Media restricted from covering Hurricane Ike’s devastation.


Yesterday in a local report on KTRK-TV in Houston, TX, reporter Wayne Dolcefino revealed that media have been blocked from covering Hurricane Ike’s devastation. In a press conference, Dolcefino pressed Gov. Rick Perry on why media aren’t even allowed to fly over parts of Galveston Island, noting that media access was far better in Mississippi and Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina. Perry tried to brush off Dolcefino’s concerns, but eventually passed blame to federal officials:

DOLCEFINO: That is unprecedented and quite honestly not appropriate because it’s our job to inform people. Why can’t we go to Bolivar and West End?

PERRY: I think when the local officials decide it was appropriate, whether it’s the media or first responders or what have you. The fact of the matter, that is actually a local decision, Wayne, that is made by the local county judge and by the mayor of those —

DOLCEFINO: They don’t control that area.

PERRY: Last time, the state of Texas does not’t even.

DOLCEFINO: So it’s the federal government?

PERRY: I don’t know.



http://thinkprogress.org/2008/09/15/hurric... /


I watched as all three local networks televised about this media blackout... The worst hit sections of Bolivar, Crystal, Gilcrest, High Island, Orange and others were being blacked out, not Galveston per se.... Since this storm hit us in Houston, I have had my local news turned on day and night... For two days it was a radio...