News, Myth and Social Order
News, Myth and Social Order:
The Myth of the Flood in The New York Times
Jack Lule
Department of Journalism & Communication
29 Trembley Drive UC-29
Lehigh University
Bethlehem, PA 18015
(610)758-4177
[log in to unmask]
Qualitative Studies Division
The Association for Education in Journalism & Mass Communication
August 1999
ABSTRACT
News, Myth and Social Order:
The Myth of the Flood in The New York Times
Tales of great floods have been told in many societies. The purpose of this
paper is to study news coverage of the 1998 Central American floods through the
framework of myth. The paper first briefly discusses myth and archetypal
stories. After touching upon the long literature on news and myth, the paper
takes up the archetypal story of the flood. It explores the ways that myth may
provide insights into New York Times coverage of the Central American disaster.
It asks: To what extent can myth explain or illuminate news reporting of the
floods? More broadly, what insights can archetypes and myth bring to the study
of news?
News, Myth and Social Order:
The Myth of the Flood in The New York Times
The Choctaw tribe of North America told of a time when total darkness covered
the earth. Tribal leaders searched endlessly for daylight. Finally, a light was
seen in the north. The tribe rejoiced but a few families understood danger could
be found in the light as well as the dark. They built a great raft. The light
was revealed to be the headwaters of a huge flood that carried off the tribe,
except for the wise families on the raft who created the tribe anew.
Chief priests and elders of Inca taught their people about the demise of the
Pachachama era. It was a time of corruption and barbarity. Only two humble
shepherds and their families remained true to their gods. The shepherds were
warned by llamas that a great flood was approaching. The shepherds and their
families sought refuge on the highest mountain. They watched as the world below
was subsumed beneath the waters.
Genesis tells the story of Noah and the ark. The Lord saw that wickedness and
corruption was great on the earth. But Noah, a good man, found favor with the
Lord. The Lord told Noah to build an ark and to fill the ark with living things.
Then, the floodgates of the sky were opened and rain fell upon the earth for
forty days and forty nights. Only Noah, his family and those living in the ark
survived.
The New York Times told how Central American was devastated in late 1998. Great
poverty plagued many nations. Impoverished people erected poorly built homes in
areas dangerously close to rivers or precariously perched on mountain slopes,
areas forsaken by the wealthier classes and corporations. The nations' leaders
looked away. A hurricane came from the east. Rain fell for days. Floods and
great mountains of mud swept away entire villages. Thousands of people died. The
scene was a vision out of Dante, a deluge of Biblical proportions, the Times
reported. "It's a punishment from God," said an elderly Honduran carpenter on
the front page of the Times.[1]
Tales of great floods have been told in many societies. The tales have a
remarkable similarity across centuries, continents and cultures. They are
stories of birth and renewal, death and apocalypse. They portray people who have
done grave wrong, people who have sinned against their gods, people who have
strayed from the right path. They depict gods or fabulous forces of nature that
punish and purify. They culminate, always, with the same image: the devastating,
cleansing waters that sweep away a people.[2]
Our society calls the flood tale of other societies: "myth." Our society calls
the flood tale of The New York Times: "news." This paper is about connections
between news and myth. It suggests that similarities between flood myths and
news stories are just one example of a much larger phenomenon. It suggests that
myth has taken modern form in the news, that age-old tales and ageless
archetypes live on in the stories of news. And it suggests that those mythic
stories can play important social roles on the national and international stage.
The specific purpose of this paper is to study news coverage of the 1998
Central American floods through the framework of myth. The paper will first
briefly discuss myth and archetypal stories. After touching upon the long
literature on news and myth, the paper will take up the archetypal story of the
flood. It will explore the ways the myth may provide insights into New York
Times coverage of the Central American disaster. To what extent can myth explain
or illuminate news reporting of the floods? More broadly, what insights can
archetypes and myth bring to the study of news?
Fundamental stories
Storytelling seems fundamental to human life. Every society has left evidence
of stories. Humans apparently make sense of the world and their time in it
through stories.
Some stories appear fundamental to human life. Astonishingly similar folk
tales, legends and myths can be found across cultures and eras. Some
anthropologists have been convinced that direct connections among these stories
can be traced. They argue that neighboring societies borrow ideas, custom,
tools, recipes - and stories - from one another. They point out that great
cultural centers of the ancient world were often great trading centers. Stories,
they say, were traded too. Stories were part of an overall process of
diffusion.[3]
Early psychiatrists and psychologists, however, argued differently. Freud and
Jung, in particular, noted similarities between folk tales, myths and dreams.
How could a seven-year-old girl, an unlikely candidate for diffusion, have
dreams with symbols and motifs taken from ancient stories? Jung was especially
intrigued. He pointed out that humans were born with bodily organs that had long
evolutionary histories. He believed that the human mind too had its own
evolutionary history. This "collective unconscious," Jung said, contains
powerful, primordial patterns - archetypes - that can lead to creations of
universal symbols, characters and stories.[4]
Definitive answers about fundamental stories are not likely to be established
by the anthropological or psychological schools. Perhaps the best answer bears a
bit of both. Some stories do seem to be fundamental to humans, probably based on
the shared experiences of being human. People are born into an almost infinite
variety of circumstances. Yet we still share some experiences. We share birth,
the entry into the world as small and helpless babies. We share infancy and hazy
images from childhood. We often have families or relationships with
mother-figures and father-figures. We have feelings of love, hate, anger,
compassion, jealousy and joy. We have bodily, natural sensations of hunger and
thirst. We need to sleep. We need to move. We produce and understand, tell and
retell, stories based on these experiences. And these stories sometimes are
shared and spread across cultures and eras.
These stories can indeed be understood in terms of "archetypes." But we can
use the word in its original, broader meaning without the Jungian theory.
Archetypes are original figures or frameworks, powerful patterns, models to
imitate and adapt. The fundamental stories of humankind derive from archetypes
and give form to the archetypes. The flood that destroys and cleanses human
society is an archetypal story. The hero who sets out on a quest is an
archetypal story. Born from universally understood archetypes, such stories can
have particular power.
Stories thus assert their own influence. Stories shape storytelling. As writers
and societies attempt to understand and express their experience of the world,
they sometimes consciously and unconsciously draw upon the special stories, the
commonly shared, universally understood stock of stories born from archetypes.
They draw from within themselves and within their societies. A person may never
have been told or taught the story of the flood. But the person has experiences
- with the unpredictable forces of nature or with driving rain and wild winds or
with sensations of being submerged in bath or pool, lake or ocean. And the
person can be led by those experiences to understand, and perhaps to tell, the
story of the flood.
Myth: sacred and social stories
Not all archetypal stories are myths, however. Archetypes influence much
storytelling, from the imaginative play of children to day dreams to romance
novels to Shakespearean plays.[5] Myths are archetypal stories - that play
crucial social roles.
Storytelling seems fundamental to social life. Through stories, a group of
people define themselves. They tell stories of their origins. They tell stories
of what they believe and do not believe. They tell stories of evildoers who
threaten the group. They draw from the archetypal stories to pass onto their
children their ways of life, love, worship and work. These societal stories
attain sacred status. They become accepted and assumed. They narrate and
illustrate shared beliefs, values and ideals. They are myths. Myth has been
classified and defined in numerous ways. But some basic principles can be
established. For the purposes of this paper, myth is defined, somewhat stiffly,
as a sacred, societal story, that draws from archetypal figures and forms, to
offer exemplary models and meaning for human life.
Because myths draw upon the archetypal stories of humankind, because myths are
traded and diffused across cultures and eras, it is not surprising that similar
myths recur in myriad societies. Indeed, some myths appear to be almost
universally told. Myths of floods, heroes, good mothers, tyrannical fathers and
murdered children recur, with amazing similarities, across many societies and
times.
For example, anthropologist Stith Thompson worked for decades on the
wonderfully convoluted, multi-volume Motif-Index of Folk-Literature, first
published in the 1930s.[6] The first section harbors hundreds of categories and
thousands of myths. Bibliographical references point to published versions of a
myth across cultures and centuries. A0 to A99 classifies myths of the creator.
A100 to A599 identifies myths of gods and demigods. A600 to A899 contains myths
of cosmogony and cosmology - the universe, heavens and earth. Subcategories
abound. A1000 to A1099 classifies myths of world calamities. Beneath this, A1010
organizes myths of the deluge or flood. Beneath this, A1012 is the flood from
tears. A1018 is the flood as punishment - the very theme echoed by The New York
Times in 1998 reports from Central America.
Other scholars have resisted the accounting attractions of such indexing. But
they also have recognized and identified recurring myths. Frazer compiled
thousands of myths in The Golden Bough. Campbell analyzed the many appearances
of the hero myth in The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Eliade studied stories of
origins and creations in Patterns in Comparative Religion.[7] These compilations
do not gather simple stock characters, such as the mother or the king. They do
not gather narrative formulas, such as mother harms child or king kills rival.
They compile myths: sacred stories that draw upon the archetypal stories of
humankind, to offer models, morals and meaning for their societies.
News: the latest echo
The indexers and chroniclers attest: No society exists without myth. Our
society is no different. And scholars have worked for decades to argue that news
stories can be understood as the modern recurrence of myth. News, they say, is
the latest echo of stories uttered long ago. Like myth-tellers of every age,
journalists draw from the archetypal stories of humankind to describe and make
sense of the world. These myths are more than the story structures and
journalism conventions noted by Darnton, Schudson, Eason and others who have
studied narrative forms in the news.[8] They are sacred, societal stories with
shared values and beliefs, with lessons and themes, with exemplary models that
instruct and inform.
Studies of news and myth have come from a varied, eclectic group of scholars.
Barthes, McLuhan and others provided important conceptual background.[9] Myth
became an important conceptual element in American and British cultural studies
and researchers have adopted myth to study news coverage of political
discourse, terrorism, assassinations, labor disputes, social movements, South
African elections, presidential addresses, the Titanic, modern films, and other
topics.[10] They argue that, consciously or unconsciously, journalists cast
modern experience in terms of myth.
There is no need to overstate the case for mythic stories in the news. Many
news stories have no relation to myth. Many news stories are derived from simple
narrative forms and professional conventions: official gives speech; home team
wins; fire destroys building. Sometimes, a fire story is just a fire story. But
sometimes, in describing some experience, in reporting some event, reporters and
editors draw upon a fundamental story of earthly existence, a universal and
shared story of humankind. Sometimes, news becomes myth. But why? It is a
process that arises from and exists in a particular social order.
News, myth and social order
Myth is vital to social order. Myth explains and defends origins. Myth
dramatizes predominant values. Myth upholds and supports ideology and ideals. If
we understand news as myth, then we should understand the news story too as a
fundamental story that helps shape and is shaped by social order.
The term, "news story," is used often in newsrooms, classrooms and living
rooms. Some news is reported as bare information. Stock prices, sports scores
and vote tallies, for example, can be reported in tables, tickers and boxes. But
almost all other news is presented as stories. A local hero returns as an
international success. The president battles Congress over the budget. An aging
baseball player, facing the end of his career, finds the spirit and strength to
succeed once more. A fire leaves a local family homeless.
Such stories do not arrive fully formed on the dusty computer screens of
journalists, though journalists sometimes wish they would. As the newsmaking
literature has long demonstrated, stories are shaped by many social forces.[11]
Editors and reporters make sure they have a mutual understanding of "the story."
Colleagues may suggest their own interpretations. Expectations of the publisher
may be well known in the newsroom. Previous stories found in databases or
clippings files have influence. Conventions and traditions, such as inverted
pyramid leads and codes of objectivity, guide research and writing. Sources have
their own view of the story. Questions asked by competing reporters are noted.
Expectations of the audience and long-terms circulation goals can be considered.
Through all these fixtures and forces, the established social order - accepted
and assumed ways of understanding - shapes the news story and provides the
context in which the individual news story becomes myth. As myth, news can be
understood as one of the central ways that social order is enacted, expressed,
depicted and portrayed. As myth, news defends origins, upholds ideology and
dramatizes values. As myth, news supports the established hierarchy, accepts
authority, assumes property relations, degrades dissent and maintains the status
quo. Journalists draw upon the fundamental stories, consciously and
unconsciously, to sanction and support social order.
This perspective has a broad view of stories and social order. It does not
offer news - or myth - in narrow political or ideological terms. With each
passing election, news does not change from Democratic to Republican, liberal to
conservative, left to right and back. Social order is more deeply entrenched.
For example, U.S. news can be expected to uphold the party system, rather than
specific parties. News can be expected to accept and assume the free market
system, rather than particular monetary policies. News, as myth, will support
the order of things.
As myth, news also supports social order by engaging personal, social and
spiritual worlds. As myth, the stories of news offer structure, continuity,
instruction and understanding. The stories of news offer meaning, distraction,
consolation and confirmation. As myth, news can also be understood as a symbolic
act fundamental to human lives.
This paper hopes to contribute to discussions of news, myth and social order.
It looks at news coverage of an event that seemed to resonate with mythic
overtones - the 1998 Central American floods. Before turning to that news
coverage, for background and context, we turn first to the myth of the flood.
The flood
As Thompson demonstrated in his motif index, the myth of the flood has appeared
across centuries and cultures. Alan Dundes argues that "the flood myth is one of
the most widely diffused narratives known."[12] Numerous reasons have been put
forth for this wide diffusion. Some writers argue that a real, cataclysmic flood
did occur on Earth. They search still for Noah's Ark. Others find in flood myths
the human need to explain our origins. They say that we humans are mostly water.
We are born into the world on the waters of the womb. We need stories that
dramatize and explain the life that flows within us. Other scholars find that
the flood myth serves as the ultimate morality tale. They say that humans are
warned to mend their ways or the cleansing waters will come to vanquish the
world. Freudian scholars see more fundamental drives. They attribute the
prevalence of flood myths to the result of humans, in every culture and time,
dreaming with full bladders.[13]
Though the flood myth has many interpretations and permutations, some basic
characteristics can be established. 1) Flood myths almost always are based on
the premise that humankind has sinned or that people have erred or strayed from
the path of righteousness. 2) The flood comes and is complete in its
devastation. The flood does not discriminate or evaluate gradations of evil.
Entire ways of life are destroyed. 3) Humans are helpless against the power of
the flood. The flood humbles. People struggle futilely. 4) Humankind, once
purified, is regenerated and renewed. Some worthy or fortunate individuals
rebuild, solemn and chastened in the wake of the flood.
Can these characteristics and themes be found in news coverage of the 1998
Central American floods? In attempting to describe and explain the disaster, did
news stories draw upon the myth of the flood?
Myth in The New York Times
To study such questions, this paper took up coverage by The New York Times,
elite and essential for study of news and society.[14] The time period was
October 26, 1998, when the first reports on Hurricane Mitch, which spawned the
floods, appeared in the Times, to December 6, 1998, weeks after the disaster,
when the clean-up was underway and the intense coverage waned. Every Times
article, editorial, column, letter and photograph was scrutinized, some 125 news
items.
As will be shown in detail below, the study found that the myth of the flood
could indeed be found in Times coverage. All four of the myth's primary themes
played a dominant role in Times reporting. Humans were shown to have erred and
strayed from a right path. The flood came and was complete in its devastation.
Human efforts and ingenuity were helpless in the face of the flood. And in the
wake of the flood, people began the slow process of rebuilding. The myth
unfolded in its entirety.
The structure of the story, however, was somewhat different in Times coverage.
Myths often begin with the wrongdoing of the people. They show why the flood
must come. In Times coverage, reports of the devastation came first. Humanity's
futility then was shown. Survivors were found. And then, in the aftermath of the
flood, stories began to consider that the flood had come to those who had erred
or strayed. The following sections follow that structure and demonstrate the
ways in which the myth of the flood took modern form in The New York Times.
Complete devastation
A central aspect of the flood myth is that the flood's devastation is total and
complete. Descriptions of the flood emphasize its enormity. This is not a
serious storm: It is a catastrophe. Entire peoples are washed away. The earth is
laid waste. During the first days of the hurricane, even before the full
ravaging had occurred, the Times offered themes of widespread destruction. The
hurricane had paused off the Honduran coast. Floods washed out roads, downed
bridges, overflowed rivers and killed 32 people. The Times had not yet been able
to get its own reporter to the scene. But the paper used an Associated Press
report that gave over its third paragraph to a quotation of ruination: "'The
hurricane has destroyed almost everything,' said Mike Brown of Guanaja Island,
who was within miles of the eye. 'Few houses have remained standing.'"[15]
The rains continued. Floods caused mudslides that added to the destruction. On
November 1, the Times used another Associated Press account to report that
mudslides had "buried several communities near Nicaragua's northwestern border
with Honduras." The mayor told reporters that only 57 of the 2,500 people living
in 10 communities at the foot of Caistas Volcano had been accounted for. "It is
like a desert littered with buried bodies," the mayor said.[16]
On November 1, the Times finally managed to get its own reporter, Larry Rohter,
to the scene. The next day, death and destruction became front-page news.
"Intense and widespread flooding in the wake of Hurricane Mitch has killed more
than a thousand people in Central America, with hundreds more still missing,
their villages buried under huge mudslides," Rohter's report began.
His first quotation, in the fourth paragraph, emphasized the devastation. "Some
communities were completely destroyed," said Leonora Rivera, a spokeswoman for
the Nicaraguan Red Cross. She said that "the number of dead will increase
considerably once it stops raining and we can get into isolated areas." Rohter
also gave over his last words to the devastation. Gen. Rodolfo Pacheco, chief of
the Honduran Air Force, said: "This is catastrophe beyond measure. It's
incredible. The entire nation is in danger."[17]
The following day, the Times devoted much of its front page to the flood. Four
of the six columns above the fold were blanketed by a dramatic, 6x8-inch color
photograph. Taken from an aircraft, looking down from the heavens, the
photograph showed trapped residents on a tiny island of high land surrounded by
muddy waters that had risen to the top of trees. Rohter's report ran on the top
right column of the page. The second paragraph stated:
"There are corpses everywhere - victims of landslides or of the waters," Carlos
Flores Facusse, the President of Honduras, said in a grim television address
this afternoon that followed a thorough inspection tour of his stunned and
beleaguered nation of four million people. "We have before us a panorama of
death, desolation and ruin throughout the entire country."[18]
The report directly drew upon mythic references of destruction. It said,
"relief workers and evacuees, who were visibly disturbed over what they had
seen, used phrases like a 'vision out of Dante' or 'a deluge of Biblical
proportions' to describe the destruction." It concluded with the words of the
Honduran president: "The floods and landslides have erased many villages and
households from the map, as well as whole neighborhoods of cities," he said. "I
ask the international community for human solidarity."[19]
Another front-page report by Rohter emphasized the decimation. "In one way or
another, every part of Nicaragua has been devastated by the relentless floods
and landslides that followed Hurricane Mitch," the story began. It went on to
describe "a realm dominated by destruction and suffering."[20] Two days later,
another front-page report continued the theme. The lead said.
Where just a week ago there were fertile fields of corn, beans and peanuts
almost ready for harvest, there are now only discolored corpses, swelling
grotesquely in the tropical sun. Where the simple thatched houses of peasants
have always stood, all that remain are clusters of ripped and shredded clothing
and a few scattered kitchen utensils.[21]
Times reports also quoted U.S. officials who attested to the destruction of
Honduras and Nicaragua in particular. "'Those two nations have been wiped out,'
said J. Brian Atwood, head of the United States Agency for International
Development, which is overseeing the Administration's disaster relief effort in
Central America."[22] Another source said, "It's total, pure devastation. I've
never seen a human drama of that magnitude."[23]
Humanity humbled
The flood myth also emphasizes that humans are helpless in the face of the
flood. In society after society, humans come to think that they have advanced
beyond nature, that their knowledge, ingenuity and technology have inured them
to the earth's power. The flood sweeps away such hubris. Humanity is humbled.
Similarly, early Times reports suggested the capitulation of humankind to
nature's forces.
People fled coastal homes and the Honduran Government sent air force planes to
pluck residents off remote Caribbean islands today in the face of the most
powerful hurricane in a decade to threaten Central America. Thousands of people
abandoned or were evacuated from coastal regions of Belize, Mexico and Cuba.[24]
The Times offered numbers to attest to the immense power of the storm. It noted
that wind speeds reached 180 miles an hour, that 20 inches of rain could fall in
the mountains, and that the storm was listed as Category 5, making it one of the
top four storms of the century. And the Times offered more descriptions of
panicked humans fleeing towns and resorts:
The rain and winds snapped trees and sent thousands of people fleeing for
higher ground. . . . Most of the population of Belize City fled inland in cars
and Government buses. In neighboring Mexico tourists rushed to leave the resorts
of Cancun and Cozumel, where the hurricane, Mitch, is expected to hit by the end
of the week.[25]
The report was accompanied by a two-column photograph of a crying Guatemalan
child, in a bright, frilly dress, being lifted by firefighters from floodwaters.
Two days later, the image was repeated. Another photograph showed rescuers
pulling a woman from rising waters in LaCeiba, Honduras.[26]
Even the highest officials, stories said, were humbled by the flood's power.
One Times report stated, "'Not just this country, but all of Central America is
cut off,' President Arnoldo Aleman of Nicaragua said in a televised address to
his nation in which he urged vulnerable citizens to seek shelter on higher
ground. His Honduran counterpart, Carlos Flores, found himself trapped in San
Pedro Sula, an industrial city of 500,000 people that was cut off from the
capital by flooding."[27] A week later Rohter interviewed Flores, who said, "In
72 hours we lost what we had built, little by little, in 50 years." Flores
added, "In Honduras everything will be measured before and after" the
floods.[28]
Witnesses testified to their helplessness. A Times story quoted a cleric: "I
have seen earthquakes, droughts, two wars, cyclones and tidal waves," said
Miguel Cardinal Obando y Bravo, the Roman Catholic archbishop of Managua and the
nation's senior religious figure. "But this is undoubtedly the worst thing that
I have ever seen."[29]
A rescue worker emphasized the humbling powers of the flood. "'We could hear
people buried in the debris imploring us to help them,' said one shaken
resident-turned-rescue worker, who would give his name only as Nicolas. 'But
there was nothing we could do for them. It was the most impotent I have ever
felt in my life.'"[30]
The Times often portrayed relief efforts as futile. "Honduran authorities
struggled today with meager resources to deal with catastrophic damage from
torrential rains and floods," one report began. "Many families have been waiting
for days on top of their houses or perching in trees without food or water, the
officials said. 'The demand is so great and the equipment we have is so little
that we feel impotent,' said the Army Chief of Staff, Gen. Mario Hung
Pacheco."[31]
Humanity was left with prayer and beseechment. Rohter ended a "Week in Review"
essay with the words of a survivor: "'We've lived through earthquakes, a pair of
civil wars, volcanic eruptions, tidal waves and now this, all in the last 25
years,' said Maria Lourdes Rodriguez, a peasant who lives north of here. 'When
is God going to take pity on us?'"[32]
Rebuilding in the wake
Though the devastation is complete, though humanity is humbled, the flood myth
ends on notes of rebuilding and regeneration. The flood waters will be waters of
birth as well as death. Survivors emerge, grieving and chastened. Sometimes
these survivors were selected prior to the flood. They were the only good people
in the community and the gods have warned them. Sometimes the survivors simply
have been granted dispensation by fate or the gods.
The theme can be seen in numerous Times reports. One article, "1 House Left in
Sea of Mud," began, "Of 164 houses in this northwestern Nicaraguan farming
village, only one was standing today in a sea of mud that stretched as far as
the eye could see."[33] Another item told the story of Laura Isabel Arriola de
Guity, a teacher, who "reportedly drifted on a makeshift raft in the Caribbean
for six days before her rescue. Her husband and three children died."[34]
Another story began with the myth-like memories of one survivor who saw the
earth open before him:
Selvin Joynarid Perez was standing under the awning of his small house on a
bluff overlooking the Choluteca River early Saturday morning, keeping an uneasy
watch on the torrential rain and the rising waters below.
Suddenly the earth trembled, he said. He turn to run into the house to wake his
wife and 3-year-old daughter. He never made it.
"When I tried to go into the room where my wife and child were
sleeping, the earth opened up," he said.[35]
Other reports too focused on stunned survivors. Vicente Hernandez, his wife and
brother were away visiting relatives when the flood and mudslides engulfed his
village. "'We have been left with nothing but this,' he said, gesturing toward a
small plastic bag containing a few items of donated clothing that was attached
to the handlebars of a bicycle he was riding. 'Our family has been dispersed,
and a great misfortune has fallen upon us.'" The same story ended with the words
of another survivor, shocked but ready to move forward. Milton Juarez had his
farm and livestock swept away. "'Everything I had is gone, and all we have been
left with is rocks and stone,' he said as he sat on his bedraggled horse and
surveyed the destruction here. 'I'm ready to plant, but somebody has to give me
seeds. But so far, nobody has come here to help us, nobody.'"[36]
A story of a burial service offered the thoughts of a grandmother, stricken but
resigned to go on. "'There were six in that family, and now only one remains,
Isaac, the youngest son of my only daughter,' the boy's grandmother, Candida
Morales Delgado, said tearfully as the coffin was lowered into the ground. 'We
will care for him as best we can because he is all that we have left.'"[37]
More than a month after the storm, the Times suggested that survivors had begun
the process of rebuilding. In a photo essay for The New York Times Magazine,
Larry Towell captured the devastation - and regeneration.
And yet, the flood waters seem to have washed away something else - a lethargy
induced by decades of foreign economic control, along with the humiliation of
being used by the Nicaraguan contras in their war against the Sandinistas.
Honduras has been energized by the sheer effort to survive as a nation. No
matter where I look, I think I've seen the worst. But I am constantly surprised,
not just by the destruction, but also by the will of the people to overcome
it.[38]
Striking those who have strayed
A primary characteristic of the flood myth is that devastation comes to a
people who have done wrong. Detailing the wrong - defining the sin - is a
crucial and socially specific aspect of the flood myth. Were people punished for
hubris and pride? Did they erect other gods? Did men take wives for themselves,
'whomever they chose,' as in Genesis? As noted, myths often begin here. In Times
coverage, this theme did not emerge until the aftermath. The Times first
reported the disaster. Then, stories sought reasons or meanings behind the
disaster. In Times reports, people were punished for the sins of their nations
and governments. Corrupt leaders, petty politics and backward economies were the
reasons for the devastation. Such errors, the Times suggested implicitly and
explicitly, would not bedevil U.S. society.
The theme first appeared more than a week into the coverage at the end of a
report on survivors returning to destroyed towns. Though the survivors blamed
the river, the report suggested devastation had come because officials allowed
houses to be built in illegal and unsafe areas.
Several acknowledged that the houses that had rumbled down the bluff
had been illegally built in a zone where construction is prohibited.
"The reality of the thing is that it is not the Government's fault," said
Florentino Sanchez, who had spent the day digging with his bare hands for the
bodies of four children of his cousin. The mother's body was found on Tuesday.
"We never believed the river would do this," he said.[39]
Soon after, in a "Week in Review" essay, the Times again suggested the
governments were at fault. Rohter used the governments' responses to the flood
to draw comparisons among nations. His premise: a disaster "teaches a lot about
the way a society does or does not work" and "the nations of the region always
seem to respond in ways that illuminate their history and character."
Nicaragua, for instance, is still grappling with many of the same problems it
could not resolve in the 1980's, when the Sandinista National Liberation Front
was trying to fend off American-backed contra rebels in a bloody civil war. In
that polarized political climate, the relief effort here last week was hampered
by petty partisan squabbling; the conservative Government and the Sandinistas,
who are now in opposition, even disagreed over whether it would be more
appropriate to declare a "national disaster" or a "state of emergency."
Rohter compared that response with actions taken by a U.S. territory, Puerto
Rico, during a previous hurricane, Georges. "In Puerto Rico, an American
possession," Rohter said, with an interesting choice of words, "the government
leaped into action as soon as the first hurricane watch was issued."[40]
The Times returned to the theme in a 2,800-word, front-page story that looked
back on how the hurricane caused so much grief. The report acknowledged that
much of the destruction resulted because the storm moved very slowly, allowing
huge amounts of rain to fall. But the nations and people bore responsibility,
the Times said.
The freakish behavior of the storm is the major reason it caught governments
and people off guard. But the high death toll also owes something to poverty and
politics. Most working-class houses are poorly built, and many impoverished
people erect their homes, often illegally but with a wink from local
politicians, on marginal lands close to rivers or clinging to unstable mountain
slopes that have been stripped of trees.[41]
In a by-lined editorial, Tina Rosenberg focused specifically on government
policies of deforestation. "Five days of torrential rain would have caused
damage anywhere, but there would have been fewer lethal mud slides if the land
in Honduras and Nicaragua had been covered with trees," she wrote. "Trees hold
the soil together and help it absorb rain. When the land is stripped of trees,
heavy rains sweep mud and minerals into the rivers, swelling and clotting the
water and increasing its power to destroy."[42]
A letter to the editor saw government capitulation to corporations as part of
the problem, a theme not emphasized in Times coverage. It said:
The infrastructure that was destroyed was often created to meet the needs of the
military and the multinational organizations. In Honduras, which is an
oligarchy, the poor, who took the brunt of the storm, had been forced to live on
the edges of banana plantations in flood-plain shantytowns or on hillsides that
were of no economic value to the landowners. While aid efforts should continue,
this disaster provides an opportunity for issues of basic justice and land
reform to be addressed.[43]
Finally, some stories raised the theme of the flood as punishment from God. For
example, a report on survivors explicitly offered the theme of punishment. It
quoted Jose Antonio Amaya Garcia of Honduras.
"It's a punishment from God," Mr. Amaya, an elderly carpenter, said late last
week as he searched under an avalanche for what was left of his house. He is
tiny and frail in his soiled shirt and pants, the last clothing he owns. "I am
73, and I've never seen a disaster like this."[44]
An Op-Ed essay - "The Wrath of God?" - offered a similar theme. Arturo J. Cruz
Jr., a Nicaraguan professor, said that in the 17th Century the people of Leon,
Nicaragua, left the original site of the city, "believing that they were being
punished by God for the sins of their ancestors, conquerors from Spain whose
treatment of the native population was barbarous. Since then, doom has remained
an indelible component of the Nicaraguan world view. To this day, many wonder if
they have a pending 'bill' with God."[45]
Discussion: news, myth and social order
On one level, the re-telling of the flood myth in the Times reaffirms the work
of those who argue that myth has taken modern form in the news. From Eliade to
Barthes to Carey to Hall, scholars have affirmed that myth still plays an
important role in our society through the news. Times reporting shows how
naturally the particulars of myth take shape in the news. As Barthes wrote in
Mythologies: "The starting point of these reflections was usually a feeling of
impatience at the sight of the naturalness with which newspapers, art and common
sense constantly dress up a reality which, even though it is one we live in, is
undoubtedly determined by history."[46]
On a more narrow level, other insights can be gained into this mythic
examination of Times coverage. For decades, gatekeeping studies have shown that
U.S. news coverage of international affairs is dominated by stories of coups,
crises and catastrophes.[47] In tending the gates, in deciding what is
international news and how it should be covered, U.S. news media often give
priority to calamity. Nations and peoples around the globe merit U.S. news
coverage only in times of earthquakes, train wrecks, tidal waves, airline
crashes, famines and floods.
The literature has also suggested why this is so. Scholars have argued
persuasively that U.S. news media reaffirm U.S. superiority and authority on the
global stage. International news coverage, they suggest, is dictated by U.S.
foreign policy. Coverage legitimizes global inadequacies, defends U.S. action or
inaction, explains U.S. positions, degrades the positions of others.Areas of
U.S. interest become areas of U.S. news coverage. Other areas become newsworthy
only when they meet dramatic, attention-grabbing requisites: calamities. And
even then, the portrayals of crises and catastrophes often can be understood to
lay claim to U.S. superiority as they symbolically lay waste to a people or
nation.[48]
Myth, I believe, can provide an additional perspective to this distinguished
literature. International communication researchers perhaps have identified a
mythic dimension to U.S. news coverage. As we have seen, myth has always
affirmed the authority and superiority of the current social order. Myth
legitimizes and justifies positions. Myth celebrates dominant beliefs and
values. Myth degrades and demeans other beliefs. And myth has often fulfilled
these roles through portrayals of disasters and calamities, such as the flood.
The flood, again, can be seen as the ultimate morality tale. People who have
done wrong or taken the wrong path or otherwise strayed are punished and swept
away. The righteous are left, confirmed in their position and place. Societies
around the world have told themselves stories of the flood to affirm their own
status, to sanction their actions, to explain the fall of others and to warn
doubters and slackers.
In reporting global events, in tending the gates, news is doing what myth has
always done. News is drawing upon the archetypal stories of calamity and crisis
to uphold the social order and to affirm the superiority of a way of life. Times
coverage of the 1998 Central American floods can be well understood as
fulfilling this mythic role. Months can go by without Times stories from
Guatemala, Honduras or Nicaragua. With the onslaught of the hurricane and the
resulting floods, the Times published daily, front-page stories chronicling the
catastrophe and symbolically degrading the position of the victims. The four
themes of the flood myth were quite clear. As the myth suggested, Times coverage
averred that Central Americans had made social and political mistakes; the
devastation of the flood was in part the result of those mistakes. The flood was
complete in its devastation; entire communities were ravaged. Humans were
helpless against its power. And survivors were left to renew and rebuild. These
thing seem natural and logical in Times coverage. But the naturalness - the
structure and pattern and themes - derives from myth.
Were the Central American floods too convenient, too easy as a case study? The
analysis argues precisely otherwise. The mythic structure and themes identified
in the study actually appear often in the news. International news coverage is
replete with stories of calamities and catastrophes that are caused by the
inadequacies of other nations, that are complete in their devastation, that
humble humanity and that leave chastened survivors to reflect and renew. Tales
of flood, famine, tidal wave, plague, volcano and countless other disasters
regularly tell us the same story again and again, a story told since stories
were told. The litany of disaster brought to us in international news is a
litany drawn from the fundamental stories of humankind. The gatekeepers of U.S.
news are opening the gates for myth.
Endnotes
[1] James C. McKinley Jr. with William K. Stevens, "The Life of a Hurricane,
the Death that It Caused," The New York Times, November 9, 1998, pp. A1, A8.
[2] Don Cameron Allen, The Legend of Noah (Urbana: University of Illinois
Press, 1963); Alan Dundes, ed., The Flood Myth (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1988); J.F. Bierlein, Parallel Myths (New York: Ballantine
Books, 1994), pp. 121-35.
[3] Martin S. Day, The Many Meanings of Myth (Lanham, MD: University Press of
America, 1984), pp. 1-32; also see, Ivan Strenski, Four Theories of Myth in
Twentieth-Century History (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1987).
[4] Carl G. Jung, Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, trans. R.F.C. Hull
(New York: Pantheon, 1959); Carl G. Jung, ed., Man and His Symbols (New York:
Dell, 1964); Carl G. Jung, Symbols of Transformation 2nd ed., trans. R.F.C. Hull
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1976).
[5] Jung, Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious; Mircea Eliade, Patterns in
Comparative Religion, trans. Rosemary Sheed (New York: Sheed and Ward); Northrop
Frye, "The Archetypes of Literature," The Kenyon Review, 12:92-110 (Winter
1951); Northrop Frye, Anatomy of Criticism (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Press, 1957).
[6] Stith Thompson, Motif-Index of Folk-Literature (Bloomington, IN: Indiana
University Press, 1955).
[7] James Frazer, The Golden Bough (New York: Macmillan, 1951); Joseph
Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces (New York: Meridian, 1956); Eliade,
Patterns in Comparative Religion.
[8] Robert Darnton, "Writing News and Telling Stories," Daedalus 104:175-94
(Spring 1975); David L. Eason, "Telling Stories and Making Sense," Journal of
Popular Culture 15:125- 29 (Fall 1981); Michael Schudson, "The Politics of
Narrative Form: The Emergence of News Conventions in Print and Television,"
Daedalus 111:97-112 (Fall 1982).
[9] Roland Barthes, Mythologies, trans. Annette Lavers, (London: Jonathan Cape,
1972); Marshall McLuhan, "Myth and Mass Media," in Henry Murray, ed., Myth and
Mythmaking (New York: George Braziller, 1960), pp. 288-99 [originally published
in Daedalus, 88, 339-48]; Mircea Eliade, The Sacred and the Profane, trans.
Willard R. Trask (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1959), p. 205.
[10] See W. Lance Bennett, "Myth, Ritual and Political Control," Journal of
Communication 30 (Autumn 1980):166-79; S. Elizabeth Bird and Robert W. Dardenne,
"Myth, Chronicle and Story: Exploring the Narrative Qualities of News," in James
W. Carey, ed., Media, Myths, and Narratives (Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 1988), pp.
67-86; Myles Breen and Farrel Corcoran, "Myth in the Television Discourse,"
Communication Monographs 49 (June 1982):127-36; Richard Campbell, 60 Minutes and
the News : A Mythology for Middle America (Urbana: University of Illinois Press,
1991); James W. Carey, ed., Media, Myths, and Narratives (Newbury Park, CA:
Sage, 1988); Howard Davis and Paul Walton, "Death of a Premier: Consensus and
Closure in International News," in Howard Davis and Paul Walton, eds., Language,
Image, Media (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1983), pp. 8-49; Graham Knight and Tony
Dean, "Myth and the Structure of News," Journal of Communication 32 (Spring
1982):144-58; John Lawrence and Bernard Timberg, "News and Mythic Selectivity,"
Journal of American Culture 2 (Summer 1979):321-30; David L. Paletz, John Z.
Ayanian, and Peter A. Fozzard, "Terrorism on TV News: The IRA, the FALN, and the
Red Brigades," in ed. William C. Adams, ed., Television Coverage of
International Affairs (Norwood, NJ: Ablex Publishing, 1982), pp. 143-65; Robert
Rutherford Smith, "Mythic Elements in Television News," Journal of Communication
29 (Winter 1979):75- 82.
Also see, Sarah R. Hankins, "Archetypal Alloy: Ronald Reagan's Rhetorical
Image,"Central States Speech Journal 34 (1983):3-43; Paul Heyer, Titanic Legacy:
Disaster as Media Event and Myth (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1995); Jack Lule, "The
Myth of My Widow: A Dramatistic Analysis of News Portrayals of a Terrorist
Victim," in A. Odasuo Alali and Kenoye Kelvin Eke, eds., Media Coverage of
Terrorism (Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 1991), pp. 86-111; J.A.F. Van Zyl, Media and
Myth: The Construction of Television News (Mowbray, South Africa: IDASA, 1991).
[11] Stanley Cohen and Jock Young, Eds., The Manufacture of News (Beverly
Hills, CA: Sage, 1973); Stanley Cohen and Jock Young, Eds., The Manufacture of
News: Social Problems, Deviance and the Mass Media (Beverly Hills, CA: Sage,
1981); Mark Fishman, Manufacturing the News (Austin, TX: University of Texas
Press, 1980); Bernard Roshco, Newsmaking (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1975); Michael Schudson, "The Sociology of News Production," Media, Culture &
Society 2:263-82 (1989); Leon Sigal, Reporters and Officials: The Organization
and Politics of Newsmaking (Lexington: D.C. Heath and Company, 1973); Gaye
Tuchman, Making News: A Study in the Construction of Reality (New York: Free
Press, 1978); Jeremy Tunstall, Journalists at Work (Beverly Hills, CA: Sage,
1971).
[12] Dundes, The Flood Myth, p. 2.
[13] Allen, The Legend of Noah; Arthur C. Custance, The Flood: Local or Global?
(Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1979); Leonard Woolley, "Stories of the Creation
and the Flood," in Dundes, The Flood Myth, pp. 89-100.
[14] The influence of The New York Times on U.S. national and international
affairs is discussed throughout: J. Herbert Altschull, Agents of Power: The
Media and Public Policy 2nd ed. (White Plains, NY: Longman, 1996); R.O.
Blanchard, Congress and the News Media (New York: Hastings House, 1978); Stephen
Hess, The Government-Press Connection (Washington: Brookings, 1984); Martin
Linsky, Impact: How the Press Affects Federal Policy Making (New York: W.W.
Norton, 1986); Michael Parenti, Inventing Reality: The Politics of the News
Media 2nd ed. (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1993); Mark J. Rozell, In Contempt
of Congress: Postwar Press Coverage on Capitol Hill (New York: Praeger, 1996),
and Carol H. Weiss, "What America's Leaders Read," Public Opinion Quarterly, 38,
(1974), pp. 1-22. One classic study that counted the number of times the Times
was cited: Craig H. Grau, "What Publications are Most Frequently Quoted in the
Congressional Record?" Journalism Quarterly, 53, (1976), pp. 716-19.
Also see: Nicholas Berry, Foreign Policy and the Press: An Analysis of The New
York Times Coverage of U.S. Foreign Policy (New York: Greenwood, 1990); Russ
Braley, Bad News: The Foreign Policy of the New York Times (Chicago: Regnery
Gateway, 1984); Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky, Manufacturing Consent: The
Political Economy of the Mass Media (New York: Pantheon, 1988); Stephen Hess,
International News & Foreign Correspondents (Washington: Brookings, 1996); Jarol
B. Manheim, Strategic Public Diplomacy & American Foreign Policy (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1994); Patrick O'Heffernan, Mass Media and American
Foreign Policy (Norwood, NJ: Ablex, 1991), and Philip Seib, Headline Diplomacy:
How News Coverage Affects Foreign Policy (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1996).
[15] "32 Killed in Major Hurricane, Honduras Says," The New York Times, October
29, 1998, p. A5.
[16] "Death Toll from Storm Hits 450 After Mudslides in Nicaragua," The New
York Times, November 1, 1998, p. A6.
[17] Larry Rohter, "Flood Toll Estimate Rises Above 1,000 in Central America,"
The New York Times, November 2, 1998, p. A1, A6.
[18] Larry Rohter, "Officials Predict Hurricane's Toll Will Exceed 7,000," The
New York Times, November 3, 1998, p. A1.
[19] Larry Rohter, "Officials Predict Hurricane's Toll Will Exceed 7,000," The
New York Times, November 3, 1998, p. A13.
[20] Larry Rohter, "Nicaragua's Main Highway Is a Flow of Human Misery," The
New York Times, November 4, 1998, p. A1.
[21] Larry Rohter, "For Nicaraguan Victims, Not Even a Grave," The New York
Times, November 6, 1998, p. A1.
[22] Philip Shenon, "U.S. Says Storm Aid Could Cost Billions," The New York
Times, November 7, 1998, p. A3.
[23] Mirta Ojito, "Central Americans in New York Scramble to Help Hurricane
Victims," The New York Times, November 4, 1998, p. D7.
[24] "Hurricane Threatens 4 Caribbean Nations," The New York Times, October
27, 1998, p. A14.
[25] "Hurricane Hits Coasts of Honduras and Belize," The New York Times,
October 28, 1998, p. A11.
[26] "Storm's Floods Rise in Honduras and Nicaragua," The New York Times,
October 31, 1998, p. A3.
[27] Larry Rohter, "Flood Toll Estimate Rises Above 1,000 in Central America,"
The New York Times, November 2, 1998, p. A6.
[28] Larry Rohter, "Now Ruined Economies Afflict Central America," The New York
Times, November 13, 1998, p. A12.
[29] Larry Rohter, "Officials Predict Hurricane's Toll Will Exceed 7,000," The
New York Times, November 3, 1998, p. A1.
[30] Larry Rohter, "Officials Predict Hurricane's Toll Will Exceed 7,000," The
New York Times, November 3, 1998, p. A13.
[31] James C. McKinley Jr., "Relief Effort in Honduras in Dire Need of
Resources," The New York Times, November 4, 1998, p. A6.
[32] Larry Rohter, "How Nations Run: Disasters as a Guide," The New York Times,
November 8, 1998, p. K6.
[33] "1 House Left In Sea of Mud," The New York Times, November 3, 1998, p.
A13.
[34] "Leveled by Storm," The New York Times, November 10, 1998, p. A16.
[35] James C. McKinley Jr., "Honduras's Capital: City of the Dead and the
Dazed," The New York Times, November 5, 1998, p. A3.
[36] Larry Rohter, "Nicaragua's Main Highway Is a Flow of Human Misery," The
New York Times, November 4, 1998, p. A1, A6.
[37] Larry Rohter, "For Nicaraguan Victims, Not Even a Grave," The New York
Times, November 6, 1998, p. A6.
[38] Larry Towell, "Rebuilding Honduras," The New York Times Magazine, December
6, 1998, p. 67.
[39] James C. McKinley Jr., "Honduras's Capital: City of the Dead and the
Dazed," The New York Times, November 5, 1998, p. A3.
[40] Larry Rohter, "How Nations Run: Disasters as a Guide," The New York
Times, November 8, 1998, p. K6.
[41] James C. McKinley Jr. with William K. Stevens, "The Life of a Hurricane,
the Death that It Caused," The New York Times, November 9, 1998, p. A1.
[42] Tina Rosenberg, "Trees and the Roots of a Storm's Destruction," The New
York Times, November 26, 1998, p. A38.
[43] Ronald Patterson, "Hurricane Relief is Just a Band-Aid" [letter to the
editor], The New York Times, November 14, 1998, p. A12.
[44] James C. McKinley Jr. with William K. Stevens, "The Life of a Hurricane,
the Death that It Caused," The New York Times, November 9, 1998, p. A1.
[45] Arturo J. Cruz Jr., "The Wrath of God?" The New York Times, November 16,
1998, p. A21.
[46] Barthes, Mythologies, p. 11.
[47] The gatekeeping literature is voluminous and includes: Kurt Lewin,
"Channels of Group Life: Social Planning and Action Research," Human Relations
1:145-46 (Summer 1947); David Manning White, "The 'Gate Keeper:' A Case Study in
the Selection of News," Journalism Quarterly 27:383-96 (Fall 1950); James W.
Markham, "Foreign News in the United States and South American Press, Public
Opinion Quarterly 25:249-62 (Summer 1961); Paul B. Snider, "Mr. Gates Revisited:
A 1966 Version of the 1949 Case Study," Journalism Quarterly 44:419-27 (Fall
1967); John Dimmick, "The Gate-Keeper: An Uncertainty Theory," Journalism
Monographs 37 (1974); Sophie Peterson, "Foreign News Gatekeepers and Criteria of
Newsworthiness," Journalism Quarterly 56:116-25 (Spring 1979); Richard M. Brown,
"The Gatekeeper Reassessed: A Return to Lewin," Journalism Quarterly 56:595-601
(Autumn 1979); D. Charles Whitney and Lee Becker, "Keeping the Gates for
Gatekeepers: The Effects of Wire News," Journalism Quarterly 59:60-65 (Spring
1982); Glen Bleske, "Ms. Gates Takes Over," Newspaper Research Journal 12:88-97
(1991); Pamela Shoemaker, Gatekeeping (Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 1991).
[48] See for example, Bernard C. Cohen, The Press and Foreign Policy
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1963); Johan Galtung and Mari
Holmboe Ruge, "The Structure of Foreign News," Journal of Peace Research 2:64-91
(Spring 1965); Mort Rosenblum, Coups and Earthquakes: Reporting the Third World
for America (New York: Harper and Row, 1979); Annabelle Sreberny-Mohammadi, "The
'World of the News:' Journal of Communication 34:121-34 (Winter 1984); Herman
and Chomsky, Manufacturing Consent; Daniel C. Hallin, We Keep America on Top of
the World: Television Journalism and the Public Sphere (London: Routledge,
1994); Altschull, Agents of Power; Edward S. Herman and Robert W. McChesney, The
Global Media: The New Missionaries of Global Capitalism (London: Cassell, 1997).
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