With the Republican convention gearing up for its big week, I felt like I had something I could focus on for today's post. Last week was a BIG week for the Democrats. They hosted the most watched political convention in history and Obama scored big with his nomination acceptance speech. Everyone was ready to see what the GOP could do to answer the Democrats. I was enjoying the coverage of the conventions, and I was planning to make a comparison between several print and broadcast media outlets.

However, the gulf states are now confronted by the hard truth of an impending storm and day-to-day politics are going to have to take a back seat. The GOP is cancelling most of the non-essential events from tomorrow's lineup and attention must now be focused on preventing another Katrina like disaster.

With hurricane Gustav expected to make landfall tomorrow, it is hard to forget about the lasting impact Katrina had on our country, especially in the areas surrounding New Orleans and Mississippi. With tens of thousands of people currently heading away from coastal cities, I thought it may be better to take a quick look at how the media is covering the buildup to the storm (instead of focusing on the conventions).

I am not exactly a strong supporter of the New York Times but I wanted to see what they were saying about the storm. More importantly, I wanted to see how they would relate Gustav to the nightmares of Katrina. I read the article linked to this post and I would love to know what everyone thinks about it. Obviously, everyone from New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin to President Bush wants to avoid the problems associated with Katrina. Mandatory evacuations for this storm are beginning earlier and it seems most people are listening to the warnings. In my opinion, this article does a good job of updating the rest of the nation on the status of evacuations. Although the authors make references to the problems of Katrina, they avoid reopening the "blame game." I think they do a good job of focusing on preparations for the storm and are correct in not making this a politically charged article.

This New York Times article is just one of thousands currently being written across the country. I would love to hear about the coverage you have watched and read. I'll be keeping my eyes on the media's coverage of the storm. In the meantime, let's keep our hearts open for those on the gulf coast.