Media "apocolypse-ism" revisited

Immediately after Hurricane Katrina, but before the major flooding of that Tuesday, I accused the media of blowing the story way out of proportion, calling it "apocolypse-ism" (awkward, term, yes-but accurate). I recanted as all seemed to go to hell in a handbasket. It seems I should have held my ground, as NOLA.com reports it wasn't as bad as we were led to believe:

Following days of internationally reported killings, rapes and gang violence inside the Dome, the doctor from FEMA - Beron doesn't remember his name - came prepared for a grisly scene: He brought a refrigerated 18-wheeler and three doctors to process bodies.

"I've got a report of 200 bodies in the Dome," Beron recalls the doctor saying.

The real total was six, Beron said.

Of those, four died of natural causes, one overdosed and another jumped to his death in an apparent suicide, said Beron, who personally oversaw the turning over of bodies from a Dome freezer, where they lay atop melting bags of ice.

Here's something else to question. Many reporters claimed bodies were floating all over the place. The current death toll would indicate some floating corpses may have been spotted, but in no where near the numbers we were lead to believe. Reporting rumors as fact and exagerating what you see with your own eyes is bad, bad journalism.

(HT Stand in the Trenches)