NWA Poster Session Handout 10_06

Josh Nathan, MA Broadcast Meteorologist

How Broadcast News Shapes Memories of Severe Weather: Hurricane Katrina as a Defining Event

Presented at the National Weather Association Annual Conference

Cleveland, Ohio October, 2006

Abstract

Applying Maurice Halbwachs’ theory of collective memory to CNN and FOX broadcasts and replicating an historical-based methodology (Winfield et al., 2001), this study suggests news alters the American perception of severe weather. During essentially a communications blackout along the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina, broadcast television is still able to stay on the air and provide information to the bulk of the nation, including President Bush. With such widespread damage, Hurricane Katrina is the only meteorological event in U.S. history when one news medium essentially controls the story, including subjective reporting, increased scrutiny of government, and reported, but not thoroughly investigated, rumors. The research indicates this unique combination of elements forged a common memory of the storm, which was later discovered to be somewhat skewed and historically inaccurate. Yet this memory will persist for decades to come and may be how history records the event.

•  Television’s largest advantage when compared with its counterparts has always been its ability to inform through moving and vivid images in conjunction with verbal narration.

•  Hurricane Katrina destroys even emergency communication

networks across the area with one main exception:

This medium dominates as THE VENUE providing the most information to and from the region.

–  Despite a variety of other sources for news, about one out of every three people in the US turned to CNN or Fox for information on Katrina.

A Unique Communication Event

Broadcast News

Broadcast News Viewers

SOURCE: Nielsen Media Research

Calculated from Median Averages to Minimize Natural Spike in Viewers during Katrina

The spike in viewers related to Hurricane Katrina •  100 million viewers turn to CNN •  87 million turn to FOX

A Disaster Made for TV •  Meteorological predictions are accurate.

–  Americans, journalists, and politicians caught by surprise.

National Hurricane Center Director Max Mayfield checks his watch as hurricane specialist Stacy Stewart makes the landfall call of Hurricane Katrina at Plaquemines Parrish, Louisiana, on August 29, 2005, at 7:10am EDT.

“Bush is in Texas, [Chief of Staff Andrew] Card is in Maine, and the Vice President is fly-fishing. I mean who’s in charge here?”

•  Bush Administration,

FEMA, and DHS among the missing.

Bush Ally Congressman Thomas M. Davis (R-VA) – 2/14/06, The Boston Globe

AP Photo: Andy Newman

•  Potential for the calamity widely discussed for decades. –  The New York Times and The Washington Post among many newspapers that ran

special reports on the issue in 2004; one article warned, “50,000 people could drown, and this city of [New Orleans] and Mardi Gras and jazz could cease to exist.”

•  Funding to better protect the Gulf Coast from future hurricanes choked by the federal government in 2004.

•  National attention in 2005 was on terrorism and war in Iraq. •  Significantly higher reliance on newly-developed communication devices.

–  A communication blackout in the 21st century largely unimaginable. •  Laizze-fair approach to Emergency Operations Plans (EOP) for use during

disasters: Drills rarely ran; Language difficult to follow. –  Post-9/11 multibillion-dollar National Emergency System a complete failure in its

first test, which took place in the aftermath of Katrina. •  In TV News: Every story considered a crisis.

–  So which story is actually important? •  Meteorologists seen as over-emphasizing the impact of tropical storms and

hurricanes. –  Did this lead to a sense of complacency?

Background

KATRINA

“Pictures of bodies in the streets, video of a woman going into diabetic shock, and thousands of angry men and women herded outside the [New Orleans] Superdome.” (Melanie McFarland, Seattle Post-Intelligencer)

“Then the camera pulls back to reveal property destruction so vast and complete that it calls to mind archival images of the European cities bombed during World War II. And the ache deepens to anguish.” (David Zurawik, The Baltimore Sun)

“[Hurricane Katrina was] unlike any other events most of us had covered. A natural disaster combined with a manmade disaster, within the United States and happening in real time, is a very rare combination.” (Anderson Cooper, CNN)

Facts and Figures: Shear Size & Shear Strength

•  One of five strongest hurricanes to hit US in 100 years •  Maximum winds greater than 170mph •  Minimum central pressure 902mb •  Diameter of more than 450 miles •  Storm surge of more than 30 feet •  Three landfalls: Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi

African-Americans, the disabled, sick, elderly, and the poor suffered

disproportionately.

Hurricane Katrina making its second landfall

Up to 10” of rain from Gulf Coast to Ohio Valley

80% of New Orleans under as much as 20 feet of water Much of Mobile, Biloxi, and Gulfport flooded and under imposed curfews 3 million people without electricity I-10 and coastal highways along Gulf impassable Economic loss estimates of $125 billion

Forging a Memory

The Biloxi-Ocean Springs Bridge Collapse

The Floods in Gulfport, Mississippi

DO YOU REMEMBER?

The New Orleans Convention Center

THESE IMAGES ARE INGRAINED IN

OUR CONSCIOUSNESS

Forging a Memory

•  In the 1920s, French social psychologist Maurice Halbwachs was the first to study what he later dubbed “Collective Memory.”

–  He argued individual memories could

only exist if a person could contextualize them; to do so, one needed to tap into the broader societal memory and, ever since, the two became inextricably bound.

“We identify ourselves with the enduring memories of our communities.”

Saul Friedländer (1979)

(Is not that difficult…)

•  Most agree television serves as a communal portal through which nearly identical memories are made for the majority.

“When crises occur, one searches the depths of one’s memory to discover some vestige of the past, not the past of the individual, faltering and ephemeral, but rather that of the community, which, though left behind, nonetheless represents that which is permanent and lasting.”

Sociologist Barry Schwartz (1996)

News Coverage

Subjective Reporting:

Press Reports Rumors:

Skepticism Abounds:

•  Reports infused with emotion almost

kitsch in derivation. –  Aimed to tug at our hearts and help us

both identify with, and remember, the “DISASTER COVERAGE.”

•  Exaggerated claims of looting,

lawlessness, murder, “babies being raped,” and the number killed from the storm.

•  Use of unreliable sources with accuracy taking a backseat.

•  Journalists question

authority figures. –  President Bush mired in

ridicule. –  Typical CNN & FOX

partisan boundaries pushed aside.

“TV united us across the political and cultural divide. The media’s refrain was that the planet’s most powerful nation had abandoned its own people, on its own soil, to thirst and violence.”

Melanie McFarland, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 2005

Conclusion •  Katrina was an event made to

be broadcast. •  A unique set of circumstances

converged. –  TV only option for news due to

communication breakdown. •  Viewers became transfixed on

the subject and were emotionally held hostage.

•  Rumors were relayed, but few were corrected. –  Other news sources contained

large lists of clarifications.

Path and Intensity of Hurricane

Katrina

•  The collective memory that formed during

the original broadcasts still remains today. –  First impressions most remembered.

•  The history of a severe weather event is altered by a collective memory created by, and through, TV images and reports.

Is News History or is History News?

“How will today’s choices appear when they are history—when people look back a

decade or a century hence?” Political Scientist Richard Neustadt and Historian Ernest

May Thinking in Time (1986)

“Memory events and their narration are in competition with

the writing of history…Their disruptive and heroic character is

indeed what is remembered, upstaging the efforts of historians

and social scientists.” Media Experts Daniel Dyan and Elihu Katz Media Events: The Live Broadcasting of

History (1992)

Answer: News IS History for Hurricane Katrina

President Bush in Biloxi more than five days after Katrina passed

Josh Nathan Broadcast Meteorologist

After nearly 10 years working as an on-air meteorologist and reporter, Josh Nathan enters the classroom. He teaches students at The Ohio Center for Broadcasting’s Colorado Campus, imparting the fundamentals of broadcast news including theoretical lectures as well as hands-on training in edit bays, the Studio, and the Control Room. Nathan recently earned an M.A. in Communication from Hawai'i Pacific University with the 2006 publication of his master’s thesis, considered by some to be a foundational citation in the field: “President Bush’s Response to Hurricane Katrina as Portrayed by the Media: An Imprint on American Collective Memory.” He also earned a Certificate of Broadcast Meteorology from Mississippi State University and a B.S. in Journalism from Northwestern University, where he graduated Magna cum Laude. He has published several scholarly papers with research focusing on Organizational Change & Development, Collective Memory, and Emergency Disaster Preparedness. His practical background includes ten years on-air work for television news affiliates with a strong emphasis in educating the public about disasters and how to better prepare for them.

Information on the Researcher

References

CNN Programs. (2005, December 20). CNN Live From information. Retrieved December 20, 2005, from http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/live_from/ Dayan, D., & Katz, E. (1992). Media events: The live broadcasting of history. London: Harvard University Press. Friedländer, S. (1979). When memory comes. New York: Farrar, Strauss, Giroux. Halbwachs, M. (1980). On Collective Memory. (F. J. Ditter, Jr. & V. Y. Ditter, Trans.). New York: Harper & Row. (Original work published 1950) Halbwachs, M. (1992). On Collective Memory. (L.W. Coser, Ed. & Trans.).New York: Harper Colophon. (Original work published 1950) Jurkowitz, M (2005, September 16). Katrina rips Bush a new one. The Boston Phoenix. Retrieved September 18, 2005, from http://www.bostonphoenix.com/no/index.asp Kurtz, H. (2005, September 5). At last, reporters’ feelings rise to the surface. The Washington Post, p. C01. Lawrimore, J. (2005). Climate of 2005: Summary of Hurricane Katrina. National Climatic Data Center, Asheville, NC. MacCallum, M. (Anchor). (2005, August 30). FOX news live [Television broadcast]. New York: Multivision Inc. MacCallum, M. (Anchor). (2005, August 31). FOX news live [Television broadcast]. New York: Multivision Inc.

References

MacCallum, M. (Anchor). (2005, September 13). FOX news live [Television broadcast]. New York: Multivision Inc. MacCallum, M. (Anchor). (2005, September 14). FOX news live [Television broadcast]. New York: Multivision Inc. McFarland, M. (2005, September 3). Katrina’s other ugly side: Race and class divide. Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Retrieved September 6, 2005, from http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/tv/239212_tv03.html Nathan, J. D. (2006). President Bush’s response to Hurricane Katrina as portrayed by the media: An imprint on American collective memory. Washington D.C.: UMI Dissertation Services. Neustadt, R. E., & May, E. M. (1986). Thinking in time. New York: Simon & Schuster. Phillips, K. (Anchor). (2005, August 30). CNN live from [Television broadcast]. Atlanta: Cable News Network LP, LLLP. Phillips, K. (Anchor). (2005, August 31). CNN live from [Television broadcast]. Atlanta: Cable News Network LP, LLLP. Phillips, K. (Anchor). (2005, September 6). CNN live from: Special event [Television broadcast]. Atlanta: Cable News Network LP, LLLP. Phillips, K. (Anchor). (2005, September 13). CNN live from [Television broadcast]. Atlanta: Cable News Network LP, LLLP.

References

Phillips, K. (Anchor). (2005, September 14). CNN live from [Television broadcast]. Atlanta: Cable News Network LP, LLLP. Schudson, M. (1993). Watergate in American memory. New York: HarperCollins Publishers. Schwartz, B. (1996, Fall). Introduction: The expanding past. Qualitative Sociology, 19(3), 275-282. The state of the news media. (2006). Journalism.org. Retrieved September 9, 2006, from http://www.journalism.org Winfield, B. H., Friedman, B., & Trisnadi, V. (2002). History as the metaphor through which the current world is viewed: British and American newspapers’ uses of history following the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks. Journalism Studies, 3(2), 289-300. Zurawik, D. (2006, August 21). Sound, fury, haunting images. The Baltimore Sun. Zurawik, D. (2005, September 5). TV news juggles two big stories. The Baltimore Sun.