A journalist talks about news coverage of the Haiti earthquake

Amanda Ripley, Time magazine reporter and article of a great book, The Unthinkable, provides this extremely useful analysis of the news coverage of "looting" that followed the Haiti earthquake. This piece offers perspective and balance that can help social scientists and journalists understand each other. What interests me is the extent to which other journalists fail to call on social science expertise when trying to understand the social effects and meanings of disaster. Journalists, I think, tend to go with government or other "authority" figures, many of which are often equally, if not more likely, to propagate rumors and myths.