Secret National Press Guide For Reporting Hurricanes

1.Remember: hurricane reporting is always about Hurricane Katrina and New Orleans.
2.If you simply can't avoid mentioning the fact that a hurricane destroyed large parts of Mexico, Texas, western Louisiana, or Mississippi, skip over it lightly and get back to talking about existential angst in New Orleans.
3.Showing pictures of the dead in Jamaica is acceptable only if you make a New Orleans connection
4.Employ lots and lots of hyperbole and personification: “Mother Nature's Fateful Wrath of Hell-Storm Dean Bearing Down on Doomed Island Leaving a Swath of Destruction in His Wake” is good. Also remember that storms are always poising, bearing down, aiming, plowing, blasting, raking, tracking, thrashing, lashing, slashing, slamming, churning, and cutting swaths (whatever a swath is). Be sure to talk about people bearing brunts, which they never otherwise bear (and just what is a brunt, anyway, and why must it be borne?). Oh, yeah – say that every bit of litter looks like a war zone. War zone sounds cool, though no one who has ever been in a war says it.
5.Never, never, never publish a photograph of a lineman working to restore electricity, of a fireman rescuing folks from floods, or of a police officer patrolling in 100+ heat; instead, show a picture of some guy squatting in the gutter and playing a saxophone or harmonica. Use an artsy sepia filter for this.
6.Always imply that evil President Bush is responsible for any scene of sorrow. After all, we never had hurricanes until the bad man seized power through the machinations of his evil elves. And while blaming global warming for this mess we don't need to mention that President Clinton did not sign the Kyoto Protocols.
7.When interviewing His Honor Mayor Negin of New Orleans, never reveal that the interview is in the safety of his getaway home near Dallas.
8.FEMA trailers are all about the preservatives (found in all new wood products, all new furniture, and all new carpets, but we don't mention that, okay?). Never suggest that the residents might want to show a little gratitude for having a place to live and might want to clean up after themselves.
9.Never interview positive individuals who are repairing and cleaning and solving problems on their own. Find the professional victims; they have the time to indulge you, they're much better actors, and they enjoy posturing for the cameras.
10. Always find some whining twit with a baby but with no diapers, no baby food, and no formula to complain loudly that “(President) Bush shoulda been better prepared for this! This is ridiculous! This is ridiculous!” Never suggest that, with almost two weeks of warnings she might have made some effort herself.
11. Fill in dead air time with the usual babble about global warming. Don't go with science or history here, go with populist mythologies. Global warming is real (ignore the fact that in this hemisphere it's summer, and don't even think about the people freezing to death in Argentina), and is caused by the evil middle classes owning their own homes and driving cars and working for a living.
12. If you can't avoid showing those dramatic water rescues in Oklahoma, don't forget the New Orleans tie-in.
13. Never, ever speak the R*** word. There was no hurricane in East Texas / western Louisiana which took out an area the size of England.
14. When you assign some idiot to stand in the wind and rain of a hurricane, remind him to say things like “This must be a little bit of what Hurricane Katrina was like.”
15. My fellow journalists, our reporting on The End of The World,Y2K, and Hurricane Katrina (genuflect as this point) was too, too restrained. Let's go out there and go with YooToob and MeMeMeSpace journalistic passion with the hurricanes! Darn the facts! Grab those cliches' and stereotypes!
16. After you read this, make three copies on your Blueberry and eat the original while kneeling before your Dan Rather ikon.