Katrina: "American media finally grew a spine"

Image: snapshot of NOLA evacuee in Houston Astrodome, Jacob Appelbaum.

Snip from this week's edition of Nikki Finke's "Deadline Hollywood" column in LA Weekly:

For the first 120 hours after Hurricane Katrina, TV journalists were let off their leashes by their mogul owners, the result of a rare conjoining of flawless timing (summer's biggest vacation week) and foulest tragedy (America's worst natural disaster). Lost amid all the self-congratulation by broadcasters once the crisis point had been passed was the fact that TV journalists went back to business-as-usual, their choke chains yanked by their Big Media bosses fearful of any regulatory fallout from fingering Dubya. Now comes the real test of pathos vs. profit: whether the TV newscasters will spend the fresh reservoir of truth and trust earned with the public to challenge FEMA's attempt to block the news media from photographing the dead.

And Salon has posted a fantastic highlight reel of reporters — well, actually doing their jobs. Anderson Cooper gets in Senator Landrieu's face! Ted Koppel tears FEMA director Michael Brown several new orifices! Tim Russert latches on to Secretary of Homeland Security Chertoff like a crazed weasel! It's beautiful! Link. (Thanks, douglips)

Some fresh QuickTime torrents of Daily Show segments on Katrina aftermath: Link.

Tim Grieve at Salon.com has a great item on administration attempts to tap-dance out of the FEMA-Katrina-clusterfuck.

Reporter: Scott, does the president retain confidence in his FEMA director and secretary of Homeland Security?

McClellan: And again, David, see, this is where some people want to look at the blame game issue, and finger-point. We're focused on solving problems, and we're doing everything we can —

Reporter: What about the question?

McClellan: We're doing everything we can in support —

Reporter: We know all that.

McClellan: — of the Department of Homeland Security and FEMA.

Reporter: Does he retain complete confidence —

McClellan: We're going to continue. We appreciate the great effort that all of those at FEMA, including the head of FEMA, are doing to help the people in the region. And I'm just not going to engage in the blame game or finger-pointing that you're trying to get me to engage.

Reporter: OK, but that's not at all what I was asking.

McClellan: Sure it is. It's exactly what you're trying to play.

Reporter: You have your same point you want to make about the blame game, which you've said enough now. I'm asking you a direct question, which you're dodging.