martes, septiembre 27, 2005

PERIODISMO AMARILLO de la peor especie, es lo que estuvieron haciendo la práctica totalidad de los informadores (y creo que la palabra "práctica" sobra) en sus crónicas sobre el Katrina:
After five days managing near-riots, medical horrors and unspeakable living conditions inside the Superdome, Louisiana National Guard Col. Thomas Beron prepared to hand over the dead to representatives of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Following days of internationally reported killings, rapes and gang violence inside the Dome, the doctor from FEMA - Beron doesn't remember his name - came prepared for a grisly scene: He brought a refrigerated 18-wheeler and three doctors to process bodies.

"I've got a report of 200 bodies in the Dome," Beron recalls the doctor saying.

The real total was six, Beron said.

Of those, four died of natural causes, one overdosed and another jumped to his death in an apparent suicide, said Beron, who personally oversaw the turning over of bodies from a Dome freezer, where they lay atop melting bags of ice. State health department officials in charge of body recovery put the official death count at the Dome at 10, but Beron said the other four bodies were found in the street near the Dome, not inside it. Both sources said no one had been killed inside.

At the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, just four bodies were recovered, despites reports of corpses piled inside the building. Only one of the dead appeared to have been slain, said health and law enforcement officials.
(via Tom Pechinski)

Hay muchísimo más en el artículo.

No esperéis ver ni una aclaración, ni una rectificación, ni siquiera para reconocer que las condiciones eran difíciles y no siempre era posible verificar las informaciones (aunque en ese caso tenían que haber alertado de ello en el momento y no dar la información como contrastada, que es lo que hicieron). Lo que es peor, preparaos a ver cómo se sigue repitiendo la leyenda urbana una y otra vez.