Warning to the press: it is definitely your job to ask tough questions and to never be intimidated by efforts to evade you or discredit you when you do.
BUT — if you get stuck in pack journalism mode where it begins you’re almost playing a role filled by Central Casting in Hollywood — acting the way what you think a journalist must act — you could become sources of derision and even get in the way of an oncoming disaster’s life-saving preparations.
And that’s what has apparently just happened here, as Radio Blogger notes, as a new catch phrase has been born that’ll likely used on the press in the future — but also, by the way, can be used by voters confronting politicians in debates and by reporters peppering spin-control spokesmen:
New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin held a press conference a little bit ago, and started losing control to a media pool assembled that was showing signs of panic, due to the previous incompetence in the region by the local and state government. Lt. Gen. Russel Honore stepped in and literally took over.
The catch phrase: “Don’t get stuck on stupid.”
Read it. FOONOTE: Our only quibble about this post is that it just wasn’t state and local government that showed incompetence but the federal government as well. (If not, then Michael Brown needs to be rehired).
The bottom line is this:
The press is walking a tightrope. Once a story becomes “hot” every outlet and reporter wants to at the very least match the coverage of what has come before but, hopefully, get a brand, new new twist on it that translates into a page one story or a top-of-the-newscast TV piece. So some are using the Hurricane Rita preps to continue to press the issue on Hurricane Katrina.
There is a time and a place for everything and Honore is correct in saying — almost pleading, actually — that asking beset officials to defend or explain failings during Hurricane Katrina while they trying to get a message out to save lives in the face of Hurricane Rita is simply not the time for it. Because they’re running OUT of time for preps…and to get the message out to the population about what they must do to protect or save their lives.
Yours truly covered a LOT of press conferences as a reporter in a nearly 20-year-newspaper career in Spain, India, Bangaldesh, Mexico and the United States and while press conferences can indeed be used to continue to press for info that officials might not have given earlier you should never lose focus over the new, hot story. And the new, hot story is Hurricane Rita — which does not obscure unanswered questions about the poor performance of the federal, local and state governments during Katrina. But those should be saved for another day.
UPDATE: Citizen Smash shows why he’s called The Indepundit in this warning about Hurricane Rita and special plea for people to avoid policitizing the hurricanes.
UPDATE II: Which one of these guys are “stuck”? Or is it both of them?
UPDATE III: Will Collier has it right:”Ladies and gentlemen, we are witnesses to a rare and wonderful moment: a new catch phrase has been born.”
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.