Another new year. Welcome to year five. There’s a lot to be said about the political side of 9/11. And everyone who knows me will tell you I’m more than happy to talk about those issues as well.
But it wasn’t just the way the US handeled foreign policy decitions that changed on this date, five years ago.
Five years ago, I was on a cabin far up in the Norwegian mountains. On a cabin with no road connections, no electricity, no radio, no TV, no internet and not enough signal on the cellphones to access the then quite modern WAP-network.
Of course, we all got to know what had happened via text messages, through what little signal we had. ‘A plane has hit one of the World Trade Centers.’ ‘Another one.’ ‘...there's no way that's a coincidence...’ ‘...bigger than Pearl Harbor...’
Even on the most remote outskirts of the world, people received the news of what had happened in New York. Almost instantly. We now live in a world, where news is being broadcast faster, and in more ways than ever before.
While the newscasters all over the world, were “struck dumb and stumbling over ‘oh my god’ and ‘this is unbelievable’ and on and on.” (Ani Difranco) And while the world stood frozen - even people on top of a Norwegian mountain - the editors were working full throttle to get the next action-packed images off the tapes of the Japanese tourists and onto the networks.
What changed on 9.11, was the way the media worked. The attacks were so direct. So graphical, that it ultimately let the audience to see news differently. The news suddenly looked more like an action-thriller, than anything else.
So when the Iraq-war started - it was time for a sequel.
The Iraq war became the best covered war in media history. Due, of course, to the technological advances we had made in 2003. But also to the heightened threshold of the public, as to what could be considered spectacular.
News in the past didn’t even have to be spectacular. It just had to be news. But in the post-9.11 world, subtle images of war, taken from a safe distance wasn’t enough. After seeing the never-ending loop of WTC-footage for two years, people (weather they’d ever admit it or not) wanted an equally action-packed sequel.
So with the help of the Bush-administation, the networks were able to play on people’s fears to better their ratings. They were able to bring out the war-types, the war-colors and the war-graphics.
Reporters were sent to survival-camps, networks were striking ride-along deals with the US Army and the newscasters were learning how to pronounce the names of small villages on the outskirts of Baghdad. The security levels were going from red to orange and back again, while the lights turned green for the war to start.
But as always, the sequel is never as good as the first, and bombs and death in Baghdad soon grew tiresome. Sectarian violence is never as fun as explosions. So now people want to leave the theatre. The question remains, though: Will they return for “America at war III: Iran”?
How long will it take for the public to see that the emperor has no clothes? That the fear-mongerors have nothing to scare you with? That there is no AlQa’ida? How long till people grow tired of explosions, bombs and fear?
The terrorists didn’t win on 9.11. FOX News did.