Wednesday
Up with disbelief
If you're a regular reader of blogs or newspapers, you've seen stories in the last two weeks stating that many of the worst incidents of social breakdown reported out of New Orleans in Katrina's aftermath wildly exaggerated. For one of the most prominent, but far, far from the only example of these kinds of reports, see this LA Times story. I'm sure most of these rumor refutations are correct, but no one seems to be noting that most of them are sourced from people whose interest it's in if things are perceived as not being so bad, ie, the people responsible who were responsible for maintaining order. Basically I'm just saying, that it was good for people to be skeptical when the rumors were coming out, but don't stop being skeptical now. Some "debunked" rumors are probably being covered-up rather than debunked, and the reporters' ability or desire to do real detective work in the area is far from clear. I have no idea which particular supposedly debunked rumors are true, but simply doubt that they're all false.
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