Winfrey's Daytime Talk Show Boldly Reveals Disturbing New Details About the Crises in New Orleans and Elsewhere
Winfrey could only scream in horror: "No! No! No! Nooo! I had not heard that!"
Last week was a bad one for broadcast television as its news divisions slipped woefully behind the three cable news
networks in their coverage of the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina throughout Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama and the heartbreaking, infuriating aftermath, especially in the city of New Orleans.
But the individual who is arguably the most influential in broadcast television stepped up to this story yesterday as Oprah Winfrey presented the first of a two-part series devoted to what she calls the Katrina
Catastrophe. It was an hour as compelling, revealing and emotionally devastating as any produced on or for any network since this ever-expanding crisis began.
Winfrey's daily show is part of the Viacom television empire but she is most closely associated with ABC because so many of its stations run her program and because the network telecasts the television
movies she produces. Accordingly, either CBS or ABC would be wise to run her two shows about Katrina in prime time, because Winfrey has found new ways to frame the mammoth horror of this experience and present it in an informative if freshly overwhelming manner.
I feared the worst at the start of yesterday's show, when Winfrey said that after watching the news coverage last week about Katrina and feeling increasingly helpless "like all of you" she decided to take
action and "called a few friends" to participate — including Jamie Foxx, Julia Roberts, Chris Rock, John Travolta and Lisa Marie Presley. Surely she wasn't putting together another grand celebrity soapbox at a time like this?
Those who are most thoroughly fed up with watching multi-millionaire celebrities attach themselves to causes and explain to the masses how the world should be run could likely find something to grumble
about in her Katrina programs, but overall my fears proved groundless. Segments showing actors Jamie Foxx and Matthew McConaughey helping people in Dallas and Zachary, Louisiana, respectively, actually
contributed little to the show and were respectfully brief. Part two, scheduled for today (Wednesday Sept. 7), promises similar appearances by Julia Roberts, John Travolta, Lisa Marie Presley and Chris Rock.
Winfrey deserves much credit for bringing certain details about the crisis, some of them new, to public attention, and for
daring to show things that most people would likely rather not see. She was obviously determined to share the horror of it all and she succeeded.
Tuesday's hour opened with Winfrey positioned high up in the Houston Astrodome, with thousands of evacuees visible far below her on the field, declaring to viewers, "I can tell you this. Even if you have been
watching the news and reading the headlines you have no idea what happened here. Nothing I saw on television prepared me for what I experienced on the ground. It is a travesty." Her words proved to be understatements. During the interview with New Orleans police chief Eddie Compass
that followed, he wasted no time in revealing what may have been the ultimate horror last week in the hellhole that was the Superdome. He began to cry as he talked about babies being raped inside and the helplessness he felt not having enough men to stop such unspeakable violence.
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Winfrey could only scream in horror: "No! No! No! Nooo! I had not heard that!"
New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin also became overwhelmed with emotion as he recalled the atrocities of recent days. After
telling Winfrey, "People were trying to give us babies who were dying," he walked away, unable to continue.
Then it was Winfrey's turn to break down. "This makes me mad!" she cried. "This should not have happened!"
Winfrey later insisted that Nagin take her into the biohazard known as the Superdome.
"I don't advise you to go in the Superdome," Nagin warned.
"I want to go in and see for myself!" Winfrey responded.
"No, you don't," Nagin said.
A member of the National Guard warned Winfrey that it was unsafe even to open the doors of the building. Nagin finally agreed to let her in but insisted that she relieve the city of "all liability." She was
advised to cover her nose and mouth and to wash thoroughly after leaving the Superdome. Several Guardsmen accompanied Winfrey and her crew inside.
Nothing in the Superdome was shown in close up (Winfrey spoke of the urine, feces and frightening darkness), but
there were numerous close up horrors to come later in the show. Many came courtesy of Dr. Mehmet Oz, a member of what Winfrey calls her "Angel Network Team," who was shown examining survivors with severe
injuries and dead bodies in the street, providing unusually graphic details about what was happening to all of them.
Designer Nate Berkus, another "Angel Network Team" member and a survivor of last December's tsunami, was
shown moving about the outskirts of Louisiana. In an emotional highlight of the hour, he came upon a young man who refused to part with his beloved dog, as so many evacuees have been made to do. With them was another man who had been stranded on his roof and saved by the young man
and the dog. When Berkus offered to take the dog back to Baton Rouge where he was staying and promised to take care of him until he could be reunited with his owner, all three men began to weep. Winfrey herself — a well-known
dog lover — was also brought to tears once again.
The first hour ended with Winfrey asserting, "This country owes these people an apology." She really should have clarified her statement and used the word "government" instead of "country," because
it is the people of this country who responded with universal grief and outrage last week while so many state and national political officials shamefully stumbled and bumbled, and who are now busy in all fifty states
contributing money, supplies, time and physical effort to various relief efforts on behalf of the people and animals who
have lost so much. It is a magnificent outpouring of compassion and concern, two life-affirming virtues Winfrey continuously calls for and celebrates on her program.
