Sept. 16, 2001
I'm a Jesuit and an observer of the media. My main work is to train teachers in teaching media literacy - giving children the critical tools to deal with the media surrounding them every day. It's a required part of the language arts curriculum across Canada. I've been asked to write about my reaction to the media's coverage of the terrorist attack on New York and Washington.
These are just thoughts, they are not an essay, nor were meant to be. They are impressions, my first reactions to what I watched.
By chance, that Tuesday morning, I was reading a script for a new movie based on Barbara Gaudy's novel, Falling Angel. In it one of the characters quotes W. B. Yeats' poem - "The Second Coming." I've yet to hear any one in the media quote from it, yet it says so much about that tragic day.
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity . . .Surely some revelation is at hand . . . And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
There was a scramble Tuesday for the networks to get their anchors on air and somehow to cover the horror that was happening in front of them. To their credit, the networks for the most part did their best to present calmly and factually what they knew. That this worked is due in large part to the TV anchors - people like Peter Mansbridge, who was amazing in his ability to stay calm and to present the horror unfolding in front of him.
And I noted that there was another thing that Mansbridge did which the other network anchors could not do - he kept silent. Around 11.20, he said "Look at those pictures. You don't need any more descriptions from me. " And he was correct. As John Doyle wrote in The Globe and Mail: "Language was beggared by the impact of the pictures."
There has been caution in the reporting. All media were sensitive to images of people falling and jumping from the World Trade Center. The Globe and Mail carried one such picture and was criticized for it - "this man was someone's friend, son and lover" - one person wrote. CBS opted to show the images, ABC and MSNBC refused to do so. Fox and NBC showed them only once.
We must keep in the front of our minds that the news media is, ideally, there to bear witness. They must not sanitize. They must give us facts. We have a right - even more in situations like this that change all our lives - a need to know facts.
While I understand why some media people and people who were interviewed spoke and said that what they saw looked like a movie, I still shudder when I hear that. It was not a movie, it was real and we need to know this and to see this.
And what is reality? One of the most "real" and terrifying videos was shot by Dr. Mark Heath, who went to help after the first plane struck and was caught by the collapse of the second tower. We watched as the debris fell towards him and heard his plea, "I hope I live, I hope I live". He did live and the images he captured are perhaps as close as we will ever come to knowing what that surreal world actually looked like.
This is both the strength and the weakness of all the television coverage. As one commentator said - at first the images are paramount and we are drawn to them - we can't stop watching. But after that first horrific day, we wanted more detail, more depth and for that we turned to the newspapers.
In the midst of the tragedy, the media showed us many heroes and the emergence of a leader -New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani - who has been described as " a wartime mayor." Not only was he on the scene soon after the collapse of the first tower but his words at the frequent press conferences have been described by the New York Daily News as "extremely steady, very calm, very competent, and in some ways inspirational." Something Americans desperately needed at that time. Though nothing was said, the media, unwittingly or not, showed the mayor as more presidential than the president.
And it is amazing how many comments we have online, in newspapers and magazines about how the media "performed." One such comment by The Globe and Mail 's John Doyle made me very curious. He spoke of the way in which MuchMusic did an extraordinary job on Tuesday and Wednesday, of how it managed to communicate something profound, a sense of shared horror and dread. There was little music, the VJs talked to their viewers, took phone calls and emails and interviewed experts with a disarming honesty and forthrightness.
MuchMusic gave me access to some of the many emails that they have received from across Canada. Some excerpts:
"I was so shocked and terrified . When I got home I was watching the coverage on CNN like the rest of the world . . . that just made me more confused and frightened . . . I flip the channel to Much and there you are talking to the nation, trying to put it into perspective for the young people. I just would like to thank you for being a friend in all of this."
"I've been bombarded with negative images, and frightening thoughts and emotions. Until I turned to you . . .Thank you so much for your good taste, your decorum, and your compassion."
And Much Music cancelled their Video Awards scheduled for next Friday saying it was a time to mourn and to collect our thoughts and prayers.
And speaking about prayer - on Friday, all around the world, there were memorial services held. Prayers were said in many languages and by many denominations. That is everywhere but in front of the Parliament Buildings in Ottawa where no prayers were said for either the dead or the living and where God was not even mentioned.
Instead, in front of 100,000 grieving people we heard our prime minister tells the U.S. that they were our family, heard the American ambassador tell us that we were their best friends, listened to three brief pieces of music and were silent for three minutes. There were no prayers.
The media itself called attention to this glaring omission. Often coming back to a front row, the cameras showed ministers of varying denominations who were present but not allowed to pray aloud. It was as if the media itself was shocked to see this presentation of Canada as a country without religion. I congratulate the media on their loud if silent commentary on this.
And, finally, which media commentator designated the disaster area as 'Ground Zero'? This is the name given to the place at which an atomic bomb is detonated. It implies an image of ultimate horror and destruction. Is it appropriate here? Has that "rough beast, its hour come round at last", now been born?