Journalism after September 11

Term Paper Introduction

The date of September 11 has a powerful resonance in the annals of modern history. In 1973, on this day, the Central Intelligence Agency sponsored coup of General Augusto Pinochet overthrew the democratically elected socialist govt. of President Salvador Allende in Chile and established a regime of terror. It is also the date of the Camp David Accords (1978), which signalled Egypts final surrender to US imperialism and Israeli Zionism, leaving the Palestinians at the mercy of the latter. Also in 1990, George H Bush made his speech to the US Congress announcing the war against Iraq another supreme act of terror. 1 The September 11 terror attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and Pentagon in Washington, D.C., were shocking global media events that dominated public attention and provoked reams of discourse, reflection, and writing. These media spectacles were intended to terrorize the U.S., to attack symbolic targets, and to unfold a terror spectacle of Jihad against the West, as well as to undermine the U.S. and global economy. The World Trade Center is an apt symbol of global capitalism in the heart of the New York financial district, while the Pentagon stands as a symbol and center of U.S. military power. This paper aims to look into the historical background necessary to understand and contextualize the terror attacks, how the global media reacted to this event, especially the US media and most importantly how journalism has changed in the wake of September 11. The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, are well known. A group of 19 hijackers took control of four transcontinental flights-two from Boston's Logan International Airport, one from Newark International Airport, and one from Washington's Dulles International Airport-and crashed them into major sites. The twin towers of New York's World Trade Centre were destroyed, and the Pentagon was severely damaged. Media coverage-television, radio, prints, and internet- of the attacks was immediate and ubiquitous, insuring that essentially the entire country was aware of the situation and its implications. This was the first foreign attack on U.S. soil in nearly 60 years. As portrayed in the media and perceived by most citizens, it was national in scope, immediate (that is, confined to a specific time), and unpredictable. These factors made the

contextualizing conflict : the US war on terrorism- Aijaz Ahmad

level of perceived threat in the U.S. population after September 11 significantly greater than it had been beforehand.2 The Bush-Cheney Administration manipulated the fear experienced by the people of the United States to push through a rightwing agenda and to go to war in Afghanistan and Iraq with the complicity of the mainstream U.S. corporate media. The potency of media representations of 9/11 and the centrality of the media in the aftermath of the event have generated a wealth of empirical research, reflection, and debates about the role of the media in contemporary society and history.

Historical Background
In order to know how to react to 9/11, we need to understand it. That is more difficult than it seems. The simplest view, which is apparently widely held is that an unprovoked attack was launched by evil people on a bastion of democracy, and that the appropriate way to respond is to extend democracy since, as Bernard Lewis, the historian of the Middle East, puts it, The war against terror and the quest for freedom are inextricably linked, and neither can succeed without the other. 3 According to Wittgensteins later view, the world needs to be grasped against the background of an underlying conceptual. If so-called facts cannot be grasped directly, but only on the basis of a wider theory, then 9/11 cannot adequately be grasped as an event or series of events isolated from other events. We need to understand it in the developing context, as belonging to a series of events both preceding and succeeding them. The widespread view that it is fundamentally and irrevocably new, without precedent, which makes them sui generis, a time out of time so to speak, is false since terrorism is not new or novel. It further prevents us from understanding 9/11 in other than a superficial way. The claim that facts need to be related to conceptual frameworks does not tell us anything about the frameworks in question. Hegel suggests that conceptual frameworks are always potentially subject to revision in virtue of their ability to explain experience. The two explanatory frameworks still most popular with the public are the idea that 9/11 is due to a clash of cultures or civilizations, which is associated with Samuel Huntington, and the view that we are witnessing a clash between two disparate religions. Each of these views has something to recommend it; each is part of the puzzle; but neither is satisfactory as an overall explanatory hypothesis without appealing to other, arguably more important factors.4 The causes of September 11 events and their aftermath are highly multifaceted and involve the failure of US intelligence and destructive consequences of US interventionist policy since World War II and the failure to address Israeli-Palestinian crisis; US policies since the late
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Huddy, Khatib, & Capelos, 2002b, 420 Bernard Lewis, The Crisis of Islam: Holy War and Unholy Terror, New York: Random House, 2003, p. 169. 4 Before and After 9/11 Tom Rockmore DUQUESNE UNIVERSITY, USA

1970s that supported the Islamic Jihadist forces against the Soviet Union and the failure to take terror threats seriously and provide an adequate response. In retrospect, the events of September 11 can be seen as a textbook example of the blowback concept developed in a book with this title by Chalmers Johnson in 2002, who uses it to describe the unintended consequences of aggressive military and covert policies, a shorthand term for describing a nation reaps what it sows. As Johnson notes the term Blowback, which officials of the CIA first invented for their internal use, refers to the unintended consequences of policies that were kept secret from the American people. 5 He claims that this concept can be applied to the events of September 11 since bin laden and radical Islam forces were being trained, funded, supported and armed by the CIA and the US administration in the late 1970s and 1980s. Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair summarize the covert operations of the US in Afghanistan which had momentous consequences. In April 1978 an indigenous populist coup overthrew the govt. of Mohammad Daoud who had formed alliances with the US man in Iran i.e. the Shah. The new govt. in Afghanistan was led by Noor Mohammad Taraki. He brought in a lot of land reforms and also tried to bear down on opium production in the border areas held by the fundamentalists or the Mujahedeen, since they were using the revenue from opium production to finance the attacks on the central govt. of Afghanistan. At this time mujahedeen was not only getting money from the CIA but also from Libya.6 The US intervention in the Afghanistan helped create the context for the current crisis. It is rarely mentioned in the mainstream media that the George W Bush administration became one of the largest financial supporters of Taliban, providing over $100 million in early 2001 as humanitarian aid. In forbidden truth, Brisard and Dasquie (2002) claim that under the influence of the oil companies, the bush admin initially blocked ongoing US govt. investigations of terrorism, while it bargained with Taliban over oil rights and pipeline deals and handing over Bin Laden. Pursuing these leads, the British Independent reported on October 30 secret satellite phone calls between the state department and Mullah Mohammed Omar and the presentation of an Afghan carpet to President George Bush were just part of the diplomatic contacts between Washington and the Taliban that continued until just days before the attacks of 11 September." Moreover, there has been a close relation between the Bush and bin Laden families for generations. Salem bin Laden, head of the family empire and Osamas eldest brother, reportedly invested in George W. Bushs first business venture, Arbusto Energy. According to several sources, the deal was brokered by Bushs friend James Bath, who was also involved in the infamous BCCI bank scandals and was allegedly a CIA agent recruited by Ws father, as well as a business agent for the bin laden family. The bin Laden family has also been involved in other ventures with the Bush family. Internet commentator Sally Slate cited an interesting passage from a PBS Frontline Web-site on the bin Laden and Bush connection:

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Douglas Kellner theorizing sept 11 The price was it really worth it Mrs. Albright.

Like his father in 1968, Salem [bin Laden] died in a 1988 air crash . . . in Texas. He was flying a BAC 111 which had been bought in July 1977 by Prince Mohammed Ben Fahd. The plane's flight plans had long been at the center of a number of investigations. According to one of the plane's American pilots, it had been used in October 1980 during secret Paris meetings between U.S. and Iranian emissaries. Nothing was ever proven, but Salem bin Laden's accidental death revived some speculation that he might have been "eliminated" as an embarrassing witness. In fact, an inquiry was held to determine the exact circumstances of the accident. The conclusions were never divulged."7 Other commentators have claimed that the bin Laden/Al Qaeda network has been supported by wealthy Saudis, including members of bin Ladens family, and that up until the September 11 terror attacks, there were close connections between the Bush administration, the Saudis, and the Taliban. A November 2001 PBS Frontline on The Saudi Time Bomb made clear the support of bin Laden, the Taliban, and the Al Qaeda network by Saudi Arabian groups. It also revealed that many in the bin Laden Al Qaeda network and the Saudis shared a similar Wahabbi interpretation of Islam that is rooted in an 18th century attempt to return to the early version of Islam, is highly puritanical and repressive of women, and is exceptionally hostile to the West. The Saudis helped fund the Taliban and set up throughout the world fundamentalist Wahabbi Islamic schools that became recruiting grounds for bin Laden and the Al Qaeda network. Other Saudis directly contributed to Al Qaeda through charitable foundations or other means.8 Consequently, the conjuncture of Islamic radicalism with the failure of subsequent U.S. administrations to take seriously the threats that terrorist groups posed helped to make possible the September 11 terrorist attacks on the U.S., as did the failure of U.S. intelligence agencies. More specifically, the Bush administration downplayed the threats of terrorism. An explosive article by Michael Hirsch and Michael Isikoff on What Went Wrong published in the May 28 Newsweek, however, contained a series of revelations of how the Bush administration had missed signals of an impending attack and systematically weakened U.S. defences against terrorism and the bin Laden network.

The US media on 9/11

There is substantial evidence that media coverage of foreign events closely follows the interpretative frames offered by political elites. Once the phrase national security" is used with some degree of legitimacy, the national press is likely to adopt a patriotic pose. In the strong version of this thesis, state actors have an unassailable ability to manufacture consent. In the more nuanced version of this thesis, the press gains a measure of relative autonomy to the extent that there is some dissent or disagreement among political elites themselves. Piers Robinson, in his recent examination of the CNN effect suggest that in times of policy uncertainties and elite
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theorizing September 11 Douglas Kellner Greg Palast the guardian (November 7, 2001)

dissensus there may be considerable space for typically marginalised actors to influence the framing and interpretation of international events. Post the events of 9/11, the rally effect was present. The press and the public were lined up behind the White House in a moment of intense patriotism. TV news networks branded their coverage with screen scrawls such as America fights back (CBS), Americas new war (CNN) and America united (FOX). Anchors and reporters wore flag pins and red, white and blue ribbons and the cable network projected a US flag in the corner of the screen. 9 The September 11th terrorist attacks were covered by journalists differently than any other event. Since then, the public has expected more from the media of the past decade. George Frankel was among the reporters covering the events of Sept. 11, 2001 from Washington D.C. Before the second plane struck, it was plausible to believe it was all simply a tragic accident. The way journalists report the news changed that day, like many aspects of life in the United States. Frankel admits journalists may have had a softer, more patriotic approach in the events following the attacks which led up to the Iraq War. Early on, if you look at the coverage, especially on TV, you see a real kind of rallying around the flag and around President Bush, he said. Eventually that patriotic surge, I think, became overtaken by a more skeptical, critical notion. Did these guys, did this administration let us down?For example Dan Rather, the star news anchor for the US television network CBS said, In the weeks after September 11 Rather wore a Stars and Stripes pin in his lapel during his evening news show in an apparent display of total solidarity with the American cause. According to Frankel, it's a notion evident a few years later when reporting on Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Youve got reporters who used to pride themselves on their even-handedness and kind of dispassionate accounting getting much angrier and asking tougher questions. I think that's the legacy of 9/11, he said.10 In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks in USA, September 11, 2001, as the U.S.-led retaliation was building up, various news media were reporting the propaganda battle, on both sides, even using those words. (For example, in UK, there was the Channel 4 news that mentioned it at least once on October 8, 2001 in their 7pm broadcast, while Sky News said similar things on October 9, 2001 in their 10:30pm broadcast.). While Bin Laden's propaganda was to incite hatred, convince the Muslim world of his views and give his perspectives to the West, the western propaganda was to retaliate and correct those misleading aspects. Sure enough, Bin Laden's views were misleading, inciting hatred etc, but the assumption that the west's propaganda was in response only and in a way honest is misleading to the public in general. The countless news reports announcing America Under Attack and the photographs of fire-fighters covered in soot from the World Trade Center helped assemble the nation in a period of mourning after the 9/11 attacks. Journalists then had a tough decision to make: How would
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watching what we say: global communication in a time of fear 09/09/2011 More expected from journalists in post-9/11 world By: Alana Rocha

they convey the terrorist attacks to the public? The media could not immediately dive into serious reporting that required the asking of tough analytical questions because of the magnitude of the attacks and the fact that they were carried out on American soil. The country was in a state of confusion, shock and mourning. Journalism reacted as much to the publics needs at the time as the public reacted to the media. From the day of the terrorist attacks to five years later, reporting evolved. What began with efforts to comfort the grief-stricken became a more critical analysis that posed questions. Journalism created a strong sense of community in the immediate aftermath of September 11, with headlines encouraging the nation to unite against the terrorists and never to allow another attack to take place. Unification and community were very important factors in the healing process, and journalism produced news articles and broadcasts that emphasized those themes. The September 11 Photo Project focused on rescue workers is a popular and reassuring topic. Images of grief-filled faces, the framework of what once was the World Trade Center and the war zone of lower Manhattan reminded people of a common goal: to end the evil that brought devastation to the United States. American journalism, however, took full advantage of the nations need for healing, comfort and mourning in order to continue to produce infotainment, not information. Hours of airtime and pages of print were used to repeat many of the same stories: who was killed, who was injured, who was a hero and how many New York City emergency units responded. It is sad to say that 9/11 became like a soap opera, a saga for stay-at-home moms who could cuddle up on the couch with a box of tissues for a good cry. The absence of rational debate was justified for only so long, which was recognized by media analyst Noam Chomsky in his book 9-11 (Open Media, 2001). Chomsky skilfully utilized his strongly persuasive wit in his foreign and domestic interviews, denouncing Americas claim at innocence because in much of the world the U.S. is regarded as a leading terrorist state, and with good reason. He boldly gave examples of attacks Americans have launched on other countries to support this point. Chomsky also declared that the official definition of terrorism entails the use of coercive means aimed at civilian populations in an effort to achieve political, religious or other aims.11

September 11 and the global media coverage

Terrorists have long constructed media spectacles of terror to promote their causes, attack their adversaries, and gain worldwide publicity and attention. There had been many major terror spectacles before, both in the U.S. and elsewhere. Hijacking of airplanes had been a standard terrorist activity, but the ante was significantly upped in 1970 when the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, hijacked three Western jetliners. The group forced the planes to land in the Jordanian desert, and then blew up the planes in an incident known as Black September which was then used as a basis of a Hollywood film. In 1972, Palestinian gunmen from the same movement stunned the world when they took Israeli athletes hostage at the Munich Olympic Games, producing another media spectacle, which eventually became the subject of an Academy
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Review Essay: Journalism After 9/11 By Andria Dunkin

Award winning documentary film. In 1993, the World Trade Center was bombed by Islamist terrorists linked to Osama bin Laden, providing a preview of the more spectacular September 11 aggression. An American born terrorist, Timothy McVeigh, bombed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 and wounding more than 500. Al Qaeda had assaulted U.S. embassies in Africa in 1998 and a U.S. destroyer harboured in Yemen in 2000. Consequently, terror spectacle is a crucial part of the deadly game of terrorism and al Qaeda had systematically used the spectacle of terror to promote its agenda. But the 9/11 terror spectacle was the most extravagant strike on U.S. targets in its history and the first foreign attack on its territory since the war of 1812.12 This terror spectacle took over live global media for days to come, becoming an emblematic event in media history, whereby McLuhans global village became a site of horror, death, and destruction. The attacks arguably inaugurated a new era in history in which global Terror War exploded, and countries legitimated political repression and military intervention as part of a war against terrorism. The U.S. public was dramatically shaken by recognition that its spaces and citizens were vulnerable to the sort of catastrophic terror attack experienced by people throughout the world. The Bush-Cheney Administration manipulated the fear experienced by the people of the United States to push through a rightwing agenda and to go to war in Afghanistan and Iraq with the complicity of the mainstream U.S. corporate media. The potency of media representations of 9/11 and the centrality of the media in the aftermath of the event have generated a wealth of empirical research, reflection, and debates about the role of the media in contemporary society and history. 13 As Yahya R. Kamalipour notes The contemporary Electronic Age, as Marshall McLuhan envisioned in the 1960s, has interconnected the entire world, but this interconnectedness has not ostensibly contributed to improved intercultural communication and international relations or a cooperative global village. Rather, it has presented an array of previously inconceivable challenges and obstacles vis--vis media, culture, economy, and politics The conflicts, differences, and challenges of a divided global media and political world are part of the focus of the books diverse studies.14 An opening reflection by Brian McNair on UK Media Coverage of September 11 contains general observations on the contours of representations in the British media. McNair agrees with interpretations that suggest that September 11 meant the death of detachment (31), and more impassioned and patriotic national media. The BBC, he notes, embraced the CNN rubric Attack on America and September 12 headlines in the British Press included: War on America (Daily Telegraph)
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September 11, Spectacles of Terror, and Media Manipulation: A Critique of Jihadist and Bush Media Politics by Douglas Kellner
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The Media In and After 9/11 Review Essay by DOUGLAS KELLNER foreword to how the news media reacted to 9/11

 War on the World (Daily Mirror) Declaration of war (Daily Express) Assault on America (Financial Times) Apocalypse (Daily Mail) McNair notes that there were only a few examples of anti-Americanism that blamed the attacks on U.S. policy and arrogance, while there was general solidarity and sympathy with Americans, claiming that a defining feature of British coverage was highlighting representations of international solidarity around the world with the U.S., punctuated by critical presentations of Palestinians celebrating the attack, a response that led Arafat to denounce the celebrations and criticize the Al Qaeda attacks.15 Maria B. Marron follows with an analysis of how Elite British and Irish Newspapers Reflect Ideology in Framing the 9/11 Catastrophe. In a detailed analysis of the London Times, the Manchester Guardian, and the Dublin Irish Times, Marron shows that representations of 9/11 followed the general ideological parameters of the papers with the conservative Times presenting coverage completely sympathetic to the U.S. and sharply critical of global terrorism, while the left-liberal Guardian presented some critical analyses of American policy and published a wide diversity of critical analysis, as did the Irish Times.16 Jacques Portes contextualizes the growing critical responses to Bushs aggressive military reaction within an escalating French critique of U.S. power over the past years. Portes cites Hubert Vedrines notion of hyperpower, where the U.S. exerts not only its economic and military power, but control of the communications network, dream factories, new technology in a virtually unprecedented array of cultural power. French critics had previously been skeptical of George W. Bushs ability to govern and were angry at his anti-environmental policies and breaking off of global treaties and organizations from the beginning of his presidency. Consequently, after 9/11, they raised questions whether the U.S. response to the challenges of global terrorism would be appropriate and effective. While France was divided itself on the Afghanistan war, Portes notes, a greater divide emerged between France and America on Iraq.17 A study by Anne Koenen and Brigitte Georgi-Findlay on Reactions to 9/11 in the German Media, also focuses on response to 9/11 in terms of the German political situation, and its increasingly strained relations with the U.S. Already by August 2001, disapproval of Bushs policies were higher among Germans (65%) than any European country, and there was widespread anger over his decision to abandon the Kyoto Protocol, leave the international criminal court, and break off negotiations on arms treaties. Further, the authors indicate that Germany had been more internally focused on its own unification since 1989 and its integration into the European Union than in their traditionally close relations with the U.S. The shock of 9/11, however, led Germans to focus on dangers of global terrorism and their own potential
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UK media coverage of September 11 elite British and Irish newspapers reflect ideology in framing the 9/11 catastrophe- Maria Marron 17 We Cannot All be Americans: French Media Reception of 9/11

security and military weaknesses, especially when it was revealed that some of the 9/11 hijackers, including Mohammed Atta, had lived in Germany. A poll cited by the authors indicated that while 66% of Germans believed their own leaders would respond competently and effectively to the terrorism crisis, only 36% believed that the U.S. administration would respond appropriately. The German public and media were divided over the U.S. response in Afghanistan and a mid-October issue of Der Spiegel presented the German public evenly divided among supporters and critics of the U.S., although politicians declared unconditional solidarity.18 Hence we see that the articles in French and German media, in response to 9/11, focused mainly on the countries general political and media response to the terror attacks and their aftermath in terms of the respective countries increasingly problematic relations with the United States. Ros Business Consulting (RBC) tended to follow U.S. frames in presenting 9/11 and highlights a report that indicated: 9/11 was a turning point in the history of the world. The attacks changed the alignment of forces on the planet. Russias foreign policy turned toward the West sharply. Russian President Vladimir Putin was the first foreign leader to call U.S. President George W. Bush and offer condolences and support. Overall, the Russian media has been supportive of the American response. Here, one would like a more nuanced and updated analysis of what has become highly complicated relations between the U.S. and USSR in the past years.19 In M. Zenaida Sarabia-Panols The 9/11 Terrorist Attacks on America: Media Frames from the Far East. gives a content analysis of an English-language daily over the period of September 12 - 20, 2001 from China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Pakistan, and the Philippines. The author argues that: In general, the analysis supports the expectation that a newspapers coverage of 9/11 reflects the nature of the political relationship between the United States and the newspapers nation. The more positive the relation, the more positive the coverage and vice-versa. Yet India and China emerged as partial exceptions to this model. Chinas newspaper had the second biggest percentage of positive stories, attributing 63% of its 9/11 stories to government officials, who evidently wanted to create more positive relations with its major trading partner, the United States. The China Dailys major frames included strong opposition to terrorism and sympathy with the U.S.; calls for international cooperation in an antiterrorism alliance, and emphasizing a dominant role for the United Nations. Its coverage of possible economic impacts of the attacks stressed the resilience of the U.S. and global economy. To cite a more specific example of how American and South Asian press differed, the American press began to see President Bush in a new light and granted him increased leadership stature. The Indian press remained cynical about the President and proved unable to transcend the caricature of prior malapropisms and perceived ineptitude. The Pakistani press virtually ignored the personality of the President to focus instead on the power of the Office to alter
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The Media In and After 9/11 Review Essay by DOUGLAS KELLNER September 11 in Russian Media

through political and military actions the lives and futures of the Pakistani people and its neighbours.20

Journalism after September 11

To understand the role the media in the events of September 11 and its aftermath, a short history of American press over the last few years is required. The modern era of journalism stretches from the 1890s to 1970s.modern media communications for the first time allowed the people to connect with each other as a community, without the influence of the local and regional political parties. During this period one outlook of journalism dominated the American press. Modern journalism (as it was called) was described by journalists as independent, neutral, adversarial, objective, non-partisan, a genuine fourth estate. When broadcasting came upon the scene as an essentially entertainment medium, it was saddled with the responsibility of serving the public interest, convince and necessity. to meet that that the broadcasting stations created new departments that adopted the ideology enshrined in the newspapers and within the requirements of the regulatory law strove, not always successful to perform as independent arbiters of truth and promoters of the values and norms of modernity. Modern, independent American journalism was always critiqued because it carried with it strong inclinations towards monopoly and concentrated economic power. the watchdog may have become the lapdog. Growing distrust of journalists coincided with the break-up of the structural basis of an independent press during 1980s.it began with the advent of cable TV networks and broadcast satellites. Traditional news media re-defined themselves as part of the information industry, to find a niche for themselves in which they might survive. As firms grew larger, news in traditional sense became smaller and increasingly insignificant part of the corporate enterprise. 21 Although most Americans experienced the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, through their televisions, many chose to remember it with their newspapers. On a Sunday night in May almost 10 years later, most Americans learned via TV that Osama bin Laden, the man behind the attacks, finally had been killed. Newspaper presses went into overdrive, just as they did when the towers fell. Much changed in the decade between those press runs. And yet, judging by TV viewership and newspaper readership after bin Ladens death, the way that much of America consumes news has not. In the introduction to September 11, 2001, Poynters book of front pages marking the attacks, Max Frankel describes the medias role in the hours and days after the terrorist attacks: Only honest and reliable news media could instruct the world in its vulnerability, summon Americans to heroic acts of rescue, and ignite the global search for meaning and response. Only trusted news teams could discern the nations anxiety, spread words of hope and therapy, and help to move us from numbing fear toward recovery.
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Analyses of Post-9/11 Media Coverage A Review of the Communications Literature Prepared by M. Karen Walker American journalism on ,before and after September 11

Ten years later, those trusted news teams are much smaller, theyre employed by fewer companies, and they report and publish in a different environment. Not only are newspapers and television stations losing advertising dollars to the Internet, theyre losing audience.22 The calm and poise of the television networks during those fateful hours of ignorance represented an admirable profession. Perhaps it couldnt last longer. By the end of the day speculation was pouring forth from the political centres of the country. As the week progressed, the television coverage degenerated. Banners were unfurled, inevitably in red, white and blue along the crawl space at the corner of the screen announcing America at war and so on.23 The first and most general effect on September 11 was to draw journalists back within the body politic. Cosmopolitanism and ironic distance from the society along with independence from the institution of democracy were exposed as unsustainable fraud. The press was renationalised, global foundation thought they needed the protection of democratic practice, and journalists experienced the vulnerability that is at the root of patriotism and nationalism. Some of the practices of public journalism, though without the name attached, found their way into the elite press. The New York Times discovered a new renewed relation with its readers. It showed unusual enterprise in running a series on race relations in the US that was pegged not to external events but within its own newsroom that connected to the real state of racial conflict without in the society. Also it became more than open to its readers in providing identification; the admission of error and in providing access via e-mail to its reporters and writers. As the international situation has lurched from crisis to disaster since 9/11, the networks have been pumping out reams of programming seething with terror plots, covert agencies and geopolitical paranoia, from the BBC's Spooks to US-made productions including NCIS, Alias and 24. The background to the World Trade Centre attacks was explored (none too accurately, according to many critics) in The Path To 9/11. Further recent American arrivals on British TV have included Sleeper Cell (in which a Muslim FBI agent infiltrates a terrorist conspiracy), The Unit (depicting the exploits of a top secret Special Forces team), and E-Ring, which takes its name from "the outer and most important ring" of the Pentagon where critical military operations are planned. The Grid, a lumbering mini-series about the complexities of co-ordinating transatlantic counter-terrorism, was a co-production between the BBC and TNT. Its successor is BBC1's The State Within, a bafflingly complex six-parter bristling with terrorist outrages and political conspiracies. For the TV studios, terrorism is now a big business.24 A corollary approach to multi-cultural media analyses is to assess the content of coverage concerning affected groups. Nacos and Torres-Reyna exemplified this approach, to determine how the 9/11 attacks changed the ways that newspapers and television news reported about American Muslims and Arab-Americans. Nacos and Torres-Reyna reported a shift from fairly limited and stereotypical coverage in the pre-9/11 period to a more comprehensive, inclusive and
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www.poynter.org James W Carey 24 Terror Vision: The 9/11 aftermath

less stereotypical news presentation. Following the 9/11 attacks, in addition to more frequent and prominently placed references, reporters and editors increased their use of Muslim and ArabAmerican sources. Print media were more inclined to publish news analyses, columns and letters to-the-editor concerning Muslim and Arab-American issues, with particular emphasis on civil rights.25 Partly a result of privileging official or institutional sources as well as economic pressure to echo national sentiment, journalistic coverage emphasized core American values and U.S. strength and resolve, and described the enemy in terms also used by U.S. and military officials. Elliott offers a distinction between a nationalistic and Patriotic press. In Elliotts terms, the former reports governmental messages, while the latter reports independently and keeps fundamental interests of citizens in mind. News media, Elliott argues, have both the ability and special obligation to step outside of nationalistic perspectives to help citizens develop alternative ways of understanding world conflicts. In a similar vein to Elliot, Barrett opines that virtually no evidence exists of mainstream media daring to shed light on the unsolved mysteries of 9/11 or to suggest that the failures of 9/11 might have more to do with political criminality than with incompetence. Barrett proceeds to illustrate strategies of coverage which had the effect of forestalling public doubt about the Administrations prosecution of the war on terror. These include mobilization of the public through slogans, jingoistic icons, war rhetoric, and rhetoric of impartiality; vilification of the enemy; wilful lack of attention to alternative sources of culpability; manipulation of history; and uncritical acceptance of official and intelligence claims. 26 The post-9/11 environment required a new frame for terrorism because the language Americans used before September 11 did not serve them well after the attacks, while words such as safety, security, peace, progress, war, and American took on new colorations. In a content analysis of 104 editorials published in 10 large circulation U.S. papers, Ryan found the writers not only presented a singular narrative that supported military intervention but also assumed a positive outcome.27 Kitschs analysis of newsweeklies coverage focused on their instrumental role in national recovery. After September 11, the news media conducted a public funeral ceremony, leading their readers through the stages of separation (shock and disbelief; a tear in the fabric of society), transformation or liminality (anger and uncertainty in face of social disruption and seeking of answers and healing); and aggregation (renewal of faith in social values and a commitment to get on with life as a group). The first stage was characterized by emotionality in tone, witnessing and testimony. Stage two included pointers to revenge, anger commingled with religious faith or resolve, and visual eulogy. In the renewal stage, the American flag took on civil-religious status,

25 26

Analyses of Post-9/11 Media Coverage A Review of the Communications Literature by M. Karen Walker Analyses of Post-9/11 Media Coverage A Review of the Communications Literature by M. Karen Walker 27 Ibid

along with the visuals of the pile, scenes of victims coping, and a simultaneous looking to the past and future.28 Journalists drew on several strategies supporting the evil genius archetype. These included turning bin Laden into a faceless abstraction or a vile creature; referencing bin Ladens height and creepy physical presence in variously describing him as a living statue or a human of monumental proportions; and focusing on bin Ladens eyes which took on the appearance of a homicidal maniac. Similarly, the media attributed the devotion of bin Ladens followers to his personal wealth, his media savvy, and his charisma.29 In mapping media discourse, Rojecki found three frames: the dark side of globalization; perceived American economic, political and cultural hegemony; and the clash of civilizations. These three frames appeared across the whole of press coverage and served as a singular organizing framework for a third of the coverage including editorials, op-eds and news analyses. Adding a second layer of detail, the dominant press frames linking globalization and terrorism are primarily political and economic. The notion of an unbridgeable cultural gulf did not, in Rojecki's estimation, gain more traction because it was not sufficiently provocative, it offered no remedies, and it failed to achieve a sufficient level of salience. 30 Kellers analysis pointed to a different conclusion that amongst the largely circulated war fever and retaliatory feelings and war rhetoric, mainstream media in the U.S. privileged the clash of civilizations model to establish a binary dualism between Islamic terrorism and civilization.31 In an interesting analysis of how the media makes terrorists celebrities, Nacos indicates how both McVeigh and bin Laden were made into major celebrities by the media framing and presentation. In a detailed account of McVeighs achieving celebrity status in the six months before his execution, Nacos cites how MSNBC presented a program about McVeigh and the Oklahoma City bombing on its series Headliners and Legends, usually devoted to celebrities and stars, thus calling attention to McVeighs transformation into a celebrity. She also cites Neil Gablers analysis of celebrity and entertainment, indicating how a Newsweek colour photo by Eddie Adams, the famed Vietnam and war photographer, made a romanticized McVeigh appear more like a typical Gen-Xers than a deranged loner, much less a terrorist (Gabler, cited on Nacos 97), while the actual article and interview was pure Photo play: gushy, reverent, excited (ibid). Responding to media celebrity treatment, women sent McVeigh nude photos of themselves, marriage proposals and money to him, angering families of the victims (98). Moreover, Nacos indicates, it was not just TV and news magazines that helped McVeigh achieve fame and celebrity. In a similar fashion, newspapers carried frequent articles on him such that during the last six months of his life he received almost a third as many mentions as the President George W. Bush, and stories about him far exceeded the volume of coverage devoted
28 29

Kitch, Mourning in America, Nacos, Mass-Mediated Terrorism, 30 Ibid. 76. 31 Kellner, Spectacles of Terror,

to Vice President Dick Cheney, who was widely seen as equally influential and important as the President32 September 11 was a wakeup call to us all on how we should be getting information. September 11 changed the Internet and the way we search and need information. People were reaching out and posting their own stories on web sites that we now would call a blog. Reporters were finding these web sites and asking eyewitnesses for interviews. Citizens, not reporters, were our information source besides the traditional news media. People were looking for ways to connect after this tragic event. Unfortunately, this was a void in the new media. According to Stuart Allen: This invitation to be the media, and thus to challenge traditional definitions of what counted as news as well as who qualified as a journalist, was very much consistent with the animating ethos of the Internet. Hundreds of refashioned websites began to appear over the course of September 11, making publicly available eyewitness accounts, personal photographs, and in some cases video footage of the unfolding disasters. in the present times we see the existence of Citizen journalism, where citizens have the power to be the source of information, not just to the reporters but to the citizens at large.33

Conclusion
Ideological and political conflict between the Western and Arab and Muslim world is one of the most significant phenomena of the present era and the struggle is mediated, reproduced, and circulated by the media. While U.S. and Western media have previously dominated the global media-scape, the emergence of new Arab media and a new Arab public sphere open the way for productive dialogues and better mutual understanding. Yet Western media must break with stereotypes of Arabs and Islam, incorporate more Arab and Muslim voices into its programming and production apparatus, and provide real dialogue and debate rather than ideological posturing and polarization. Likewise, the emergent Arab public sphere should be open to Western voices and dialogue, as well as the diversity of points of view in its region. The media can facilitate informed dialogue and debate, or increase polarization. Hence, it will be one of the challenges of the coming years for critical communication scholars to track media and politics in the interaction between the Middle East and the West which has been so fraught with danger, and will no doubt continue to be a site of immense importance and conflict. Not just journalism, but a lot has changed after the September 11 attacks. Even though certain scholars claim that journalists have now started to question events in a critical manner however, reform of journalism is much needed to make sure that it performs to carry out the tasks of the watchdog. These reforms are possible only when news organisations are disengaged from the global entertainment and information industries that increasingly contain them. That is the only way of removing journalism from the profit expectations (as it is now) and opportunities cost that rationalise global enterprise. A creation of an independent press is required.
32 33

Douglas Kellner International Journal of Communication 1 (2007), Book Review How the Internet Changed after 9/11Citizen Journalism, Social Media and Mobility