As a journalism student, it surprises a lot of people when I tell them I don't watch CNN or Fox News regularly. I'll be the first to admit I'm something of a news snob -- I like it in printed form, with the commercials reserved to a portion of the page I can glance at and ignore.
In those rare moments when I do seek the televised news media, I usually flip to C-SPAN. If you've never given it a chance because it looks boring, you should seriously give it a try.
Senators may start to become strangely attractive, and you might be surprised at what some of them say.
It's not too hard to find something incredibly interesting -- like the Congressional hearings investigating the effects of Hurricane Katrina on New Orleans.
As I packed for winter vacation in early December, I turned to C-SPAN for what I thought would be another informative speech on the transportation system in America or the author of the latest book on some obscure 18th century figure.
Instead, I saw a panel of black leaders from the New Orleans community talking about their post-Katrina experiences. I watched transfixed, following both of the sessions that I could find, and later looked up transcripts where I could find them.
One woman was describing how a white national guardsman pointed his gun at her child, aiming the red dot on the forehead and laughing.
Another was talking about the contrasts in how insurance companies treated black and white landowners.
Several claimed to hear explosions before the levees broke. One gentleman, whose friend was a reputable engineering expert, said he could not give a logical explanation for why the levees broke where they did.
My personal favorite moment was when lifelong New Orleans resident Dylan French Cole, known casually in the community as Mama D, nearly got into a fistfight with Rep. Christopher Shays (R-CT) after he insinuated that she was lying about her claims of witnessing the levee explosion.
It wasn't the only time a member of Congress made it clear that they thought the members of the panel were lying, or exaggerating.
I sat riveted, watching two completely different groups of people trying to come to terms with the many questions still unanswered after a disaster that transcended political boundaries.
Over the next few days, I searched the Internet archives of news programs to see if they had done any broadcasts on Mama D and company. Out of the major networks, I could only find that CBS and ABC had devoted a segment to the hearings. Upon reading the transcripts, my heart sank.
Most, if not all, of the talk about the levees had been removed and the pieces focused only on racism at its most surface level.
I tried to watch talk shows and the cable news channels once I returned home. I saw Bill O'Reilly railing against those who dared to use the phrase "Happy Holidays" rather than "Merry Christmas," and smugly bidding farewell to his outgoing guests with the latter.
I saw some guy in a bow tie on MSNBC offer an uneducated opinion on why concern about overpopulation was ridiculous.
I saw a bunch of 60-year-old men and a few media representatives arguing over obscenity standards on television. Yes, the burning fire that is the Janet Jackson nipple incident can still be seen through the fog of the War on Christmas.
In the meantime, no one seemed to be even remotely suggesting that someone should take a look at those levees and see what really happened, beyond digging up a few old requests for funds that were never answered.
To my knowledge, few follow-up stories have been done. And so another tragedy fades into American history as late night talk show hosts make their last "edgy" jokes about Michael Brown and FEMA, waiting for the next crisis-of-the-hour.
And no one stops to wonder. When journalists stop seeking out the voices of the marginalized, who else can turn our eyes towards true injustice, perceived or real? Does valuing objectivity require ignoring humanity?
The trailing headlines at the bottom of every news hour, in between stock prices and weather reports, beg one ultimate question: What else are we missing?
Ben Horowitz is a journalism junior. Reach him at benjamin.horowitz@asu.edu.
