Five years ago this month, a few weeks after Hurricane Katrina battered the Gulf Coast and left much of New Orleans under water, former CBS anchorman Dan Rather went on Larry King Live to extol television's coverage of the deadly storm.
Rather, whose early career had been propelled by covering hurricanes, was extravagant in his praise, saying the Katrina coverage was “one of the quintessential great moments in television news,” ranking “right there with the Nixon/Kennedy debates, the Kennedy assassination, Watergate coverage, you name it.”
The coverage, Rather declared, was nothing short of “landmark.”
As I write in Getting It Wrong, my new book debunking prominent media-driven myths, Rather's praise was “more than a little misleading.”
Rather's comments also helped give rise to what I call the “myth of superlative reporting”–the notion that coverage of Katrina represented a memorable occasion of the new media's finding their voice, of standing up to public officials and holding them accountable for an inept and muddled response, especially in New Orleans.
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