Post 9-11 Journalism

After reading what Brent Cunningham and Bob Stevenson wrote about how the media responded to the attacks on September 11, 2001, I realized how little I know on the subject. We've discussed this event endlessly in and outside of class for years since that very day when I was a freshman in high school. When we talked about it in Issues and the News, I wasn't exactly sure where I stood when it came to how the media covered the event.

It's a hard thing to judge, especially since I was only just starting high school at the time. Stevenson acknowledges the tremendousness of the event. This was an unprecedented event. You can't knock journalists for how they reacted too much, because this was something completely new and unfamiliar. I can't believe the executive editor of the NY Times had only been working that position for six days when the attacks rocked the city. These reporters did amazing things covering these events. I certainly wouldn't have wanted to do something like that. Stevenson brings up the personality profiles the Times did; how they really tried to show who these people were who lost their lives.

This side of the story sounds just too outrageous to criticize or analyze the media. When the news is, as Stevenson put it, "recent occurrences of familiar events," it's easy to make judgments and analyze the quality of journalism and coverage. This is familiar territory. The other side of the story that I've been thinking about is more related to what Cunningham's article was talking about.

Cunningham discusses the power of language. By calling the attacks "acts of war" versus "criminal acts," you are building an idea or forming an assumption. This is the part I realized I don't know enough about. A few years after the attacks I read a book about how the media was being used as a tool to promote the war in Iraq. I thought this was horrible, but I also realized who ever wrote the book was illustrating an opinion as well. Propaganda is everywhere. I've never really figured out what happened after the attacks. I never quite understood why we went to war. I remember it all happening so fast at the time. And I remember not understanding what was happening. It wasn't until my friend came home dead from Iraq when I really began to question it.

So, what I'd like to know, is what was happening in the world of journalism? Weren't people asking these questions? I know many people in the media were fired from the mainstream for bad-mouthing and questioning the war, but what was actually happening during that first year following the attacks. Once journalists were done covering the grief and the drama and allowing public officials answer the questions, did anyone stop and realize something was going on?

Maybe I should know the answer to this question by now, but I really don't. I know how strong language is, and I realize words helped promote the war; but with so many voices, there had to be someone analyzing things more deeply. Sometimes I wish I had been a little older when it happened. But then again, I'm probably lucky I was just a thoughtless freshman in high school. It's probably better that way.