For example, it was initially reported that violent gangs roamed the Superdome, raping little children and killing people and that 30-40 bodies piled up in a freezer in the Convention center.

After closer examination, the reports have been found false. 

The article quotes Henry W. Fischer III, director of the Center for Disaster Research and Education at Millersville University of Pennsylvania who said, "The bigger and more diffuse the disaster, the more the gatekeeping function of the media fails in the rush to get the story out."

The reports by evacuees on "The Opra Winfrey Show" about dead bodies and gang rapes have also been found to be false. The New Orleans Police Department has no substantiated reports of rapes - no victims and no eyewitnesses. In total, there were 10 bodies found and removed from the Superdome. Four were brought in from the streets and the remaining six died at the Dome (four from natural causes, one from a drug overdose and one from an apparent suicide.)

The article is available for purchase from The Chattanooga Times Free Press Site. But in seeking to find you a no-cost source of information on this subject, I found a blog on the Columbia Journalism Review site - http://www.cjrdaily.org/archives/001861.asp . It links to an LA Times article which outlines the extent of the media's fiction turned fact.

Guess it just goes to show you that you can't always believe what you read...or hear...or see... in the media.