a little more research to flesh it out.

At the very least, he should’ve mentioned Eddie Compass’ statement that NO children’s bodies were found in the Convention Center. He certainly had plenty of time to get such information from the newspapers. Compass made his “vicious rumors” statement on Sept. 7, and Burnett’s NPR report aired today, Sept. 15.

hurricane katrina

To the Editors of the Times-Picayune:

• Jim Amoss, Editor,
• Peter Kovacs, Managing Editor, News
• Dan Shea, Managing Editor, News

On September 6 the Times-Picayune published an article by Brian Thevenot entitled, “Mayor says Katrina may have claimed more than 10,000 lives, Bodies found piled in freezer at Convention Center.” The article quotes Mikel Brooks, an Arkansas National Guardsman, as he described a horrific scene in the Morial Convention Center.

Continue reading “A Letter to the Editors of the Times-Picayune“

Cruising through the top-linked blogs in the Ecosystem today, I found this:

Yesterday the Chief said that not only had no bodies of children been found at the Convention Center, there was “no evidence of sexual assaults” either. So the Chief “acknowledged” that rapes had occured at the Convention Center and Dome on Thursday, but denied it on Friday. There’s something wrong with either the Times’ report or the Chief’s accounts. Whichever it is, it is newsworthy: What happened at both locations, in both categories, to the best of the authorities knowledge? Can at least one reporter from MSM write a straight story covering those facts? Or are those numbers so elusive as to render such reporting meaningless now, though it was no so earlier in the crisis?

Hugh Hewitt, MSM-Induced Hysteria, Sept. 4, 2005.

If you follow Mr. Hewitt’s link to the Daily Advertiser, you find:

Continue reading “Children’s murders in the Morial Convention Center just “vicious rumors””

We’re on the 10th and 11th floor of a corporate high rise on Poydras Ave., right near St. Charles. We have generators and tons of food and water. It is 5 of us total. I am not sure how the internet connection will be affected. I have a camera and my gun.

Interdictor, 12:01 pm, August 28, 2005

The five is soon reduced to four: two lifelong friends, one the founder of their New Orleans internet data center, the other an 8-year Army veteran (6 years in the 20th Special Forces); the Army guy’s fiance/model, and a data transfer tech.

As Katrina plays out, they document everything they see with photographs, web cams, and blog. They worry about their families, wonder if they should try to help restore order in the streets, and move 55-gallon drums of diesel fuel around to keep their generators humming—so hundreds of web domains will stay up and running during the crisis.

And somewhere in Hollywood, a TV executive falls to his knees and cries, “Thank you, Jesus!”

(Start this story at the beginning, here.)

hurricane katrina

Yesterday morning, ham radio operators Marilyn and Grant Jones tried to get bottled water to that area – Chalmette and other St. Bernard Parish low-lying neighborhoods. Only one boat was waiting at the stagnant water’s edge. The operator, who declined to give his name, said he was contracted to carry only Diane Sawyer and her ABC News television crew.

The next boat over the bridge was for CNN’s Anderson Cooper.

“We’ve got a big ol’ 18-wheeler full of water and we’ve been trying to get in for three days,” said Grant Jones.

“Supplies still hitting snags as some neighborhoods reawaken,” 09/06/2005, San Diego Union-Tribune

Okay, maybe I’m not thinking this through clearly. Maybe I’m missing something. Maybe somebody can point out exactly what that something is.

But let’s assume this report is accurate.

So.

What kind of major media news reporter would, when faced with this choice:

1. Report on flooded New Orleans
2. Help deliver water to stranded victims
3. Report on flooded New Orleans AND deliver water to stranded victims, maybe even pull a few people off some rooftops

…would choose: “1. Report on flooded New Orleans”?

Excuse me while I go grind my teeth again.

hurricane katrina

“There’s an old woman,” he said, pointing to a wheelchair covered by a sheet. “I escorted her in myself. And that old man got bludgeoned to death,” he said of the body lying on the floor next to the wheelchair….

…One of the bodies, they said, was a girl they estimated to be 5 years old. Though they could not confirm it, they had heard she was gang-raped.

“There was an old lady that said the little girl had been raped by two or three guys, and that she had told another unit. But they said they couldn’t do anything about it with all the people there,” Brooks said. “I would have put him in cuffs, stuck him in the freezer and left him there.”

Arkansas National Guardsman Mikel Brooks, who found gun fights in Iraq “fair” in comparison to guarding Katrina-battered New Orleans.

The body of an older woman lay under a gray blanket, pinned down at the corners by brick and slate, adorned with a plastic-wrapped flower bouquet. Above her, a yellow cardboard sign quoting John 3:16 had been taped to the window.

Alcede Jackson
Rest in Peace
In the loving arms of Jesus

A report from comparatively dry Uptown.

…Army Lt. Gen. Russel Honore, Joint Task Force Katrina commander, said that allowing Jefferson residents to return was complicating the ongoing search and rescue missions in Orleans, Plaquemines and St. Bernard parishes.

“We’re still trying to find them (storm victims),” he said. “If it (traffic) does escalate to the point where we can’t continue doing search and rescue, we will bring that to the appropriate level of government to make a decision.”

Mr. John Wayne Dude Himself, General Honore, weighing in on the decision to let residents return to their homes to assess the damage.

“I am the only elected official who is in favor of doing this, but people need to understand that they’re not coming back to Wally Cleaver’s neighborhood,” he said Sunday. “I am doing this to jumpstart the economy, not the economy of Jefferson Parish. That is destroyed. I want to jumpstart the economies of the residents of Jefferson Parish, who need to find new jobs, new places to live.”

Jefferson Parish President Aaron Broussard, defending his decision to let residents come and view their homes.

Incredibly, many resisted rescue efforts and wanted to remain. Sheriff Jack Stephens said he ordered deputies to handcuff and “forcefully remove” holdouts.

As hard as St. Bernard was hit, a few people didn’t want to leave their homes.

We dance even if there’s no radio. We drink at funerals. We talk too much and laugh too loud and live too large and, frankly, we’re suspicious of others who don’t.

But we’ll try not to judge you while we’re in your town.

Chris Rose makes introductions to the rest of the United States, as displaced South Louisianans begin a diaspora.

hurricane katrina

An amazing interview with New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin conducted by Garland Robinette of WWL AM in New Orleans (audio courtesy of Binary Bonsai, via Boing Boing):

You know the reason why the looters got out of control? Because we had most of our resources saving people, thousands of people that were stuck in attics, man, old ladies. … You pull off the doggone ventilator vent and you look down there and they’re standing in there in water up to their frickin’ necks.

Continue reading ““A John Wayne Dude””