What, exactly, do you expect from "the media?" Reliable numbers of deaths simply do not exist, because the governments involved are, rightly, more involved in rescuing the living than accounting for the dead.
Remember now long it took to get an accurate accounting of the dead from the 9/11 attacks? Weeks. This is a few orders of magnitude past that, hundreds of times as many potential victims and survivors spread over millions of times as much area.
If you don't have the full picture reported to you in the first two days, you'll just have to learn to live with that. This is a cataclysm, and it wil take governments at every level time to sort it out. Don't blame the media for not reporting what nobody knows.
Aug 31, 3:04 AM EDT
Crews Pass Dead to Reach Storm Survivors
By BRETT MARTEL
Associated Press Writer
NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- Rescuers along the hurricane-ravaged Gulf Coast pushed aside the dead to reach the living Tuesday in a race against time and rising waters, while New Orleans sank deeper into crisis and Louisiana's governor ordered storm refugees out of this drowning city
--snip--
New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin said hundreds, if not thousands, of people may still be stuck on roofs and in attics, and so rescue boats were bypassing the dead.
"We're not even dealing with dead bodies," Nagin said. "They're just pushing them on the side."
http://ap.wwltv.com/dynamic/stories/H/HURRICANE_KATRINA?SITE=WWL&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=USHEADS.html&CTIME=2005-08-29-18-59-09