Galveston officials restrict media access

[maddezmom]

Galveston officials restrict media access

05:42 AM CDT on Tuesday, September 16, 2008

By Rhiannon Meyers / The Daily News

GALVESTON — Mayor Lyda Ann Thomas on Monday ordered all city employees not to talk to news reporters. She did not say when that order would be lifted.

Thomas and City Manager Steve LeBlanc will be the only officials allowed to talk to reporters. City spokeswoman Mary Jo Naschke vehemently denied the city was trying to clamp down on coverage.

~snip~

It’s the worst thing the city could do. Those who will suffer most are evacuees,” Publisher Dolph Tillotson said in a statement via text message. “The media will have to turn to other sources that might be less reliable. I can’t imagine a dumber move under these extreme circumstances.”

~snip~
Reporters staying at the city’s emergency operations center at the San Luis Hotel were asked to leave Monday. San Luis hotel owner Tilman Fertitta was housing reporters at the nearby Hilton Hotel, which he also owns.

Reporters would be allowed on the island only if they had proper identification, Thomas said. She didn’t clarify what that meant.

Reporters were also forbidden from visiting areas on the far West End, Thomas said. She did not explain why.



more:http://www.khou.com/topstories/stories/khou080916_tnt_galveston_media.7f735fbe.html

[sonias]

1. The news reports are not good

I wonder if the mayor is following some kind of Perry press doctrine. It doesn't make it look good when you restrict the media. What do you have to hide?

Here's one story from the Bolivar Peninsula that's making the rounds this morning:

AAS 9/16/08
Man stricken with loss when rescue never came
By ALLEN G. BREED
AP National Writer

GILCHRIST, Texas — Shell-shocked, hungry and still reeling from the loss of a woman who'd clung to rafters with him against the full fury of Hurricane Ike, Bobby Anderson limped off ravaged Bolivar Peninsula in a pickup truck reclaimed from the gulf.

"I'm hoping they find her alive or well," a dazed Anderson said Monday night after emerging from the darkness across the debris-littered road that led past rows of beach houses scoured clean by the storm.

Anderson refused to identify the woman swept away before his eyes when Ike raked this barrier island Saturday, except to say she was the girlfriend of a former employee. But he showed no such restraint when it came to his bitterness over a rescue that never happened and post-storm help that never came.

"What assistance?" the 56-year-old home designer and builder said from the cab of his battered black Chevy. "I mean, there's helicopters landing there every day. They don't bring food OR water. I mean, you know, old Gov. Rick (Perry) dropped the ball on this one."

Same man is mentioned in this Yahoo News story

Yahoo News 9/16/08
Ike survivors may wait weeks for hot meals, baths
(snip)
Bolivar Peninsula is home to about 30,000 people during the peak summer season, but after scouring almost all of the western end of the peninsula by nightfall Monday, officials said they had found no dead. But Reed said he had spoken with residents who weren't able to find fellow holdouts after the storm, and he feared their bodies might turn up as the waters recede.

Home designer and builder Bobby Anderson limped off the peninsula late Monday in a pickup truck battered by the storm, saying Ike swept out to sea a woman who had clung with him to a building's rafters. When asked to describe their ordeal, he refused.

"I'd really rather not," Anderson said.

Ike's death toll officially stood at 40 Tuesday, with most of the deaths coming outside of Texas. Among those killed in the state were at least three people who died from carbon monoxide poisoning after using generators.

Sonia

[kath]

4. sonias, could you please post this post (and your next one) to GD?

This really needs to get out there.

How many were swept out to sea, like the poor woman who hung onto those rafters with Mr. Anderson??

[sonias]

2. Hurricane Ike Media Blackout, Rick Perry Blames Others

Burnt Orange Report Diary 9/15/08
Hurricane Ike Media Blackout, Rick Perry Blames Others

by: Matt Glazer
Mon Sep 15, 2008 at 05:00 PM CDT

Houston journalists are irate and concerned as a total media blackout occurred in the wake of Hurricane Ike. It's good to see the media on the ground stand up to Perry and the emergency management on the ground.

Think Progress wrote:

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.

Vince at Capitol Annex added this yesterday when the rumors began bubbling about Perry's inability to manage the situation.

Dolcefino went on to compare the media's lack of access to the situation in Myanmar, where the media was denied access to many areas hit hard by disaster there.

In addition, some sources tell Capitol Annex that local government leaders and some legislators have already begun to criticize both the state response and FEMA's response to Ike, although none of that has been covered by the media yet.

More stories of the media blackout.

Sonia

[kath]

3. Where the hell are we? Communist Russia?

What about that old FIRST (ie, of prime importance) Amendment thing about freedom of the press??

Jeebus H. Christ.

[kath]

5. maddezmom, you and/or sonias need to post this stuff on GD.

[maddezmom]

6. Galveston mayor says recovery faster than expected

Galveston mayor says recovery faster than expected
© 2008 The Associated Press
Sept. 18, 2008, 6:32PM
Share Print Email Del.icio.usDiggTechnoratiYahoo! BuzzGALVESTON, Texas — Mayor Lyda Ann Thomas says recovery efforts on Galveston island are ahead of schedule, despite the crippling blow dealt by Hurricane Ike.

"The city of Galveston is not in ruins," Thomas said Thursday. "We will rebuild stronger, smarter than ever before."

Thomas urged residents to stay away at least until next week and acknowledged the delay is frustrating.

~snip~

Thomas conceded in an interview with The Galveston County Daily News that owners of some businesses not essential to the recovery had gotten in. But she said that was the result of decisions made by police at checkpoints — not by city officials.

Thomas also was criticized for insisting earlier this week that only she and City Manager Steve LeBlanc could field questions from reporters. That led to complaints from media and residents that too little information was being provided.

"It was a matter of time and nothing else," Thomas told the newspaper. "There was so much swirling around, so many decisions. We had a lot to do, and there was no other reason."

That policy has been rescinded.


more:http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/tx/6010118.html