Demanding Answers

"In Katrina, CNN 'learned from Jon Stewart how to use simple juxtaposition to make a point,' says New York University journalism professor Jay Rosen. 'Clip of a federal official explaining how no one anticipated the strength of the storm. Clip from the Weather Channel proving plenty of people did.'

(Here's an example from CNN.com of the juxtaposition of rhetoric and reality.)

Nick Madigan writes in the Baltimore Sun: "Journalists who typically adhere to a professional objectivity stepped into their sometimes neglected role as advocates for the voiceless and began excoriating the Bush administration for what many agreed was a poorly executed reaction to the disaster.

"In Biloxi, Miss., on Friday, as President Bush toured the region, he told a group of journalists, 'We're going to clean this mess up.' Still pointing to the future, Bush said, 'We're going to stabilize the situation and then get food and water.'

"Not satisfied with that, a reporter asked him why 'the richest country in the world can't get help to the people who need it.'

"Bush's reply - 'I'm satisfied with the response; I'm not satisfied with all the results' - left some of the media members perplexed, and they said so."

Matt Wells writes for the BBC that "good reporting lies at the heart of what is changing. . . .

"Amidst the horror, American broadcast journalism just might have grown its spine back, thanks to Katrina."

Reporter/blogger Russ Baker writes: "The magnitude of the Hurricane Katrina disaster and the media's astonished -- and astonishingly vigorous -- response puts in perspective how hard it has generally become, in this country, to deliver the unadorned, unapologetic truth. Indeed, for at least as long as George Bush has been in office, the great unspoken challenge for mainstream journalists has been to do one's job while keeping one's job."

Live Online

I'll be Live Online today at 1 p.m. ET., taking your questions and comments . Don't be shy.

PR Blitz Continues

As part of the White House's new PR blitz (see yesterday's column ), Bush made not one , not two , but three separate appearances before the cameras yesterday to talk about the hurricane.

It was at the first, after a cabinet meeting, that he had this to say: "What I intend to do is lead a -- to lead an investigation to find out what went right and what went wrong. And I'll tell you why. It's very important for us to understand the relationship between the federal government, the state government and the local government when it comes to a major catastrophe. And the reason it's important is, is that we still live in an unsettled world. We want to make sure that we can respond properly if there's a WMD attack or another major storm. And so I'm going to find out over time what went right and what went wrong."