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Philadelphia News and Views YOU Write - Urbi et Orbi

Has Katrina saved US broadcast media?

TV broadcast journalism. Used to exist. From Anderson Cooper (CNN) to Jack Cafferty (CNN) to Shepard Smith and Geraldo Rivera (Fox) to Keith Olbermann (MSNBC) - well the patient has a heartbeat. It has a vital role to play in breaking corporate and political spin - to give the public above all the truth - so that we can properly govern - lets hope these are signs it has woken up from its slumber.

More at BBC: Has Katrina saved US media?:

As President Bush scurries back to the Gulf Coast, it is clear that this is the greatest challenge to politics-as-usual in America since the fall of Richard Nixon in the 1970s.

Then as now, good reporting lies at the heart of what is changing.

But unlike Watergate, "Katrinagate" was public service journalism ruthlessly exposing the truth on a live and continuous basis.

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.

via Blankbaby.