From WNYC in New York, this is On the Media. I'm Bob Garfield.

And I'm Brooke Gladstone. This week marks the 10th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina that led to more than 1,800 deaths and the kind of coverage the TV news lives for.

Reporters in raincoats shouting over the gals.

All right. This is where we're going to take refuge to try to shoot some tape.

The winds are really kicking.

Anchors condemning government officials who botched relief efforts.

Where the hell is the water for these people? Why can't sandwiches be dropped to those people that are in that super dome down there?

I mean, what is going?

This is Thursday.

This is Thursday.

This storm happened five days ago.

It's a disgrace, and don't think the world isn't watching.

Media people who spoke our outrage, who spoke our shame.

This is Dante's Inferno, Bill.

This is the most horrible thing I've ever seen in a civilized nation.

This is 30,000 people with dead babies inside.

That's not hype.

That's fact.

They didn't always speak fact.

While covering Katrina's horrific aftermath, the media often perpetrated myths about what was going on in the streets and the gathering places for the displaced, like the Superdome in New Orleans.

Police say there have been rapes and beatings, and now people are dying. There's no way to know how many.

And in fact, those claims were never corroborated, but they had consequences.

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