So Kanye West appeared on NBC's Hurricane Relief Benefit Concert and went completely off the teleprompter into what was clearly an emotional and impromptu message about the devastatingly slow efforts of the government to get help to New Orleans. I fucking love him. I mean, I liked Kanye before but watching this, watching someone be so brave in standing up and calling this what it is was incredibly powerful. Also, I'd like to note that NBC edited out the last portion of his comments when they aired the show on the west coast. The fuckers. Also of note, some anchors at FOX News think he should have been censored completely. Seriously, go watch. He totally made me cry. (video from the good folks at crooksandliars)

[ Kanye West on NBC ] -- avi, 7.8mb

And now something I'm going to call Reporters Straying from Their Scripts: (videos originally from crooksandliars)

Anderson Cooper, from CNN's Anderson Cooper 360º has been reporting from New Orleans the last few days. In a pretty stunning display of humanism, a lot of the reporters in New Orleans have been getting a lot more personal and a lot more willing to talk about the failures of the government during this crisis. Anderson Cooper interviews Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu and asks her directly, “Does the federal government bear responsibility for what is happening now? Should they apologize for what is happening now?”

[ Anderson Cooper - Sen. Landrieu ] -- wmv, 2.91mb

Anderson Cooper interviewing Trent Lott is even better.

[ Anderson Cooper - Trent Lott ] -- wmv, 7.11mb

CNN's Paula Zahn interviewing FEMA's Director, Mike Brown on Thursday. Paula Zahn: Sir, you're not telling me, you're not telling me you just learned that the folks at the convention center didn't have food and water until today did you? You had no idea they were completely cut off?

FEMA's Brown: Paula, the federal government did not even know about the convention center people until today.

[ Paula Zahn - Mike Brown ] -- wmv, 2.61

Lastly, Ted Koppel interviewing Mike Brown. And dude, Ted Koppel just refuses to let Brown duck the hard questions.

[ Ted Koppel - Mike Brown ] -- mov, 9.07mb

I've gotta say, it's weird to see the mainstream media news anchors straying from the status quo like this. Really disorienting.

There's a very interesting article on this over at Slate that you guys should read.

eta: feel free to link to this post if you want to.