Documentary and Reading x2 Combo

Ignoring the Lessons of 9/11
When I learned about this article from Jensen himself a year ago, I thought the subject and tone of it all was a bit insensitive. It didn't seem like the kind of thing to bring up at a tenth anniversary of such a traumatic event. But it's funny how our opinions change the more we're influenced by conflicting theories and mindsets over time.

Now, considering this was written ten years after the incident, I think it got a lot of negative attention that it shouldn't have been getting by that point. I understand that we often mark the tenth anniversary of anything as something we should commemorate and honor, but I don't think Jensen's article particularly went against that so much so that it warranted a public rebuffing from the president of the university and so many more around Texas. Ten years is plenty long enough to look back on something, analyze and realize what we've done right and what we've done wrong.

I think this sentence adequately frames what most journalists were afraid to realize ten years later: "But given the events of the past decade, there is no way to take the politics out of the anniversary." Jensen just wasn't and, though we initially didn't want to admit it, he was right not to be.

Framing the War on Terror

It's no surprise dissenting voices were hardly heard throughout the years directly after 9/11 There were hardly any of them at all. Perhaps the more unpopular ideas would have gotten more attention if they had been given more priority in placement on newspapers or schedules on TV broadcasts. But I think a lot of those newspapers and broadcast stations were really just frightened to put those kinds of ideas on the front page because they didn't want to lose viewers or their readership.

Should this out-weight the importance of offering the public differentiating views and being fair? It is a hard choice, yet what a cowardly thing it would be to say yes. And that is precisely why it is so hard.

Buying the War

Thinking about 9/11 is always really hard for me. I grit my teeth and set my jaw in a pathetic attempt to remain "objective" when, as a speaker in the documentary pointed out, journalists are not robots. However, there's only so much we can say or do in our own defense against remaining unattached to a powerful situation. There's always a catch. A breaking point. A limit.

Do I think journalists failed in their attempt to document the war and subsequent chain of events after 9/11? Yes, I do. As proof, I am ashamed to say that I can't even begin to explain the war to anybody without doubting every syllable that slips through my lips. I know nothing, or at least nothing I can say with any bit of certainty that is true. The media contorted what was going on overseas into an image that depicted us as world-wide saviors and when they finally realized how wrong they were about their information, it was too late to set the public straight. Thus, we can see why it is so important for a journalist to report the truth on the first try and not rely on each other to do the work for us. But, I digress.

Principally, I believe our pride blinded us. Of course we are not robots. We feel, we breathe. We bleed. But our emotions, our dedication to our country, should never override our obligation to report the truth as it is in fact, not as we wish to see it.