Ouch!

Howard Kurtz slaps the major media:

The fact that most of those left behind in the New Orleans flood were poor and black is being treated by the press as a stunning revelation--"A National Shame," as Newsweek's cover put it.

But not exactly a national secret. . . .

This is not a story, like whether Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, that was difficult to get at. But journalists rarely venture into impoverished neighborhoods these days, except for quick-hit features. When a woman from one of these communities goes missing, it doesn't attain the status of a Natalee Holloway drama. . . .

The media have had a fine old time ridiculing Michael Brown, who quit last week as head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, as a former Arabian horse expert with no background for the job. And as The Post reported, five of the agency's top eight officials came to their posts with virtually no experience in handling disasters. But why did journalists never get around to pointing this out in the past? Why are agencies such as FEMA never covered until disaster strikes?

Ripping the media is like shooting ducks in a bathtub...just too damn easy.