Correcting the Record

Remember when the AP breathlessly reported that Bush Knew about the levees and Katrina?

Oops... They're correcting the record.

In a March 1 story, The Associated Press reported that federal disaster officials warned President Bush and his homeland security chief before Hurricane Katrina struck that the storm could breach levees in New Orleans, citing confidential video footage of an Aug. 28 briefing among U.S. officials.

The Army Corps of Engineers considers a breach a hole developing in a levee rather than an overrun. The story should have made clear that Bush was warned about floodwaters overrunning the levees, rather than the levees breaking.

The day before the storm hit, Bush was told there were grave concerns that the levees could be overrun. It wasn't until the next morning, as the storm was hitting, that Michael Brown, then head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said Bush had inquired about reports of breaches. Bush did not participate in that briefing.

Powerline and RedState both throw a few punches in.

Powerline:

I think it's reasonable to assume that the AP's "clarification" is the result of our dissection of their incredibly lame story. I think this highlights, though, how hard it is for truth to catch up to error. Hundreds of newspapers printed the AP's misinformation, and it was the basis for television news on all of the broadcast networks. The correction (or "clarification") will never catch up to most of the tens of millions of people who heard the original story. The news business is all about impressions, and corrections, days after the fact, never take away the impression that the original story falsely created.

RedState:

After releasing the now infamous Katrina video accusing the President of being negligent in his handling of the situation, the AP now admits that the President had only been warned of the possible overtopping of levees in the video, which is wholly different from the breaching of the levees that the media has been using.

Anyone who was paying attention and wanted to deal honestly with the story actually knew that. At no time in the video was the President warned of a levee breach. Despite that, the AP ran with the story that the President had been warned of a breach.

So what did the AP do? It waited two whole days, let the story fester, and then on Friday at 7 p.m., after the evening news programs that had run the previous story concluded for the week, ran a "clarification."

When the story broke, I said...

Somehow I suspect once to full story of these FEMA / DHS meetings is released, we'll all go, "Huh? Where's the story?"

Well, the story is the AP throwing out crap hoping some would stick. ... and well, it worked.

Second Bush Administration Posted by AlexC at March 3, 2006 11:10 PM