I very much enjoyed our trip to the Newseum. It’s a really fantastic museum and I wish we’d had more time to spend exploring the exhibits. The Hurricane Katrina exhibit really stayed with me, though, mainly because it brought about strong feelings of anger and sadness.
But one particular part of the exhibit caught my eye. It noted that many people who were staying in the Superdome after Hurricane Katrina were being referred to by the media as “refugees”. The main people being called refugees were African American. (After people began to speak out about the harms in calling citizens in their own country “refugees”, many news corporations banned the word from being used.) There were similar inconsistencies in other areas, too. A photo with a white couple carrying groceries through the flood water was published with a caption that said they “found” the food in a grocery store. A similar photo with a young African American boy had a caption that used the word “looted” instead.
It is almost sickening that a supposedly unbiased media still looks at different races in America in completely different lights. Following the election of President Obama, many referred to our country as post-racial. That is an incredibly naïve statement for anyone to make. Nothing is post-racial. It was incredibly disheartening to see that even news reporters -- perhaps unconsciously -- treated the victims of the hurricane so differently.
Although I agree with you, I wonder if printing more accurate headlines would have been as effective. I think that the press used terms that created empathetic--or at least sympathetic--feelings towards those directly affected by the hurricane. I understand that stirring up these feelings would be more effective in inspiring people to help the victims of Katrina. However, as a source that is supposed to be unbiased and just relay "the facts," it is rather frustrating.
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