ABSTRACT
Academic studies and subsequent analyses—indeed, work by the very journalists involved—demonstrate that the coverage at times was incomplete or off-target, sometimes factually inaccurate and perhaps even insensitive. Many correspondents wrote of the continued suffering of those whose homes and lives were destroyed in the storms and stressed the need for journalism to tell these stories to the American people. In the case of the Gulf Coast hurricanes—with circumstances dictating that the public was forced to rely on journalism, to find out what was happening the media seem to have been effective. Whether media exposure caused the psychological symptoms or whether people with such symptoms turn to media coverage in an effort to cope, the important point is that they depended on journalism to provide what they needed. In the case of the Gulf Coast hurricanes—with circumstances dictating that the public was forced to rely on journalism to find out what was happening the media seem to have been effective.
