BBC NEWS | World | Americas | Viewpoint: Has Katrina saved US media?

caption: Mr Bush's famed "folksy" style has failed to impress in this crisis


BBC NEWS | World | Americas | Viewpoint: Has Katrina saved US media?: "Instead of secretive 'Deep Throat' meetings in car-parks, cameras captured the immediate reality of what was happening at the New Orleans Convention Center, making a mockery of the stalling and excuses being put forward by those in power.

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

National politics reporters and anchors here come largely from the same race and class as the people they are supposed to be holding to account.

They live in the same suburbs, go to the same parties, and they are in debt to the same huge business interests.

Giant corporations own the networks, and Washington politicians rely on them and their executives to fund their re-election campaigns across the 50 states.

It is a perfect recipe for a timid and self-censoring journalistic culture that is no match for the masterfully aggressive spin-surgeons of the Bush administration."