Journalism After September 11 (Communication and Society) [Paperback]

Barbie Zelizer (Author), Stuart Allan (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0415288002 | ISBN-13: 978-0415288002 | Publication Date: September 2002

The events of September 11 continue to resonate in powerful, yet sometimes unexpected ways. For many journalists, the crisis has decisively recast their sense of the world around them. Familiar notions of what it means to be a journalist, how best to practice journalism, and what the public can reasonably expect of journalists in the name of democracy, have been shaken to their foundations. Journalism After September 11 examines how the traumatic attacks of that day continue to transform the nature of journalism, particularly in the United States and Britain.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

9/11 This timely and important book addresses several questions facing journalists and their profession in the wake of last year's tragedy: How do journalists fairly and accurately present the news in a climate of uncertainty and fear? What is the role of the press in a democratic society? How do journalists preserve their professional ethics while experiencing a traumatic event affecting them personally? The editors of this collection of scholarly and authoritative essays, academics Zelizer (Univ. of Pennsylvania; Visual Culture and the Holocaust) and Allan (Univ. of West of England; Theorizing Culture), have synthesized a thoughtful and engaging examination of the effects of 9/11 on the field of journalism. Its unique aim is to discuss the impact of the attack as a personal trauma and its current and future effects on journalism and reporting of the news. Contributors include scholars and media commentators from all over the world, with each essay including a list of references used. Highly recommended for academic libraries. Katherine E. Merrill, Rochester P.L., NY
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

FIRST EDITION:

'Media critics will appreciate this book, which examines how 9/11 has reshaped modern journalism.' - Bookmagazine.com

'Media Studies is good for you. This collection of essays comes mainly from academics but nobody should bridle at theorists lecturing practitioners. They properly challenge the way September 11th was reported - in a way that's both an endorsement of the role of the media and a wake-up call on its failures . . . anyone interested in our trade should read it.' - Roger Mosey, Ariel

'A thoughtful and engaging examination of the effects of 9/11 on the field of journalism. Its unique aim is to discuss the impact of the attack as a personal trauma and its current and future effects on journalism and the reporting of the news. . . highly recommended.' - Library Journal

' ... the book serves as a useful platform from which to launch future analysis of a tragedy that - even critics of imperialistic American foreign policy would admit - changed the world a great deal.' - Discourse and Society

'This is not a book just for journalists but for everyone concerned about democracy, freedom of speech and our future. Distinguished contributors from all over the English-speaking world tackle the crucial question: what did the media's reaction to 11 September tell us about modern media itself? All the ideological assumptions-voluntary censorship, market logic, journalistic patriotism, big corporation dominance - are dissected and those that do not stand up are ruthlessly buried. Is this important? Of course it is. As Victor Navasky reminds us in his introduction: it is based largely on journalism that a nation makes up its mind.' - Phillip Knightley, author of The First Casualty

'The best critique yet of how the media responded to September 11 2001. An eclectic group of seasoned media operatives offer real insight into the challenges, compromises, successes and failures of the coverage that flowed from the attack on the Twin Towers in New York.' - Jon Snow, Channel 4 News

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Routledge (September 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0415288002
• ISBN-13: 978-0415288002
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,219,983 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Probes the face of modern journalism, January 11, 2003

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Journalism After September 11 (Communication and Society) (Paperback)

This profile of both journalism and events after September 11th provides a blend of social history and a survey of how journalism's classic structure was shaken by the events of September 11th. Ideological beliefs flourished after the tragedy and ultimate transformed the nature and content of journalistic reporting. Journalism After September 11th packs in a host of internationally respected journalists and academics who probe the face of modern journalism and its many challenges.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Securing their legitimacy, March 12, 2008

By 

Ivan Boothe "www.QuixoticLife.net" (Philadelphia, PA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Journalism After September 11 (Communication and Society) (Paperback)

Many Americans seem to have a peculiar sense of dualism about themselves, a feeling at once slightly elitist and fiercely victimized. The United States attempts to be the great savior of the world, but is cast off by many other nations, and it is from this so many Americans draw both superiority and resentment. While U.S. citizens have much to be proud of, so many seem to be neurotically opposed to admitting any shortcomings, and it is this arrogance--not, as is so often cited, hatred of American culture or freedom--that is a primary source of a bias against the United States from Sweden to Somalia. Two phrases plastered across American newspapers a year ago demonstrate this bipolar affliction: "Everything has changed" and "Why do they hate us?" Only Americans could claim that their indeed heart-wrenching loss of 3,000 lives had superseded every other such atrocity the world over, yet simultaneously sequester themselves with a flippant "us."

U.S. newspapers and their journalists were dramatically affected by Sept. 11. From the instant iconicity of "9/11" (a date so beautifully Ameri-centric) to the violent and sudden loss of any pretense of objectivity, American journalism is in not in the same state today as it has very recently been.

Chronicling the myriad shifts over the past year, Journalism After September 11 takes a hard, academic look at nearly every aspect of journalism--structure, stereotypes, objectivity, conglomeration, globalization, patriotic journalism, risks to reporters' health, tabloids (both American and British), talk shows, online media, and photography. All of the writers included are from the world of academia, and it shows in a few of the chapters, which dive headlong into obscure sociology. The authors' distance from the world of news media, however, unquestionably enhances most of the work. There is also a range of opinions on American journalism--though all authors seem to agree that it is flawed, several believe that it can be saved. After being under the microscope its prognosis is cautiously--though barely--optimistic.

In James W. Carey's essay, "American journalism on, before, and after September 11," he argues that American journalists were in the midst of a "vacation from reality," one that began sometime before the 1988 presidential election and peaked with the impeachment of Bill Clinton. During this time, Carey writes, news media did "serious damage" to democracy. They pulled expensive foreign affairs correspondents, integrated news and entertainment programs, and increasingly moved toward tabloid-style scandals in order to sell their papers. When the airplanes struck that morning, Carey says, journalists performed adroitly--but not for very long:

"The calm and poise of the television networks during these fateful hours of ignorance represented an admirable professionalism. Perhaps it couldn't last. By the end of the day speculation was pouring forth from the political centers of the country. As the week progressed, television coverage degenerated. Banners were unfurled, inevitably in red, white, and blue, along the crawl space at the bottom of the television screen announcing 'America at War,' or 'America under Attack' as if the story were about a basketball or football tournament."

In the days that followed, Sylvio Waisbord argues, American news media "resorted to standard formulas and stock-in-trade themes." The national news media served primarily to comfort and to warn, and to do little else. The centerpiece of the book is surely Waisbord's chapter, "Journalism, risk, and patriotism," which builds on the other contributors' conclusions. With the news media's growing ignorance of foreign affairs, Waisbord writes, insecurity itself became "othered"--terrorism was simply something that occurred, however unfortunately, to other people in other places. This begins to account for why the American public did not react so viscerally (or, in some cases, at all) to either massive genocides or attacks on American holdings abroad. There was no general American revulsion following Rwanda. After massive atrocities were revealed in the former Yugoslavia, Hollywood stars did not proclaim how suddenly "meaningless" their work had become. This cultural sense of invincibility was truly what broke down last September, and Waisbord argues it may have taken the news media along with it. In addition, professional journalists felt that, in the wake of a violent message interpreted against American "freedoms" (and certainly after the death of reporter Daniel Pearl), they were being specifically targeted. Thus, Waisbord writes, they increasingly used patriotism to inoculate themselves against the threat. News had suddenly become legitimate in the eyes of the public, and journalists were more than willing to write what the public wanted to hear. Gone was the subtle elitism that Carey describes, which had pervaded the media since Watergate. Patriotism allowed journalists to be a visible part of what they interpreted as a united nation. With the combination of a supposed attack on the freedoms that supported their own enterprise and a newly-admiring public, the news media embraced patriotism as their rightful purpose.

As Robert W. McChesney laments in "September 11 and the structural limitations of US journalism," this deference to patriotism--or, more frequently, rabid nationalism--gave journalists an extremely limited framework in which to operate:

"What is most striking in the US news coverage following the September 11 attacks is how that very debate over whether to go to war, or how best to respond, did not even EXIST. It was presumed, almost from the moment the South Tower of the World Trade Center collapsed, that the United States was at war, world war. The picture conveyed by the media was as follows: a benevolent, democratic, and peace-loving nation was brutally attacked by insane evil terrorists who hated the United States for its freedoms and affluent way of life."

There is considerable reason to believe that the text selected by most media and politicians--of "evil" or "insane" terrorists--was not merely a gut reaction, but carefully selected vocabulary. If the terrorists were evil, then they had no motivations, and it was absurd to attempt to discover what led them to carry out such an act; their motivation was evil alone. But as another author points out elsewhere in Journalism, "There has emerged over the last three decades a set of journalistic narratives on 'Muslim terrorism,' whose construction is dependent on basic cultural perceptions about the global system of nation-states, violence, and the relationship between Western and Muslim societies." Doubtless these tropes reinforced the predominant feelings of "having to do something" ("something" which inevitably translated into "war") to combat the evil marshaled against us.

Not coincidentally, risk suddenly became real, not by a measurable increase in danger (virulent anti-Americanism had been flowing for quite some time), but primarily by the media's own increase in focus. They--meaning both the public and the journalists who were now, proudly, a part of it--had been attacked, and they would stand sentinel against any further threats. The anthrax attacks were a good example of this: perpetrators were almost immediately assumed to be foreign, working against a unified American public, and a relatively small number of deaths created a firestorm of articles for more than a month. Waisbord and several other authors lament modern journalism's reliance on official sources and "events" for their news. This policy precludes long-term explorations of structural violence, such as the building threat of terrorism against the United States in the previous decade. In the case of the anthrax attacks, the news promptly dropped off the front page shortly after the final death, despite the fact that no perpetrator had been identified.

It is this combination of legitimizing patriotism, reliance only on official sources, and risk based on definable events that did the most harm to American journalism after Sept. 11. Carey places the blame for these policies primarily on the conglomeration that governs most news organizations, writing that "in recent years journalism has been sold, to a significant degree, to the entertainment and information industries which market commodities globally ... This condition cannot be allowed to persist." With Sept. 11, however, Carey seems more hopeful. In their introduction to Carey's piece, the editors write that journalists "just might have realized that democratic institutions are not guaranteed; rather, they are fragile and can be destroyed by journalists as well as by politicians."

The remaining authors in Journalism After September 11 offer a wide panorama of the state of the news media today. Barbie Zelizer (an editor of the book) describes how the use of still photography in newspapers allowed the American public to "bear witness" in a similar way as following the Holocaust--yet this time, there were no bodies to be seen. Karim H. Karim notes that Islamic and Middle Eastern stereotypes are still in wide use when explaining notions such as "terrorism" or "violence." Several authors tackle more specific areas of news--tabloids, talk shows, and newspaper commentaries--and there is an intriguing look by Ingrid Volkmer at how news media is increasingly defined not by national boundaries, but by sub- and supra-national organizations. Journalism gives one an in-depth look at how different facets of American news reporting operate, and how that may be affecting, for good or ill, the American democracy.

The two, of course, have always been intertwined, with patriotism frequently substituted for democracy when threats arise. "Patriotism" is itself a nebulous term,... Read more ›