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Comment by mckoss | Hacker News Reader

I would not let a single news story exclude you from including them. I've seen too many cases where journalists completely botch an investigative story due to biased sources and their own ignorance.

I personally would like to see the Red Cross's response.

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This is one in a series of investigative stories conducted by ProPublica and NPR (disclosure: I used to work at PP but not on this project):

http://www.propublica.org/series/red-cross

Red Cross has made responses; I haven't read all the stories but my impression has been is that they haven't been on-point rebuttals:

Red Cross Demands Corrections to Our "Misleading" Coverage. Here's Our Response - http://www.propublica.org/article/red-cross-demands-correcti...

The project began last October: The Red Cross' Secret Disaster, which examined their aid after Hurricane Sandy: http://www.propublica.org/article/the-red-cross-secret-disas...

FWIW, they have something of a history if I recall; i only recently found out a few days ago, really.

From my memory, they had a reputation for bait and switch - raising money during a disaster, but spending it elsewhere. I think they cleaned that up, including a change in leadership.

This article is new in claiming innefectiveness at usefully spending money to help disaster victims. I would love to see a detailed audit.

It's not that they are duplicitous really - it's that stockpiling large amounts of supplies has a leadtime measured in months. Money you give today can't buy tents in Haiti tomorrow - those have to be ordered, manufactured, shipped...

I'm sorry, but tents do not have a lead time of five years.

Sure, but if the lead time is more than about 12 hours, it doesn't matter how long it ACTUALLY is, it's too long, people are dead before whatever $essential gets to them.

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