NEW ORLEANS -- The time was nine months after Hurricane Katrina and the place was Tulane University. The university was holding a three-day conference called "Rebirth: People, Places and Culture in New Orleans." A keynote address by Brian Williams, managing editor and anchor of NBC Nightly News — which bills itself as "the largest single daily source of news in America" — had just ended and the scheduled Q&A session had begun. Harry Shearer, noted satirist, writer, actor, radio host, part-time resident and full-time defender of all things New Orleans, stepped up to the mic to ask a question he had "rehearsed all night," as he tells it.
"I know Brian a little, and I wanted the question to be the appropriate blend of challenging and non-antagonistic," Shearer says. "So I got up and I said, 'We know you're smart, and we know you care because you were in the Superdome for two nights during the worst of it. So please, can you explain why a regular viewer of your broadcast, now nine months later, still doesn't know why New Orleans flooded?' He did a little introductory stuff, most of which was complimentary, and then he said, 'Honestly, we just feel that the emotional stories are more compelling for our audience.'" A look of bewilderment flashes across Shearer's face. "The 'Information Age' is a misnomer," he says. "These people are trafficking in video emoticons. That's what 'the news' is."
Fast forward three-and-a-half years or so, and Shearer is in London watching President Barack Obama's town hall meeting in New Orleans on television. The president refers to Katrina as a "natural disaster" while making a larger point. "A firebomb went off in my head," Shearer recalls with a laugh. He realized the "messaging war" about what happened in the days and weeks after the storm was being lost. "At that moment I decided: What's a more effective way of getting this across than a documentary? And who here in the room with me could do that? Oh, nobody. Must be me, then. A couple of minutes later, I realized it had to be done for the fifth anniversary of the storm."
The result of those epiphanies is The Big Uneasy, Harry Shearer's harrowing feature-length exploration of what really caused the catastrophic federal levee failures in New Orleans. The local premiere will take place on Aug. 26 at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art. The film debuts nationwide in some 200 theaters on Aug. 30, including a screening at the Prytania Theatre in the Garden District and another at The Theatres at Canal Place. After the Prytania screening, Shearer will participate in a Q&A session.
Read the full story at GAMBIT:
http://bestofneworleans.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A80213
