THE PRESS WANTS TO SHOW BODIES from Katrina. It didn’t want to show bodies, or jumpers, on 9/11, for fear that doing so would inflame the public.

I can only conclude that this time around, the press thinks it’s a good thing to inflame the public. What could the difference be?

UPDATE: Heh.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Ed Driscoll thinks that CNN is displaying the same situational ethics about body counts that it showed while shoring up Saddam’s position during the Eason Jordan days:

I wonder if next time Hugh Hewitt has someone high up at CNN on his show, he could ask them, “In light of your decision to show the bodies of Katrina victims, do you think it was a mistake for networks like yourself to hide the images of victims of Saddam Hussein or 9/11? Really? Well, why didn’t you at least show the latter on its fourth anniversary?”

Which is tomorrow, incidentally.

Indeed.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Julian Sanchez is deliberately obtuse here, I think — as should be especially obvious after reading Ed Driscoll’s post.

Hey, CNN’s just lucky it’s not 100 years ago.

MORE: For the benefit of those who are — deliberately or involuntarily — still obtuse, reader Martin Shoemaker spells it out:

I think the difference lies in what they think an inflamed public might do.

In the case of 9/11, the elites in the media (who are so much more worldly than us folks in the masses, ya know) feared that an inflamed public might start burning Muslims at the stake. After all, all those Christian redneck hicks in the red states are just one step away from barbarians. And maybe they might even, I dunno, start a war or something, when what we need is to make apologies at the UN for our racist, imperialist past.

In the case of Hurricane Katrina, the elites in the media hope that an
inflamed public might start burning Republican leaders at the stake. After all, the elites all know how easily the masses are manipulated. (What was that Gallup figure again? Only 13% blamed the President? Don’t those masses understand that we’re trying to manipulate them? I guess we’ll just have to look for even MORE negative stories. Bodies! That’s it: we need BODIES! Somebody dig up some bodies for us, right away!)

I hear a lot of folks in the media ask how this disaster is different from 9/11. I feel the answer is: the folks in the media. 9/11 happened to THEM: to their home town, and to people they knew. They saw it happen, and it was something too momentous and awful for business as usual. The time was too solemn for their usual agenda promotion and self promotion. It hit home, and they were shaken. They saw people, not stories and angles and opportunities.

But Hurricane Katrina? That only hit a bunch of poor black folks (in their racially divisive view — it’s like they can’t even see the white victims) down in a rural southern reddish-purple state, far from their day-to-day lives. It’s not like it happened to anyone they knew, anyone who mattered to them. So that left them free to look for stories and angles and opportunities. And thus, they can pursue their ideological and professional agendas full bore.

The story coverage is different, because in their hearts, the media don’t care about black people.

And if anyone in the media think that’s an unfair, outrageous statement, I’ll apologize on a case by case basis: any of them who condemned Kanye West’s remarks can have an apology. The rest of them can go to hell.

Ouch. I’m getting a lot of email like this, and I think the press — despite its orgy of mutual congratulation — will see its reputation and influence shrink again before this is over.