Summary: Media Coverage During Hurricane Katrina

Media Coverage During Hurricane Katrina Hurricane Katrina is one of the most horrific natural disaster in the twenty-first century in the United States. The hurricane hit on August 23, 2005, and ended August 31, 2005. The storm killed 1,836 people most of them from Louisiana and more than half of them were a senior citizen. The storm surge was twenty feet high. There are still 705 people missing after the storm. About 80% of New Orleans was under water and the hurricane impacted about 90,000 square miles. Hurricane Katrina affected over 15 million people in different ways from losing their house and other economic sufferings ("11 Facts About Hurricane Katrina"). New Orleans is in a risk area for floods or storms since the city actually lies

Many people questioned the role of the media since the media seemed not to do their job. Instead of using media as a tool to communicate with society and government, the media was used more as a way of scaring. In the article, The ‘Appalling’ Ways The Media Framed the Narrative After Hurricane Katrina written by Rahel Gebreyes and published in Huffington Post Gebreyes points out the lack of language the journalist new about disasters. Luckily natural disasters like this do not happen often so most of the journalists were covering news like this for the first time and maybe their only time in their life. In the article "Race and Media Coverage of Hurricane Katrina: Analysis, Implications, and Future Research Questions." by Samuel Sommers the authors bring up the fact that journalist really struggled on what word to use for the victims of the hurricane. Looking at news from the first week from Katrina, Geoffrey Nunberg gathered data and 56% used the word "evacuee" and 44% used the word "refugee". "Most interestingly, in articles in which either "evacuee" or "refugee" appeared within 10 words of "poor" or "Black," "refugee" was the more popular term by a statistically significant margin of 68% to 32%" (41). This proofs the fact journalist had a hard time pinning down what words to use or how to describe the victims and their