Saturday, March 04, 2006

Quick, someone tell the Washington Post

It seems there has been a clarification of the AP story concerning Bush and Katrina and the breaches vs. over runs.


Clarification: Katrina-Video story

ASSOCIATED PRESS

WASHINGTON (AP) _ In a March 1 story, The Associated Press reported that federal disaster officials warned President Bush and his homeland security chief before Hurricane Katrina struck that the storm could breach levees in New Orleans, citing confidential video footage of an Aug. 28 briefing among U.S. officials.

The Army Corps of Engineers considers a breach a hole developing in a levee rather than an overrun. The story should have made clear that Bush was warned about floodwaters overrunning the levees, rather than the levees breaking.

The day before the storm hit, Bush was told there were grave concerns that the levees could be overrun. It wasn't until the next morning, as the storm was hitting, that Michael Brown, then head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said Bush had inquired about reports of breaches. Bush did not participate in that briefing.


However, it seems that the rest of the [snort chuckle] fourth estate has not got the news yet.

Who was it that said a lie will be half way around the world before the truth gets its pants on?

hat tip Powerline

Update: USA Today:
We don't normally work on the weekends, but the Associated Press has released a "clarification" of its headline-grabbing report earlier this week and we wanted to get it out as soon as we could.

AP concedes President Bush was not told before Hurricane Katrina hit land that the storm might cause a "breach" of New Orleans' levees. He was told the levees might be "overrun."


USA Today seems to deserve some credit for making the effort.

9 comments:

Unknown said...

Roger:

It is a shame really, the AP has been around forever.

Anonymous said...

Well, let's just say it was very interesting to be there and to listen to several sources of information at once. In one ear, CNN was telling me the world was ending while in the other ear, people were telling me what was really happening around them.

Little bits of the truth came at me from the very beginning, but I'm ashamed to say that I found the saturation MSM coverage so overwhelming that I actually believed their version for the first few days.

Anonymous said...

I should add that the Nam vets in my group didn't believe a thing, not one thing, that the news media ever said.

Charlie Martin said...

Notice that the "clarification" came out at &PM Eastern on Friday. Pretty much exaxctly when you release something you want to bury.

gumshoe said...

"They learn the rest on the job. But one thing about the AP that makes it particularly hard to manage that no one ever talks about: Most reporters can file their stories directly onto the wire. There is virtually no editing or fact-checking on breaking news."

fresh air -

we are the BLOGOSHPERE!!!
(puffs out chest)

let's get the word out!

(imo,the willingness to be somewhat circumspect about breaking news is what makes YARGB *better* than AP.)

Rick Ballard said...

Nah. we're better because we're smurter.

Charlie Martin said...

... and spel gud.

jd watson said...

They don't even get their "clarification" correct. Bush was warned the levees might be "topped" or "overtopped", not overrun, whatever that means. As an economic compromise, the levees were designed to be overtopped by severe storm surges, with the resulting localized flooding handled by the NO storm pumping system.

gumshoe said...

i agree,jd.

"over-run" sounds like
another version of "collapse".

it's yet another version of
AP-all-disasters-all-the-time.

including their ability to write effectively.