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Remember Jefferson Parrish President Aaron Broussard’s emotional appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press” and the flap that followed? Well, CJR Daily helps update us on what’s been happening with the one-time TV star since, via coverage from the New Orleans Times-Picayune.

Apparently Broussard, whose indictment of federal response to Hurricane Katrina became a large part of the blame-game that followed, has been on the other end of the finger-pointing lately. A NOLA editorial raises questions over Broussard’s decision to evacuate workers, many of whom otherwise would have been operating some 200 pumps designed to keep water out of the streets. It’s unclear whether the pumps would have helped in this situation, but some residents seem to believe so.

Here’s how CJR’s Felix Gillette sees it:

“To hear the citizens of Jefferson Parish tell it, while Broussard was swimming upstream, their homes, dreams and possessions were being swept downstream. And now, thanks to the Times-Picayune's reporting, Broussard can no longer blame the flooding on management-by-committee at FEMA."

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It seemed for a moment over the weekend that the blogosphere had claimed one more victory over the mainstream media, but reaction to Aaron Broussard’s return to NBC’s “Meet the Press” shows a deep split of opinion over his comments – and the role bloggers have played.



You remember Broussard, the president of New Orleans’ Jefferson Parish, from his September 4th appearance on the same show. His weeping tale of the death of a colleague’s mother was among the more emotional punctuations in the wake of Hurricane Katrina and seemed to encapsulate the growing frustration with the government’s response. But no sooner had the appearance become embedded as part of the story’s overall fabric, bloggers began picking it apart.



MSNBC has the chronology and details of the story the way Broussard originally told it – and the way it actually occurred. According to Broussard’s colleague, Thomas Rodrigue, his mother, Eva, did die at a nursing home but the chronology and circumstances were different than Broussard’s version. So it was no surprise the story would be revisited when Broussard returned to the show yesterday, or that more fireworks followed.

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