Fear Exceeded Crime's Reality in New Orleans

NYT reported After the storm came the siege. In the days after Hurricane Katrina, terror from crimes seen and unseen, real and rumored, gripped New Orleans. The fears changed troop deployments, delayed medical evacuations, drove police officers to quit, grounded helicopters.

I wonder where that fear could have come from. Could it be from the inaccurate news stories that appeared in all of the MSM, including the NYT?

Edwin P. Compass III, the police superintendent, said that tourists - the core of the city's economy - were being robbed and raped on streets that had slid into anarchy. The mass misery in the city's two unlit and uncooled primary shelters, the convention center and the Superdome, was compounded, officials said, by gangs that were raping women and children. A month later, a review of the available evidence now shows that some, though not all, of the most alarming stories that coursed through the city appear to be little more than figments of frightened imaginations, the product of chaotic circumstances that included no reliable communications, and perhaps the residue of the longstanding raw relations between some police officers and members of the public.

Stories printed by the MSM because they made GWB look bad.

Beyond doubt, the sense of menace had been ignited by genuine disorder and violence that week. Looting began at the moment the storm passed over New Orleans, and it ranged from base thievery to foraging for the necessities of life.

Betsy blogged The New York Times catches on with reporting how the media reported so many rumors that turned out to be false. The real problem is tha tthese false reports led to delays in rescue responses.

TimWorstall blogged I think this is about as close as anyone is going to get to an apology or clarification from the NY Times about their reports from New Orleans. Second hand reports, misidentifications and rumour, all reported as fact. I’m not sure that anyone else or any other system woudl have done it differently but just another example of the point that you shouldn’t always believe what you read in the papers.

B. Preston blogged If your only source for news is the New York Times, you're always the last to know anything unflattering to Democrats or the press. And when the Times finally gets around to telling you about it, there's a good chance that they're leaving quite a bit out. Case in point: The NY Times finally follows where the LA Times, the Times-Picayune and the AP have led, examining the role of rumor mongering in relief efforts after the levees broke in New Orleans. Here's the nut sentence:

What became clear is that the rumor of crime, as much as the reality of the public disorder, often played a powerful role in the emergency response.

Ya think so? Is it possible that all the rumors combined with the meltdown at the city level and the incompetence at the state level might have had a thing or two with how the whole situation played out?