Oct. 11: The news media fails us in our time of need

By David Morrill

Almost thirty years ago, British writer Malcolm Muggeridge complained about the growing amount of news available to the public, particularly on television. News was becoming a background hum in our lives, a ceaseless drip. It was, he said, a kind of Newsak complimenting the Musak that permeated department stores, elevators and corporate telephone lines.

His complaint came before the emergence of the cable news channels and the babbling progeny of the major television networks devoted to financial news and a variety of niche markets. It came long before the Internet where the flow of news and information never ends.

The tragedy of September 11 has made us voracious consumers of news. In our search for an understanding of how and why our lives have changed, we spend hours in front of the television. Many of us come away numbed by the repetition, the shallowness and the knee-jerk jingoism. The ticker that scrolls across the bottom of the cable news channel screen, endlessly repeating its messages, is an apt metaphor for the coverage in general and of the dangers Muggeridge warned of.

The repetition has succeeded in one respect, imprinting a number of disturbing images on our minds. There is the jetliner banking into the World Trade Center, followed by the diabolic blossom of fire and smoke. There are New Yorkers running for their lives after the collapse of the first Trade Center tower, chased through the canyons of lower Manhattan by ghostly clouds of dust and debris. There are the murderous mobs in Pakistan, Palestine and Indonesia looking for anything American to destroy.

For the most part, what we see and hear from the major news organizations is a flag-draped message straight out of central casting, a Technicolor cartoon rendered in broad, lurid strokes for the lowest common denominator of news consumer. More than the government, it is the media that pounds the drums of war. In an interview with Colin Powell last week, before the beginning of the Afghan bombing, Dan Rather concluded by asking Powell when America would have its revenge. Surely, he said, given the number of dead and missing, we, the people, deserved a terrible, swift response.

The media show little interest in pursuing threads of the drama that defy neat conclusions. We are provided with little history. With the exception of commentaries on public radio and television and newspaper op-ed columns, we are offered little in the way of contrarian points of view. Foreign media eager to hear an alternative opinion inundated New Yorker and leftist filmmaker Michael Moore with requests for interviews. Not a single U.S, newspaper or television network asked for his comments.

We hear relatively little about the most disturbing questions on the minds of many. Why are we hated by so many in the world? How could 19 men, some of whom we invited to our backyard barbecues, feel so strongly that they would board airplanes knowing they would not get off alive, one even having the presence of mind to make sure his frequent flyer miles were credited to the cost of his ticket. And there is little debate about the Hobbesian deal our leaders would have us strike for the sake of security.

Then there is the question of our character and moral fitness. Are we prepared for a long and difficult fight? Can we tolerate the inconvenience? Are the Huns finally at the gates? How do we defend ourselves when the worst are full with passionate intensity? Will things fall apart?

Also unexplored is the issue of the religious faith of our enemy and the lack of our own. Those who claim we are a people guided by religious principles delude themselves. Our shrines are the shopping malls, the stock exchanges and corporate headquarters. Our high priests bestow communion from their board seats on the Federal Reserve. The most passionate message coming from our leaders in recent days is that it is time to get back to work. The business of American, after all, is business.

Be a patriot, pull out the credit card and start buying again. And hey, what better time than now to take the kids to Disney World?

Malcolm Muggeridge suggests that too much news makes us know more but understand less. Maybe this is a time for long walks, for rereading a favorite novel, for listening to our favorite music. Certainly it is a time to draw our own conclusions and seek our private peace.

David Morrill is a Florida journalist and Northern California native.