Are the national media giving Baton Rouge's natural disaster short shrift?
Advocate (excerpt)

EDITORIAL

A story this week in The New York Times chronicled the lingering power outages in the Baton Rouge area long after Hurricane Gustav had passed. It was a notable exception to the relatively low profile Baton Rouge has experienced in the national media since the hurricane struck.

Are the national media giving Baton Rouge’s natural disaster short shrift? The U.S. Conference of Mayors concluded as much in a Sept. 5 statement accusing the national media of ignoring Baton Rouge’s plight. The statement was issued jointly by conference President Manny Diaz, who is the mayor of Miami, conference Executive Director Tom Cochran and Baton Rouge Mayor-President Kip Holden. “The nation’s mayors are calling on the national news media not to lose sight of this tragic and desperate situation,” the statement said.

No one needs to convince us that Baton Rouge and many other parts of Louisiana have suffered greatly in this storm. But to the credit of our communities, residents, for the most part, have met these challenges in a spirit of cooperation. Perhaps that relative lack of conflict has enabled the national media to forget us more easily.