One of the most devastating events in the history of the United States and the world was September 11. There was huge media coverage of it on the day of September 11, 2001. People wanted to know what was going on in this country, and the media bore the role of information transfer. They had a responsibility to let people know what was happening. At some point during their reporting of the whole incident, the media lost one of their essential factors of function: objectivity.
As you can see, anchors were repeating the same things again and again. It shows how panicked they were.
On the next day, September 12, 2001, many newspapers issued special editions with headings saying “Horror”, “Unthinkable”, “Attacked” and similar words that triggered anxiety, fear, and anger to readers.
(San Francisco Examiner, 2001)
(The Seattle Times, 2001)
Newspapers were in confusion and chaos as well, and many of the articles were quotes of articles and pictures released by the AP (Associated Press, world's oldest and largest newsgathering organization). That depicted how difficult it was to gather and integrate information of the event.
People were scared and angered. Gradually, a patriotic mood was encouraged throughout the country. Also, words such as “unity”, “God bless”, and “America’s pride” became prevalent everywhere. Such attitude was also present in media, especially TV networks. Major TV network stations had phrases such as CNN’s “America’s new war”, and CBS’s “America rising” (Ito, 2007), and used those phrases to promote unity and exalt people’s will to fight back against America’s attacker. Simultaneously, media started to use words such as “us”, “our”, and “our enemies”. Because they started to use first person, they became involved in the event as part of the country. At this point, the media in America lost its objectivity, which is necessary for fairness and third-person-positioning of media.
Media are indeed part of this country. It is understandable that their reports reflected their emotion because they were angry as well. However, such subjectivity in media would alter our perceptions and create ,misinformation. Simultaneously, it would be an obstacle for us and think and judge by ourselves. Not being subjective is one of essential factors of media because their fundamental role is to give people the facts to form their opinions. In the process of reporting what happened or is happening, facts should be presented as they are. However, during and after the incident of September 11, 2001, such fairness of media no longer existed when they began to use subjective terms. Objectivity and variation of press were abandoned by media themselves. They forgot to be calm and lost ability to judge and report in the way that they supposed to do. However, that was the reality of what was happening in America.
Bastards! (2001, September 12). San Francisco, CA: San Francisco The Examiner. Retrieved from http://www.newseum.org/todaysfrontpages/hr_archive.asp?fpVname=CA_SFE&ref_pge=gal&b_pge=1
CNN live breaking news. (2001, September 11). [Television broadcast]. Atlanta, GA: Cable News Network. Retrieved from http://youtu.be/vfYQAPhjwzA.
Ito, K. (2007). Recipe of image: Referring to the images of Islam and terrorism. Retrieved from http://members.jcom.home.ne.jp/katote/08ito.htm
Terror. (2001, September 12). Seattle, WA: The Seattle Times. Retrieved from http://www.newseum.org/todaysfrontpages/hr_archive.asp?fpVname=WA_ST&ref_pge=gal&b_pge=1
U.S. Attacked: Hijack jets destroy twin towers and hit Pentagon in day of terror. (2001, September 11). New York City, NY: The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.newseum.org/todaysfrontpages/hr_archive.asp?fpVname=NY_NYT&ref_pge=gal&b_pge=1
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