How we view the anniversary
10/9/11 09:46![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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talkpoliticsYou all know what anniversary I'm talking about. Don't deny it! Everyone is aware that tomorrow is the anniversary of the CIA-assisted Chilean coup d'etat 9/11. How could we forget? Cable news and online outlets alike are so gaga for terrorism retrospectives that the very idea of responsible journalistic restraint is a pretty funny joke.
When is the news not the news, but telling us things we already know? Here, I think it can be important to honor the memory of those who died, but to lose track of bigger issues (like, say, the next big legislative agenda item) in favor of a retrospective on the loss of national innocence is irresponsible. It magnifies an event that's already affecting the entire American economy, budget, morale, and policies, even if we never mention "9" and "11" together again except when we need the fire department. It's strange, almost masochistic to spend so much time and energy wallowing in a national tragedy, analyzing things everyone already knows. Nobody is going to say anything that anyone older than ten doesn't already know, or that anyone younger than ten will listen to. But then, how that differs from the normal news cycle, I don't know, so perhaps I'm just getting worked up over today's "must-see" story, when there are a dozen others just as uninformative and distracting waiting on the horizon.
When is the news not the news, but telling us things we already know? Here, I think it can be important to honor the memory of those who died, but to lose track of bigger issues (like, say, the next big legislative agenda item) in favor of a retrospective on the loss of national innocence is irresponsible. It magnifies an event that's already affecting the entire American economy, budget, morale, and policies, even if we never mention "9" and "11" together again except when we need the fire department. It's strange, almost masochistic to spend so much time and energy wallowing in a national tragedy, analyzing things everyone already knows. Nobody is going to say anything that anyone older than ten doesn't already know, or that anyone younger than ten will listen to. But then, how that differs from the normal news cycle, I don't know, so perhaps I'm just getting worked up over today's "must-see" story, when there are a dozen others just as uninformative and distracting waiting on the horizon.
(no subject)
Date: 10/9/11 14:32 (UTC)People often commemorate significant events, 9-11 was highly significant, it all happened in one day (making it easy to associate with a day of the year), and the bad guys were other people, not the weather or continental plates.
(no subject)
Date: 10/9/11 14:45 (UTC)I knew...
Date: 10/9/11 23:31 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 11/9/11 06:24 (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 11/9/11 06:26 (UTC)