On August 31, in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, FEMA public affairs officer Marty Bahamonde emailed his boss, then-FEMA chief Michael Brown, to make sure he understood how dire the situation had become in the Superdome, the New Orleans football stadium that was housing thousands of evacuees. "[T]he situation is past critical," he wrote in one of several emails he'd sent colleagues outlining the emergency. "We are out of food and running out of water." The stadium was overcrowded and undersupplied; there had already been three deaths, and Bahamonde expected more to die "within hours."

Thanks to the efforts of NBC News, Habitat for Humanity, and Warner Music Group, Rockefeller Plaza has been renamed "Humanity Plaza," as hundreds volunteers toil for the Today show cameras, working around the clock to build homes for families displaced by Hurricane Katrina. Katie Couric shouts intermittent words of encouragement in between segments, but just now her cheerleading became more disturbing: "Hurry up, guys!" she growls. "We've got to get moving!" She turns back to the camera, her voice uncharacteristically shrill, her face a bit more pink than the usual orange. She looks just. So. Happy.

In a Sept. 5 analysis of Katrina coverage, Times TV critic Alessandra Stanley wrote: