comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable

I think I've calmed down enough about this to write without less fury, but please bear with me if bottled-up anger spills over.

I was reading fark.com this morning, and I come across a posting that the Poynter Institute is asking people living within 30 miles of the Baton Rouge to take journalists into their homes while the journalists work away from their newsrooms, etc. The (New Orleans) Times-Picayune's managing editor spokes to Poynter about the difficulties of covering Katrina. The newspaper also has a number of reporters still unaccounted for.

Out of curiosity, I click on the link that would lead me to the forum/discussion postings, and what I read infuriated me.

The journalist's role is to cover the news. We feel for the people affected by Hurricane Katrina. Despite what these posters think and write, we're humans, too, and we are incredibly sad and emotionally affected by the plight of Lousiana and Mississippi and Alabama. But we're professionals, and we're doing our jobs, and to do that effectively, we can't let emotions get in the way. We need to stand away from it all (as well as we can). Scott Gold from the Los Angeles Times have been covering Katrina and recently wrote down what he saw for the paper's Column One. He, too, mentioned the need to build a wall between the situation.

When we're covering a story and we see desperation all around us, we can't stop and help. We have to keep moving and get as much of the people's stories as we can to tell the world what is happening. The humanity in all of us wants to help by providing shelter or food or water or clothes. These journalists are helping by disseminating information. Blasting what they do will not work. A lot of the journalists who are based in the Gulf coast cities have lost family members, most have lost their homes, and yet they're working -- without showers, bathrooms, places to sleep -- to bring the news so people know that help is coming.

These reporters and editors and producers aren't living in luxury. It doesn't matter that some are living in the Hyatt in downtown New Orleans. The hotel doesn't have plumbing, either. One side of the hotel was ripped apart by the hurricane. It's surrounded by flood waters.

The Gulf coast journalists who didn't evacuate aren't doing it because they're stupid. They know they have work to do.

No one involved in the hurricane stories is thinking about winning awards right now. The job at hand is to do the best we can. No one was thinking about awards when they were covering Sept. 11. Because it doesn't matter. Doing the news as good as possible is the priority. Pulitzers and Emmys and press associations and the "best of" accolades can wait. The public needs help now.

*

People are saying that the federal government is too slow in getting aid to the people affected by the hurricane. I agree. I agree with the outrage felt by Mayor Nagin, and I agree with the frustration felt by the governors.

People are also saying that the help is slow in coming because of race -- because the majority of those in need are black ... I just don't get it. Why is everything about race? Why can't it just be that the federal government are being jerks (again) and screwing those people who need its help the most? But I'm a minority myself, and maybe they have an argument, maybe not. I really don't know.

The aid is slow to get to people because of a lot of reasons and a lot of excuses, but think about it. When New Orleans is as out of control as it is right now and for the past days, rescuers and aid workers had to feel threatened by the violence (and some have). There are looters. Morally, in this kind of survival situation, I don't have a big problem with taking the necessities -- water, food, clothes, diapers, formula, medicine. But when people are blatanly taking things that can be left alone -- DVDs, CDs, etc. -- then that is a moral and value threshold that I cannot cross and cannot reconcile with. There were (are?) people taking jewelry from houses and stealing guns and ammunition from gun shops. I wonder if the people who are taking advantage of the situation -- unncessary looters, price gougers, insurance frauds -- would be able to look themselves in the mirror years from now and be able to live with the knowledge that they took things not pertinent to survival from others who lost their stores or their homes.

People are shooting at relief helicopters, aid workers and police officers. Patients stuck in Charity Hospital in New Orleans were going to get evacuated and get proper medical care, but the helicopter coming to get them had to turn back because of gunfire.

Why? People aren't going to come to help if they're having to dodge bullets. These people -- a lot of whom are affected themselves -- are trying to provide the aid that others are lambasting for being too slow and not enough. How about not threaten their lives so they can try to better the horrific situation?

A CNN reporter was with a group of police officers at their station when the station came under gunfire attack. These are police officers, and they had to fire back to citizens to protect their turf. The situation in the Louisiana police forces are so bad that the media is reporting officers simply turning in their badges and walking off the job.

The desperation I read in the newspapers and see on the news is heartrenching, and it is this type of situation that shows true human nature. Whether human nature is inherently good or bad is one of the questions that eastern philosophers -- especially Chinese -- sought to answer. It seems that, in the past couple of days, I see what can happen if people's survival instincts kick in to Lord-of-the-Flies proportions, but I also feel better to know that there are others who are willing to help. Maybe human nature is inherently good, but crises make it evil.

The Times-Picayune has been working out of Baton Rouge and posting stories online in blogform and in pdf. Tomorrow, I think, they're putting out their first printed stories in a couple of days. They're doing an incredible job.

The Sun-Herald covers Gulfport/Biloxi in Mississippi and other Gulf coast towns. They're operating out of the Columbus, Ga., paper and have been putting out limited newsprint copies.

The two reporters from the Sun-Herald are still blogging. Check them out.