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Media Coverage of the Terrorist Attacks and Aftermath

The media coverage of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attack on the United States and its aftermath demands careful, systematic study. I offer only general observations based on my viewing of national television stations.

Television news reporting is at its best when it covers live events, and in this respect, however, it is also relatively shallow. The nature of the September 11 events made reporting that day poignant in and of itself and as thorough and accurate as the situations allowed. The emotions and pathos conveyed by anchors and reporters were quite real this time.

Unfortunately, television journalism did not fully internalize some important lessons from its disastrous performance in reporting election results out of Florida last November. Thus, the wild estimates of casualties offered by some stations was unprofessional. One other bothersome aspect of the initial coverage was the labeling of the events as an assault on “the heart of American capital-ism,” on “Wall Street,” instead of an attack on Americans, their values and way of life.

By Friday, September 14, some anchors strayed from journalism—moralizing, pontificating, and generalizing—doing a disservice to people interested in facts. For instance, without any factual backup, television programs offered the sweeping conclusion that the Arab-American community had nothing to do with terrorism. Good journalism in this case demands some facts on how many in the Arab-American community are contributing money directly or through their mosques to such terrorist organizations as Hammers, Islamic Jihad, and Hezbollah.

Bona fide experts were presented side by side with those who simply expressed uninformed and personal views, thus confusing the issues at times, as well as equalizing the believability, weightiness, and worthiness of the sources that were to explain and add to the unfolding story. Thus, analyses sometimes had the value of a coffee klatch.

The intelligence of some “talking-heads” was sorely tested. Diane Sawyer failed the test when she asked why fire fighters could not set up their nets or air mattresses in the time between the first and second plane hitting the World Trade Center to catch people who were jumping to escape the fire.

The addition of boxes on the screen and ticker tape-like bands with abbreviated information (“[Colin] Powell says this will not stand”) heightened the sense of crisis, of the “war” just begun and forced viewers to be far more active participants in the viewing process than usual.

Lastly, even in covering an event so naturally an attention grabber, television did not escape the Hollywood or advertising industry mentality and had to label its programs to increase the natural drama: “Attack on America,” “Assault on America,” and, finally, “America’s New War.”

Peter Gross,Department of Journalism