Thread: When the Media Is the Disaster: Covering Haiti

When the Media Is the Disaster
Covering Haiti


By Rebecca Solnit
TomDispatch.com
January 21, 2010


Soon after almost every disaster the crimes begin: ruthless, selfish, indifferent to human suffering, and generating far more suffering. The perpetrators go unpunished and live to commit further crimes against humanity. They care less for human life than for property. They act without regard for consequences.

I’m talking, of course, about those members of the mass media whose misrepresentation of what goes on in disaster often abets and justifies a second wave of disaster. I’m talking about the treatment of sufferers as criminals, both on the ground and in the news, and the endorsement of a shift of resources from rescue to property patrol. They still have blood on their hands from Hurricane Katrina, and they are staining themselves anew in Haiti.

Within days of the Haitian earthquake, for example, the Los Angeles Times ran a series of photographs with captions that kept deploying the word “looting.â€

Makes quite a bit of sense.

Taking food or other sustainable items necessary for survival during a catastrophe should not be considered looting. You use any means to stay alive. Was the man who was rescued after 2 weeks stealing because he survived by drinking coke and beer while he was buried? He'd be dead if he hadn't had the liquids.

On the other hand, the people who stole TVs in New Orleans during Katrina were stealing. I mean cmon, TVs? There's no power, you can't eat a tv, wear one nor take shelter under one, so why do you need a TV now?? You don't.