THOUGH Sunday's military retaliation against the Taliban is just the beginning of a war, the assault brings a tedious three-week media frenzy and waiting period to a close. Americans have been riding an emotional roller coaster of confusion, anger, fear and uncertainty in the wake of this earth-shattering event. As they have desperately searched for answers, the media has been there to cover every breath and whisper, sometimes to the public's detriment. Relentless repetition and needless posturing is interspersed with the occasionally important piece of information. The media's in-your-face coverage and ridiculous detail are well-intentioned attempts to inform but are partially to blame for the three-week malaise that has stricken Americans.
One popular media story that sparked interest and hope was that of Nostradamus, the 16th century seer who is said to have predicted the World Trade Center attack. His hundreds of prophecies run the gamut from predicting the empires of Napoleon and Hitler to the Challenger space shuttle disaster. New quotes that eerily recall the Sept. 11 attacks have been popping up on the Internet, prompting A&E's "Biography" to run an episode on the man. Close examination shows that the quotes were written in 1654, when Nostradamus was enjoying his retirement at the age of 151 years of age. The media has been slow to discredit the theories, but people have been so desperate for answers that they read the junk the media provides.
Nostradamus' prophecies are just the beginning of a media circus which saturated the public with extraneous coverage that left no stone uncovered. It is important for the media to cover every aspect of this monumental story, but news outlets continued to devote pages and airtime to the story despite a paucity of new information. It was fine when networks interviewed Sen. John McCain, but it was too much when every senator and congressman showed up on Larry King. These officials are the ones helping to make the decisions, but there was no need to hear the same exact thing out of each one.
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People want to hear about the relevant facts, and the media hit them over the head with the kitchen sink. Network news programs and newspapers should give breathing room to the very tired and confused American public. Reporters and discussion programs need to stop talking about the impact and the major networks need to stop reporting when there is nothing more to be said. It isn't as if people are becoming desensitized or disaffected by the tragedy, but a little overcome by relentless reporting. In one glaringly excessive report, NBC and ABC news programs pre-empted programming for hours on Sunday afternoon even though there was little to report beyond the fact that bombing had commenced.
As the public waited for the military response, the media has been a part of everyday life like never before. When Tom Brokaw reflected upon how this event compared to others in his long career, it struck a chord with viewers. But now he mentions how the world will never be the same every 15 minutes or so. This is a true turning point in world history, but there is a limit to the number of times people can hear that before they get scared. The fear of flight and travel is a natural one, but it was cultivated by sensational reporting that has the only result of hurting the already weakened economy. There was no need for NBC to devote a great deal of time to interviewing a pilot who successfully crash-landed a plane after a system failure, a random security expert, and an airline spokesperson. Hearing how terrorism and disaster are inevitable is scary and unsettling when we hear it over and over again.
It's hard to blame the media, as its only real goal is to inform the people, but there is something to be said about the lack of control in reporting. Larry King and all the rest of the reporters who fill their shows with identical interviews and discussions need to sit down and realize that they are doing a disservice to Americans by keeping the story in our every thought. One of the key facets of proper news reporting is timeliness, something which the media seems to have forgotten.
Simply, there is nothing left to be said about the issue. The in-your-face overkill of the reporting has made people uneasy and fearful. O.J. Simpson and Gary Condit were never important to Americans, but the media circus surrounding them was. When the media was finished with those stories, America forgot them instantly. Television and newspapers have great influence over the people and must accordingly exercise more caution. The joint U.S and British retaliatory attacks mark a new and welcome beginning in the antiterrorism campaign, but the American public is not simply going to forget that it is a target. The country needs some time to reflect, and the media must step aside and allow the healing process to occur.
(Brad Cohen is Cavalier Daily viewpoint writer.)
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