Was the emotion excessive? Probably. But I guess that just goes to show that TV news people, contrary to what I have argued in the past, are human. And I would argue that at least some of the emotion was appropriate. When Sean Hannity, for example, said, “Let’s put things in perspective,” and Geraldo interrupted to say, “THIS is the perspective” and started talking about the appalling conditions where he was, I couldn’t complain, inasmuch as I’ve watched and listened to enough Hannity to know that he wouldn’t know perspective if it bit off his left buttock and spit the pieces down his throat.

I’m certainly not going to argue with you about FEMA. You obviously know more about it. And I wasn’t trying to defend FEMA; it’s response certainly seemed to me to be feeble. My point was that I would have liked to have had more information than just the horrifying pictures. I assume that no matter how prompt FEMA’s response had been, there would have been horrifying pictures–it seemed to me that we needed to know more about what a realistic response would have entailed.

There is a place for emotion in journalism. And I think much of what the reporters on the ground conveyed was appropriate. But, at some point, analysis has to replace emotion.

New Orleans was getting angry. Reporters were getting angry. And that anger was part of the news.

“We certainly tried to keep our personal feelings out of the reporting,” [Nightline's] Mr. Bury said. “But if some of that came through, I’m not sure it’s an altogether bad thing.”

[...]

In some cases, the unusual reporting environment allowed journalists in both print and television to exercise muscles that had long grown stiff.

“In some ways, it’s refreshing in a way to not have the official line, where your only choice is just to see it in front of you,” said The New York Times’ Kate Zernike, who drove from Atlanta to Gulfport, Miss., last Tuesday and is now back in New York. “We’ve all gotten used to doing Google searches and so forth. This was the unfiltered experience. It’s just the story in front of you.”

[...]

“You’re kind of operating in a world of one-source accounts,” Ms. Barringer {NYT environmental reporter] said, adding that her editors were crucial in helping her to put the information into context. “So what gets out is the raw information. It’s a no-spin zone.”

[...]

“I’ve been in a lot of wars,” he said. “I’m a very controlled person. But at one point, I found myself stomping with my right foot on the pavement. I was talking to Bill O’Reilly about how people were sleeping on the highway, and I was going stomp, stomp, stomp with my foot on the pavement, as if that would help me get the message through this little video phone. I was surprised with myself.”

Much, much more where that came from.

There has been much back slapping and high fiving about how the press got it’s “spine” back, but Jay is right, they need to get their “brain” back.

My personal opinion is that all “journalists” should be required to have a law degree—this will help them overcome the lack of critical thinking and it will educate them on how our government works—I don’t think the MSM has a clue.

The image — of a man frantically trying to breath through a pipe stuck in a ventilator grate as the waters rise over his head — is too searingly to hold at an emotional distance…

[S]uddenly all the backbiting over who failed first — or most often, or most spectacularly — seems too vile to worry about, much less write about. Even the big, important questions — the future of New Orleans, the threat of global warming, the paralyzing problems of race and poverty in America — have lost their intellectual appeal. Too many people have died, and too much has been destroyed to try to make sense of it now.

Do we really know _______? (fill in the blank)

My stock answer to that is nearly always: “Probably not.” Because knowledge takes time and critical thinking and rhetoric (i.e. we have to gather the facts, contexts, connotations and then “make” the knowledge).

Journalists have to do the best they can…now. So it might be best to think of journalism as a product that unfolds over time rather than as a series of discreet articles or newscasts.

Hmmmmmm…I’m getting a jump on my “assignment”