Hunting The Muse

Fear Will Protect You From Terror!

I don't watch television news. I saw a few articles on the web and saw a couple of extra warnings and didn't think much of it.

Then I sat down and watched an episode of Buffy. Here in Portland, every commercial break had a newsbreak with the anchors saying things like "Tune in tonight to see what landmarks in Portland have been named as terrorist targets!" while showing pictures of local churches. While watching 24, they actually shrunk the screen and had a flashy graphic that said "TERRORIST TARGETS IN PORTLAND".

I watch the beginning of the newscast and it's a wide angle start showing three anchors, extra bustle and activity, alarm in their voices and concern in their eyes, with teasers about what other Portland residents are doing to prepare themselves. (They even found a couple of people to interview on the street who said something about buying extra bottled water or something.)

After the break they cut to an anchor to explain what they meant about TERRORIST TARGETS IN PORTLAND. They had a guy standing in front of a church with his 13-page report from the FBI... saying (with alarm in his voice) that the FBI had said "Christian Churches MAY BE A TARGET!"

The FBI said... Christian Churches... may be a target.

Duh.

I don't know how to communicate the disgust I feel about the shamefulness of this whole thing. My mind was racing that night to the extent that I was pacing around the apartment muttering to myself about what I would have said to the fucking news anchors had they stopped me on the street.

More and more, news media reminds me of junior high school. It used to be we looked UP to journalists, to Walter Cronkite, to the all-american senior. Now there's all these snot-faced hyper nerdy kids - not the smart kinds but the kinds that throw glueballs at the teacher and pull wings off of moths - who think that Fox News is the cool kid. And so they try to emulate him. They have no room or patience for integrity because it complicates things too much, slows down the pace too much.

They are blatantly encouraging fear. (Have you seen that "High Alert" terror icon they have in the lower right of their screen 24x7?) It sounds silly for me to say - I mean, it's so obvious that everyone sees it and so making the observation doesn't really even have any power anymore. But it is still harmful even though people have moved on to talking about it off-handedly. When people feel fear, they become convinced they need more protection. And protection from what? Really, what? Terror? We're terrified of experiencing terror? We better get scared enough to take steps to protect ourselves from terror? Or terrified enough to be thankful that others are protecting us from terror? What?

It is hard to be too blunt about this because it isn't that there isn't something serious going on here. It isn't that the emperor is wearing no clothes. It's just that it's been co-opted so thoroughly. And it's so distasteful to imagine someone co-opting 9/11 that it's hard for us all to collectively accept it (even if we all might secretly individually believe it). Should we respect that there's a major imbalance in the world right now, of a greater clash in culture and ideology, with all parties mutually committed to not understanding each other? Yes. But should we really be worried about the odds of ourselves being victims of a terrorist attack? More than we worry about being in fatal traffic accidents? Posted by Curt at February 15, 2003 01:04 AM