CV NEWS FEED // The New York Times and other establishment media outlets are facing scrutiny for their relative undercoverage of Hurricane Helene compared to their continuous featured coverage of the national response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
Many hold that the discrepancy may be in part due to the fact that Katrina took place under the administration of a Republican president, George W. Bush, while Helene occurred under the Democratic Biden-Harris administration.
Entrepreneur and investor Robert Sterling compiled a graphic – which he recently posted to X (formerly known as Twitter) – showing a side-by-side comparison of Times stories about each of the devastating hurricanes when they took place.
Sterling wrote that in August 2005, the newspaper gave Katrina “12 consecutive days of full-page coverage on A1,” including “All-caps banner headlines” and “Countless articles about the failures of the Bush administration.”
Meanwhile, as Helene was tearing through the Southeast less than two weeks ago, the Times gave the storm “Seven days of minor coverage on A1” and “none at all” during Helene’s second day. “Mostly just photo captions referencing articles on page A12 or A19,” Sterling added. “Zero mentions of any potential failures on the part of the Biden-Harris administration.”
A1 is the front page of the Times’ print edition.
The same day, conservative policy analyst Javon Price wrote on X: “I’m no Bush defender, but the way the media covered Hurricane Katrina versus how they’re covering Hurricane Helene is objectively insane.”
Price noted that while Bush was “deemed a racist for his response” to Katrina, Harris appeared on the controversial sex podcast “Call Her Daddy” while “folks drown in NC” due to flooding caused by Helene.
Price is associated with the America First movement, a group of conservatives known for being extensively critical of the George W. Bush administration and many of its policies.
The American Tribune co-founder Jason Robertson made a similar observation on X.
“In 2005 Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans,” he wrote. “The Media Rushed to send hundreds of reporters to cover every human tragedy, every Government Failure, we had on the ground footage, etc.”
“In 2024 Hurricane Helene Devastates North Carolina and surrounding states,” Robertson continued:
Virtually no mainstream media coverage other than defending the Federal Government’s response. Those Same “News Organizations” have spent more airtime covering President Trumps criticism of the Governments Response than they have the real human Tragedy
I wonder whats different this time around?
CatholicVote reported earlier this week:
Critics have lambasted the Biden-Harris administration’s Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) for its response to Hurricane Helene, which has wreaked havoc in many communities in North Carolina and throughout the rest of the Southeast.
Former Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, I-HI, told FOX News this weekend that the Biden-Harris FEMA providing “hundreds of millions of dollars to illegal immigrants” is a “slap in the face to these Americans” struggling to survive in the aftermath of Helene.
Shortly before reports of FEMA’s migrant aid made headlines, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told reporters that “FEMA does not have the funds to make it through the [hurricane] season.”
Mayorkas is the Biden-Harris cabinet secretary responsible for overseeing FEMA.
“Meanwhile these people have lost their homes,” Gabbard stressed. “They’ve lost their vehicles, they’ve lost their businesses, and they’re wondering how they’re going to get by to tomorrow.”