Anger, empathy, skepticism cracking through journalistic objectivity [View All]

http://www.baltimoresun.com/features/bal-te.to.journalist04sep04,1,4807409.story?coll=bal-features-headlines

The axiom that journalists should be dispassionate interpreters of events, no matter how harrowing, has been severely tested in the deadly wake of Hurricane Katrina.

The magnitude of the destruction left by the storm and the desperate straits of thousands of its victims were challenge enough. Many reporters, clearly affected by what they were seeing, showed their empathy in their stories, and some were moved to tears.

But when it became apparent that the government's response to the disaster was, at the very least, inadequate to the task, the sorrow turned to anger.

"It's a disgrace, and don't think the world isn't watching," a fuming Jack Cafferty said Thursday on CNN, as the screen showed foul shelters packed with victims in New Orleans. "Where is the federal government? Where is food and water for these people?"