Journalistic Malpractice

Porkopolis has commented on journalistic malpractice in the past.

Today's entry comes from that eternal spring bettern known as the New York Times.

In Disarray Marked the Path From Hurricane to Anarchy, journalists Eric Lipton, Christopher Drew, Scott Shane and David Rodhe are at a minimum guilty of lazy journalism and journalistic malpractice.

The article quotes Louisiana Governor Blanco as crying out, "Does anybody in this building know anything about buses?"

The piece then goes on to detail FEMA efforts to fulfill the state's request for buses, but fails to mention that hundreds of buses were left to flood in New Orleans by Mayor Nagin. Too cute and too convenient by half.

Considering that the story of the New Orleans school buses has been covered by at least one major paper and has been all over the blogsphere, this omission comes across as extremely biased.

Furthermore, the article makes no mention that the Mayor/Governor didn't follow their own evacuation plan that called for the use of the flooded buses:

* Position supervisors and dispatch evacuation buses.

Even a local Atlanta TV News station (Louisiana's Evac Plan in Question) was able to determine this infomation:

"...As for the people who couldn’t evacuate from Louisiana’s hard-hit areas, a plan called for school buses to transport these people out of harm’s way. That plan, however, never went into effect."

Stories like this is what the SHAME! rant rails against.

Updates: Katrina: Incompetence Distilled and Louisiana Failed To Follow A Flawed Plan Florida