EL OTRO DÍA estaba leyendo esta información de Reuters (via Alenda Lux) sobre la violencia desatada en las calles de Nueva Orleans tras el Katrina, y me llamó la atención ver párrafos como este que describe la situación en el centro de convenciones:

"There is rapes going on here. Women cannot go to the bathroom without men. They are raping them and slitting their throats. They keep telling us the buses are coming but they never leave," she said through tears.

Escribo que me llamó la atención porque esta y otras frases del artículo ya las había oído de forma casi literal en casi todos los medios de comunicación, y con ese tono de desesperanza de quien ha visto una salvajada con sus propios ojos. Los medios podrían estar limitando a repetir lo que dice el despacho de agencia por pereza informativa o incompetencia, que en el caso de los medios de comunicación casi viene a ser lo mismo.

Pero entonces se lo oí decir en unas declaraciones en TV a Lourdes Muñoz, la diputada del PSC que durante varios días estuvo haciendo una llamada telefónica tras otra a la Cadena SER, a Canal+ y a Catalunya Radio, explicando que las condiciones eran tan duras allí que no se podía hacer llamadas telefónicas. Y pensé que a veces, en situaciones confusas y con tanta tensión, la realidad se mezcla con los rumores. Ahora, gracias a Ellroy, leo este artículo de The Guardian (donde, como sabéis, le ríen todas las gracias a Bush porque cobran un sobre de la Casa Blanca todos los meses):

There were two babies who had their throats slit. The seven-year-old girl who was raped and murdered in the Superdome. And the corpses laid out amid the excrement in the convention centre.

In a week filled with dreadful scenes of desperation and anger from New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina some stories stood out.

But as time goes on many remain unsubstantiated and may yet prove to be apocryphal.

New Orleans police have been unable to confirm the tale of the raped child, or indeed any of the reports of rapes, in the Superdome and convention centre.

New Orleans police chief Eddie Compass said last night: "We don't have any substantiated rapes. We will investigate if the individuals come forward."

And while many claim they happened, no witnesses, survivors or survivors' relatives have come forward.

Nor has the source for the story of the murdered babies, or indeed their bodies, been found. And while the floor of the convention centre toilets were indeed covered in excrement, the Guardian found no corpses.

During a week when communications were difficult, rumours have acquired a particular currency. They acquired through repetition the status of established facts.

One French journalist from the daily newspaper Libération was given precise information that 1,200 people had drowned at Marion Abramson school on 5552 Read Boulevard. Nobody at the Federal Emergency Management Agency or the New Orleans police force has been able to verify that.

But then Fema could not confirm there were thousands of people at the convention centre until they were told by the press for the simple reason that they did not know.

"Katrina's winds have left behind an information vacuum. And that vacuum has been filled by rumour.

"There is nothing to correct wild reports that armed gangs have taken over the convention centre," wrote Associated Press writer, Allen Breed.

"You can report them but you at least have to say they are unsubstantiated and not pass them off as fact," said one Baltimore-based journalist.

"But nobody is doing that."

Seguid leyendo, hay más.