Early network television coverage of Hurricane Katrina was a narrative of good versus evil. TV news placed itself in the role of hero fighting the evil that was government ineptitude. This narrative style of reporting is especially fitting to the medium of television, which shapes all stories to fit its parameters, and is common in natural disaster stories, which are, ultimately, stories not about nature but about people.
Bird, S. Elizabeth. (1996). CJ’s revenge: Media, folklore, and the cultural construction of AIDS. Critical Studies in Mass Communication, 13, 44-58.
2.
Bird, S. Elizabeth, & Dardenne, Richard. (1988). Myth, chronicle and story: Exploring the narrative qualities of news. In J. Carey (Ed.), Media, myths, and narratives: Television and the press (pp. 67-86). Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
3.
Fry, Katherine. (2003). Constructing the heartland: Television news and natural disaster. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press.
4.
Working with nature. (2002, June 28). The New Orleans Times-Picayune, p. 6.