Life...

Before I do the obvious dive into the political realm I do want to point out a few things about myself. I value human life. I am a Catholic and believe that every human life has value, and the loss of one human life is a terrible thing.

That being said...was anybody else amazed at the recent findings of incredible exageration by the liberal media about the death totals in New Orleans. It is pretty dispicable that we depend upon these people to give us good truthful information. I read this in the LA Times...Yes, that LA Times. They must have realized that the more liberal bias their paper got, the less readers they had, because I never believed I'd be reading it there. But I digress. The death tolls in New Orleans are not the only overly exagerated claims to come out of the media. They also apparently reported on deaths, rapings, oh and sharks....haha. There were never any sharks swimming in New Orleans, "But what about Sea World and the gulf stream and....and..." blah blah blah. No sharks.

With all the media coverage of rapings, killings, gangs of men roaming streets, the complete incompotence of leadership to save people, how many were found dead in the aftermath? 841 according the the LA Times. 841...what??!! I mean how can that be?! I heard about snipers and gangs and death and destruction. I heard about bodies in the Superdome basement, in freezers in the Convention Center. I heard Mayor C. Ray Nagin tell Oprah...yes Oprah...that people sat in the Superdome watching dead bodies for days. Oh...and for good measure who was blamed for this destruction? Yeah, I don't think I even need to state his name.

Yes, there were a total of 841 deaths, each one a terrible loss, but many more were prevented thanks to the rescue workers. Of those 841, you are thinking, 'There has to be many that were shot or killed to substatiate those claims of killings and gangs...RIGHT??!!' Um....no. "[F]our were identified as gunshot victims." LA Times. 'Well, I am sure that many of the dead were from the Superdome and Convention Center...they have to be!!!' Guess again. The National Guard says six died at the Superdome and four from the Convention Center.

I cannot imagine the heartache and terror that those people felt inside the Superdome, nor do I wish that upon anyone. But Col. Thomas Beron, according to the LA Times article, stated that for every complaint there were "49 other people [who] said, 'Thank you. God bless you.'"

Shouldn't we hold our expectations of our news coverage in this country a little higher. If this is how our coverage is when something terrible happens in this country, what are we left to believe about the coverage of American actions across the globe. How reliable is the information we recieve every day? These are questions that we should not have to ask of our "honorable" media. We should, and I do, expect better than the mistakes we have seen over the last year from all media outlets.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-rumors27sep27,0,5492806,full.story?coll=la-home-headlines