What to make of the MSM's "angry" response to Katrina

MSM news reporters are still showing high levels of concern and even anger in their coverage of the Katrina aftermath in New Orleans, as NYU professor and media critic Jay Rosen points out in his PressThink weblog (where he points to key pieces by Matt Wells of the BBC, Alessandra Stanley of the NYT, Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post, and Gal Beckerman at CJR Daily). But, he wonders, is it right for journalists to "get angry" and show their anger and frustration so clearly on air. Rosen thinks not--at least not all the time. As Rosen argues in his opening:

Spine is always good, rage is sometimes needed, and empathy can often reveal the story. But there's no substitute for being able to think. What is the difference between a “blame game” and real accountability? If you’ve never really thought it about it, your outrage can easily misfire.

This continuing anger is something that is causing concern in some quarters of the media. Although right and left were initially unified in their criticism of the federal government's response to Katrina, there are signs that conservative media commentators are growing restless over the media's emboldened (and angry?) stance. President Bush's statement that he will "take responsibility" for errors by the federal government seems to have caused more heartache among at least some of those on the right of the media spectrum. Stephen Spruiell, media correspondent for the conservative National Review, points to examples of what he calls bias by CBSNews and CNN in that journal's Media Blog. Sprueill seems to be particularly concerned with CNN president Jon Klein's statement that CNN will take a "more muscular" approach to covering political news. Perhaps Klein is emboldened by the apparently widespread public support for CNN's Katrina coverage. Anyway, here's Sprueill's response:

There's nothing wrong with being aggressive — or even "muscular", whatever that means — about getting answers from both sides, which Klein says will continue to characterize CNN reporting. Last week I noted several instances in which CNN anchors were tough on Democrats. But I also noted a few in which CNN went beyond the boundaries in order to make their coverage more "accusatory" than "aggressive". For one, Aaron Brown really twisted a Bush quote to make him sound out-of-touch. For another, CNN apparently coached a guest to "get angry" (although CNN denied it).

Sprueill then refers Klein (if he's reading this) to the Jay Rosen piece mentioned above. Sprueill argues that "News organizations don't need to be 'more aggressive' — especially when there's a state of confusion and no one has all the facts. Then you just get a bunch of people yelling at each other. They need to be more intelligent — putting the accusations aside and patiently but relentlessly gathering facts."

This is an interesting debate, and one that'll surely go on and on, given the scale of the Katrina story (not to mention the ongoing war in Iraq). If you follow the contention that the news media are finally doing their job and showing some backbone in critically covering the actions of those in power, and that this represents some sort of paradigm shift in media-government relations, can that new emboldened stance be articulated consistently to the public through professional journalistic values, or is it only to be expressed through anger? Can you have some appropriate balance between the two? What is that balance anyway, and can the news media maintain it over time . . . or not?