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MEDIA COVERAGE OF HURRICANE KATRINA: IMPLICATIONS AND DEVELOPMENTS IN PUBLIC DIPLOMACY
SEP 8, 2005 - 3:12PM PDT
by Shawn Powers
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News of hurricane Katrina and its political, social, economic, and humanitarian impacts have dominated global headlines since the natural disaster struck the Gulf Coast over a week ago. Due to the unprecedented havoc that Katrina brought, traditional media outlets have had to rely on a diverse array of methods to obtain and report the news. Some scholars have commented that this crisis may mark the first of its kind in that Internet technologies have been the critical medium for information dissemination in the aftermath of Katrina. As much of the chief communications and media infrastructure crumbled, media organizations began to rely on the Internet to continue to report the news. Moreover, the Internet provided citizens with a new communication medium that facilitated exchanges of information without having to rely on traditional media sources. The result has been an unprecedented amount of detailed information and candidness that is widely accessible throughout the world.
Global reactions to Katrina and its aftermath have ranged from tremendous sympathy with the victims to rampant critique of American policy and culture. For some, President Bush’s initial denial of humanitarian aid from the international community was read as another example of his arrogant, ‘go-it-alone’ attitude, while, for others, the Administration’s eventual requests for aid diminished the credibility of United States as an international leader. Much of the coverage has emphasized that both lesser-developed and impoverished countries, as well as typical adversaries of the United States, have offered humanitarian aid in the wake of the crisis.
As the severity of the humanitarian consequences set in, much of the coverage of the crisis began to focus on the failures of the government’s efforts at relieving many of the victims in the Gulf region, oftentimes drawing conclusions about what the ineffective effort means about contemporary American politics and culture. Other commentators, however, have pointed to the potential opportunities that have come with the disaster: the possibility of a more humbled, image conscious United States, as well as a rejuvenated domestic media that is outraged by the lackluster effort offered up by some state and federal officials.
The following is an aggregation of key articles and commentary about Katrina and its aftermath. If you would like to post your reactions and ideas about her appointment, you can add your comments at the bottom of this page.
Image czar says looting shocks world opinion
(Ken Herman, Atlanta Journal Constitution, September 9th, 2005)
“Karen Hughes, who officially starts her job today as head of the nation's image-building effort abroad, said Thursday that Hurricane Katrina had complicated her already formidable task. But while much of the global criticism has centered on the Bush administration's response to the storm, Hughes said something else was a problem for America's image around the world: the crime that followed. "The images of crime being committed in the face of an awful natural disaster is hard for anyone to understand, people around the world and Americans. It sickens me as an American," she said. "How could criminals prey on vulnerable elderly citizens and children during a time of such horror?"
The 'world has been watching': Katrina's chaos isn't doing U.S. image any favors, Bush aide says
(G. Robert Hillman, Dallas Morning News, September 9th, 2005)
The tough job of polishing America's tarnished image abroad has just gotten tougher. Karen Hughes, the new undersecretary of state for public diplomacy, acknowledged Thursday that the chaotic scenes in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina have spawned new challenges for the U.S. "It's not just the world, it's also our fellow Americans – we recoil at the idea that the poorest, the most elderly, the sickest weren't able to get out," she said after a televised "town meeting" with State Department staff in Washington and at embassies around the world. "People have seen things that no one likes to see," she said, citing looting and other crimes during a "time of such horror…It sickens me as an American.” The searing images and the widespread criticism that the government failed in its early response to the hurricane have been carried throughout the world, provoking new rounds of harsh commentary about President Bush, already under siege because of the war in Iraq. "It's unfortunate," Ms Hughes said. "The whole world has been watching." And "it's a challenge," she allowed as she launched an overhaul of the State Department's public diplomacy machinery, which she readily acknowledged has been pinched in recent years by a series of reorganizations and management changes. "The pictures appear on the surface to tell a different story," she said of the hurricane chaos. "But the story is that Americans care about our fellow Americans, of every race and of every income level."
Texan working to ease storm perceptions
(Gary Martin, San-Antonio Express, September 9th, 2005)
Since Katrina, America's image has taken a hit in some countries, where headlines and news reports questioned how the United States could topple Saddam Hussein in three weeks, quickly mobilize to help tsunami victims in Asia, but fail to rescue 25,000 people trapped in New Orleans. Graphic television footage showing predominantly poor, black victims were disturbing to American and foreign audiences alike, and gave rise to questions about race and poverty, Hughes said. "It's not just the world, it's also our fellow Americans. We recoil at the idea that the poorest, the most elderly, the sickest weren't able to get out of the middle of a terrible disaster," she said.
The shaming of America: Hurricane Katrina has exposed both personal and structural weaknesses in America's government
(The Economist, September 8th, 2005)
(Subscription required; also available on lexis-nexis)
“EVEN America's many enemies around the world tend to accord it respect. It might be arrogant, overbearing and insensitive—but, by God, it can get things done. Since Hurricane Katrina, the world's view of America has changed. The disaster has exposed some shocking truths about the place: the bitterness of its sharp racial divide, the abandonment of the dispossessed, the weakness of critical infrastructure. But the most astonishing and most shaming revelation has been of its government's failure to bring succour to its people at their time of greatest need.“
Katrina jolts the press: Why has it taken thousands of hurricane fatalities to finally wake up reporters?
(Eric Boehlert, Solon.com, September 7th, 2005)
“Frustrated news consumers are supposed to be cheering that the national press corps has finally awoken from its five-year, self-induced slumber, opting to play hardball with the Bush administration by actually holding officials accountable in the wake of the Hurricane Katrina catastrophe. Stunned by what they have witnessed firsthand in the Big Easy cesspool, reporters, especially television news correspondents, are leading the sense of outrage and bringing back some welcome passion to their trade.”
Don’t Call them ‘Acts of God’
(Niall Ferguson, professor of history at Harvard University and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Los Angeles Times, September 5th, 2005)
“Islamic extremists, according to the Associated Press, "rejoiced in America's misfortune, giving the storm a military rank and declaring in Internet chatter that 'Private' Katrina had joined the global jihad. With 'God's help,' they declared, oil prices would hit $100 a barrel this year."
Press Dismay at Katrina chaos
(BBC News, September 3rd, 2005)
“Newspapers around the world see Hurricane Katrina's chaotic aftermath as a defining moment for the presidency of George W Bush…Spain’s La Razon: ‘Proving that even the gods are mortal, it is clear that the USA's international image is being damaged in a way that it has never known before. The country will probably be able to recuperate from the destruction, but its pride has already been profoundly wounded.’”
A View From Abroad
(Richard Bernstein, The New York Times, September 3rd, 2005)
“At the same time, the particular circumstances of New Orleans and Biloxi have tended to confirm many of the worst visions of America that prevail in Europe, the vision of a country of staggering inequalities, of a kind of political indifference to the general welfare (especially in the Bush administration), and an absence of what the Europeans call "solidarity." As that BBC reporter put it, there were no scenes of armed gangs of looters in gun battles with police in Sri Lanka after the tsunami. That things have gone so badly so quickly after the storm in New Orleans has produced something beyond sympathy in Europe: disappointment, distress, fear that a major city in the world's most powerful nation could have fallen into something that looks, from this side of the Atlantic, like anarchy.”
Home and abroad: a failing presidency
(Scotland on Sunday, September 4th, 2005)
“Add to the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina an outbreak of looting and anarchy reminiscent of Baghdad or Fallujah and the global perception of the United States is irretrievably transformed. Is this the world's sole superpower, whose citizens die of hunger and thirst amid the ruins of a major city long regarded as a tourist attraction and centre of a world-famous musical culture? The historic spectacle of 7,000 elite troops entering a US city (traditionally the exclusive preserve of the National Guard) to restore order, dramatically highlights the fact that George Bush's writ runs as precariously there as in Baghdad."
In the Tsunami region, disbelief at U.S. woes
(Seth Mydans, International Herald Tribune, September 5th, 2005)
“But then he made a statement that is being repeated around Southeast Asia, where America is remembered with gratitude and admiration for its fast, well-organized assistance to victims of the tsunami. ‘America is the best-developed country in the world,’ Azwar said. ‘This kind of thing shouldn't be happening in America. We are wondering what is going on in America, and why.’ Around the region, people have watched the televised scenes of suffering and chaos from the United States with sympathy, with horror and with bewilderment at America's inability to take care of itself. For some, the scenes from Hurricane Katrina seem to be shaking fundamental ideas about the country's strength and competence. Many of the comments, in telephone interviews around the region, came in the form of puzzled questions.”
Arab commentators highlight U.S. impotence in face of Katrina
(Agence France Presse, The Daily Star, September 7th, 2005)
“The death and devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina and the slow response to the catastrophe by the Bush administration has shown up the ‘impotence’ of the world's only superpower in the eyes of many in the Middle East. Some of the more vitriolic commentators in the Arab world even suggested the hurricane was a just revenge for American "killing and plundering" across the globe, including its war on Iraq.”
Globalist: Count America’s image as one of the casualties
(Roger Cohen, International Herald Tribune, September 7th, 2005)
“If the Cold War were still on, the whole thing would have been dismissed as artful Soviet propaganda. All the ingredients were there in the days after Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans and the surrounding area: the rich, mainly white folks, high-tailing it out of town; the poor, overwhelmingly black, abandoned and marooned; the streets given over to armed vigilantes; the government unresponsive and society unglued. These were the sorts of images the KGB long worked on cultivating - of a cruel America, home to a hate-breeding capitalism, riven by division between rich and poor, split on racial lines, ruled by a heartless government, gripped by urban violence. Such a clichéd depiction of the United States was false then and, as an overall portrait, remains so today. But the terrible aftermath of the hurricane in Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi has posed painful questions about American society and hurt the international image of President George W. Bush's administration at a time when he has been struggling to right the damage of his first term.”
World Views: The world press weighs in on Katrina and its aftermath
(Edward M. Gomez, SFGate, September 7, 2005)
“Don't think the rest of the world -- not just stunned Americans and even some conservative American reporters and commentators who have long served as George W. Bush's loyal mouthpieces -- failed to notice the president's inadequate response to Hurricane Katrina's devastation. What foreign observers witnessed from afar, with a combination of shock and awe: "sheer, maddening incompetence, from both the (notoriously corrupt) state authorities [in Louisiana and neighboring states] and from Washington." (Daily Mail) In Italy, Corriere della Sera scolded the "world's greatest country," calling the United States "a land that can no longer get it together to work together."
The Whole World Is Watching: Here’s what international papers are saying about America's crisis
(Julia Gronnevet, The American Prospect, September 6th, 2005)
“Comparing the United States to the Roman Empire is a popular pastime. Even more so this week: A writer for Italy's center-left La Repubblica says that Hurricane Katrina has made New Orleans look like the city of Pompeii, which was destroyed by a volcano in the year 79 A.D. Europeans are appalled at the natural disaster and at George W. Bush, apparently in equal measure. A September 2 article for Belgium's major newspaper, Le Soir, says: "The richest country on the planet has left the destitute, poor, sick and old to fend for themselves in the face of a predictable and predicted disaster." And under the headline "The Americans stunned by the frailty of their power,” France’s Le Monde quotes several U.S. news sources expressing their disbelief that this is really America they're seeing on TV, claiming that it looks more like the Third World.”
Foreign tourists speak of their fury at being abandoned in New Orleans
(Brian Knowlton, International Herald Tribune, September 7th, 2005)
“Foreign nationals stuck in New Orleans or near the Gulf Coast for long, harrowing days after Hurricane Katrina are finally making their way home, many furious over the sluggish U.S. government response, but also often bitterly critical of officials from their own countries for failing to respond more decisively. Under an onslaught of angry criticism, the prime ministers of Britain and Australia have apologized for not being able to do more to help some of the thousands of foreign nationals stranded in New Orleans or elsewhere in the flood zone.”
Ties that bind
The Baltimore Sun, September 7th, 2005)
“The offers of disaster assistance coming from rich countries such as Japan, France and Germany are not surprising given the huge relief effort taking place in New Orleans and the breadth of the death and destruction left in Hurricane Katrina's wake. What is surprising, and somewhat hurtful to America's national pride and can-do culture, are the offers of help from poor countries usually on the receiving end of U.S. aid.”
Katrina's Global Lessons
(Jim Hoagland, The Washington Post, September 7th, 2005)
“Hurricane Katrina has raked a vivid scar across America's image abroad -- and left its marks on President Bush's ambitious foreign policy agenda as well. Overcoming these setbacks will require a demonstration that the United States under Bush is not an irrevocably weakened and divided nation about to turn inward on its own problems….For all its horror, Katrina could yet hold a political silver lining if the disaster reminds both Bush and his harshest critics that America's role in the world is not defined just by the personalities and policies of the current occupants of the White House. America is big enough in heart, resources and intelligence to recover at home and be active abroad -- if it shows national unity in the face of national disaster.”
Haunted by Hesitation
(Maureen Dowd, The New York Times, September 7th, 2005)
“The administration's foreign policy is entirely constructed around American self-love - the idea that the U.S. is superior, that we are the model everyone looks up to, that everyone in the world wants what we have. But when people around the world look at Iraq, they don't see freedom. They see chaos and sectarian hatred. And when they look at New Orleans, they see glaring incompetence and racial injustice.”
Cuba and Afghanistan join list of donors: Worldwide response as US makes plea
(Sandra Laville, The Guardian, September 5th, 2005)
“America yesterday appealed for aid from the EU and Nato to help the hundreds of thousands of people made homeless by the disaster. The European commission confirmed that the US has asked for thousands of blankets, 500,000 prepared meals, first aid kits and several water trucks providing clean drinking water to help its emergency operation.”
How Could This Be Happening in the United States?
(Kevin Sullivan, The Washington Post, September 4th, 2005)
“International reaction has shifted in many cases from shock, sympathy and generosity to a growing criticism of the Bush administration's response to the catastrophe of Hurricane Katrina. In nations often divided by dueling sentiments of admiration and distaste for the United States, many people see at best incompetence and at worst racism in the chaos gripping much of the Gulf Coast. Many analysts said President Bush's focus on Iraq had left the United States without resources to handle natural disasters, and many said Hurricane Katrina's fury mocked Bush's opposition to international efforts to confront global warming, which some experts say contributes to the severity of such storms...The leaders of Cuba and Venezuela, both at odds with the United States, pledged support. Cuban President Fidel Castro offered to send 1,100 doctors, each carrying emergency medical supplies amounting to tons of relief aid. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez offered to send fuel, humanitarian aid and relief workers to the disaster area. Venezuela is one of the largest suppliers of oil to the United States. In a remarkable role reversal, some of the world's poorest developing nations are offering help. El Salvador offered to send soldiers to help restore order, and offers of aid have come from Bosnia, Kosovo and Belarus. The former Soviet republic of Georgia has donated $50,000 to the Red Cross, and beleaguered Sri Lanka, which has received $133 million in tsunami relief from the United States, has donated $25,000 to the Red Cross. In Beijing, Rep. Tom Lantos (D-Calif.) and Rep. Jim Leach (R-Iowa), just back from Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, said officials there went out of their way to express their sympathy.”
U.S. Allies, And Others, Send Offers Of Assistance
(Juan Forero and Steven R. Weisman, The New York Times, September 4th, 2005)
“Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has said that at least 59 countries and international organizations have offered aid to the United States. But what will actually get delivered, she added, will have to wait until needs are identified by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. ''Recently we have seen the American people respond generously to help others around the globe during their times of distress, such as during the recent tsunami,'' Ms. Rice said. ''Today we are seeing a similar urgent, warm and compassionate reaction.'' She said aid had been offered from ''every corner of the globe,'' including areas hard hit by disasters, like Sri Lanka. She also cited offers of aid from Italy, the Netherlands, Russia, Israel, China, Azerbaijan, the Philippines and Turkey.”
Katrina Elicits Sympathy, Jeers Worldwide: Even as they pledge aid, nations express surprise at the ineffective U.S. response to the crisis
(Hector Tobar, The Los Angeles Times, September 3rd, 2005)
“Other nations have offered help during previous U.S. emergencies, such as the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. But never in recent history has there been such an outpouring, said State Department spokesman Tom Casey. The Bush administration has offered mixed signals on whether it would accept such aid. In an interview with ABC on Thursday, President Bush said the U.S. was not seeking foreign assistance. "This country is going to rise up and take care of it," he said. That statement prompted an angry editorial Friday from the Jamaican newspaper the Gleaner: "Sometimes even the high and mighty need to realize that we all need each other and that they would not lose face were they to accept some tangible help from others who have been the beneficiaries of their generosity in the past." But on Friday, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice expressed "the heartfelt thanks of the president, the United States government and all Americans" to those who had offered support. She said she was "deeply touched" by Sri Lanka's gesture.”
Has Katrina saved US media?
(Matt Wells, BBC News, September 5th, 2005)
"It is way too early to tell whether this really will become "Katrinagate" for President Bush, but how he and his huge retinue of politically-appointed bureaucrats react in the weeks ahead will be decisive. Government has been thrown into disrepute, and many Americans have realised, for the first time, that the collapsed, rotten flood defences of New Orleans are a symbol of failed infrastructure across the nation. Beyond the immediate challenge of re-housing the evacuees and getting 200,000-plus children into new schools, there will have to be a Katrina Commission, that a newly-emboldened media will scrutinise obsessively. The dithering and incompetence that will be exposed will not spare the commander-in-chief, or the sunny, faith-based propaganda that he was still spouting as he left New Orleans airport last Friday, saying it was all going to turn out fine.”
World press: Katrina 'testing US'
(BBC News, September 5th, 2005)
“In newspapers across the world, commentators believe Hurricane Katrina marks a profound change in the way the US is perceived at home and abroad. Some speak of the American "myth" being shattered by the poverty and racial divisions which they say the disaster has revealed. Others hope the floods will douse US "arrogance" over its refusal to ratify the Kyoto accord on climate change. An Italian paper, however, jumps to President George Bush's defence.”
Bush is begging for Katrina aid?
(Asian News International, September 6th, 2005)
“US President George Bush may have gone down in the American poll ratings because of his administrations lackadaisical approach and ineptitude in dealing with the disaster caused by Hurricane Katrina in the Gulf States, but what has appalled most people, is Washington's decision to approach Third World countries for aid. According to a poll carried out by the Daily Mail, the world's richest nation's inability to cope with the disaster and its decision to take aid from countries like Sri Lanka, Cuba and other lesser developed countries is being seen as humiliating.”
America needs change not charity: Withholding aid from the United States is the only way to remove its domestic and foreign policy blinkers
(Nick Carter, Guardian Unlimited, September 6th, 2005)
"From the UK to Cuba, Russia to Japan and more than 50 other countries, including beleaguered Afghanistan, offers of money, food, medicine, relief staff and more worth hundreds of millions of dollars have poured into Washington, which at first seemed rightfully leery of accepting poorer nations' charity. The US should not need help: Katrina happened in a corner of the richest country on earth with one of the world's largest standing armies. The $40bn (£21.7bn) budget of the Department of Homeland Security includes more than $5bn for the Federal Emergency Management Authority (Fema). Thousands of charities, churches and community groups are already hard at work…But beyond the emotional draw of a televised catastrophe and the personal sense of our common humanity impelling us to respond rightly to those in desperate need, let's take a hard look at American disaster planning before rushing to generosity and letting President Bush's administration off a hook of its own making."
Katrina could complicate Bush's ambitious foreign policy agenda
(Warren P. Strobel, Knight Rider Newspapers, September 4th, 2005
“Since Sept. 11, 2001, President Bush has put foreign policy and the "war on terrorism" at the forefront of his agenda, with broad backing from Americans. But in the aftermath of the worst natural disaster ever to strike the United States, with stinging questions about the government's response -- and worries about the effects of rising energy prices on the economy -- the public appears to be demanding a change in priorities, at least temporarily. That could crimp Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's ability to press on with the president's highly ambitious foreign policy agenda, even as the administration grapples with such complex issues as the war in Iraq and Iran's nuclear program, according to diplomats and analysts. Bush and Rice have planned an aggressive fall season of foreign policy, beginning with a summit of 170 world leaders at the United Nations next week. Also on tap are the launch of a public diplomacy initiative to improve the U.S. image in the Muslim world and a possible Rice trip to the Middle East. “
America Humbled
(Los Angeles Times, September 4th, 2005)
“The scenes of devastation and civil unrest in New Orleans have made Katrina and the ensuing floods more reminiscent of Third World disasters than anything we would expect to see on U.S. soil. But nothing will reinforce the surreal foreignness of this calamity as much as the novelty of American refugees having to settle, at least temporarily, in new communities. They aren't technically refugees, of course, since no national borders will be crossed. The international legal term for those fleeing Katrina and its aftermath is IDPs, for "internally displaced persons," a staple of underdeveloped and war-torn nations unable to control their whole territories. These are humbling times for America.”
In Katrina's Eye, Visions of America
(Jefferson Morley, The Washington Post, September 2nd, 2005)
”In the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina, the world media sees an appalling human tragedy and some lessons for the sole remaining superpower. Mostly, sympathy abounds. Russia offered cargo planes and rescue helicopters. Cuba's national assembly observed a minute of silence in "sorrow and solidarity." The president of Sri Lanka, recalling the spontaneous U.S. assistance in response to the tsunami nine months ago, sent condolences. So did President Hu Jintao of China. Even the leaders of Old Europe are offering their own emergency oil supplies, even if some substantial portion of the fuel will likely wind up in the tanks of that quintessentially American vehicle, the gas-guzzling SUV…At the same time, more than a few observers seized the opportunity to point out what they see as evidence of America's shortcomings. They discern in the disaster and its agonizing aftermath a reflection of less than admirable U.S. policies such as environmental neglect, imperial hubris and social callousness.”
Europe's response: An odd mixture
(Richard Bernstein, The New York Times, September 3rd, 2005)
“At the same time, the particular circumstances of New Orleans and Biloxi have tended to confirm many of the worst visions of America that prevail in Europe, the vision of a country of staggering inequalities, of a kind of political indifference to the general welfare (especially in the Bush administration), and an absence of what the Europeans call "solidarity." As that BBC reporter put it, there were no scenes of armed gangs of looters in gun battles with police in Sri Lanka after the tsunami. That things have gone so badly so quickly after the storm in New Orleans has produced something beyond sympathy in Europe: disappointment, distress, fear that a major city in the world's most powerful nation could have fallen into something that looks, from this side of the Atlantic, like anarchy.”
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