sound and fury, signifying nothing

[strangeanimal]

CNN's one-year-after-9/11 coverage appears to have the catchy title/graphic of America Remembers.

which seems appropriate, since CNN's coverage, including the alert level Orange announcement, are being shoved down America's throats so heavily that America couldn't forget if it wanted to. CNN... All 9/11, All The Time.



I mean, Moneyline on CNN is talking about alert level Orange. not from a business/financial standpoint, just from a straight news standpoint. just like the last three and next three talking heads on CNN did.

I would love to commission a study and find out just how much CNN actually contributes to (not relieves) people's anxiety in times like this. it's one thing to inform the public, it's another thing to parade endless talking heads before the camera, all analyzing news that's already been analyzed to death. watch CNN for 5 minutes today , it'll take you hours to get anything 9/11 related out of your head.

I'm as much a news junkie as the next guy... hell, I'm a journalism school graduate. but I know once you repeat something enough times, much of the audience becomes desensitized to it, or bored of it.

is Alert Level Orange really that important that CNN has nothing else to talk about? say we're under threat, say we're prepared, MOVE THE FUCK ON.

Comments

[thothmeister.livejournal.com]

CNN has been all 9/11 stuff for at least a week now. One of the things that really annoyed me in Vermont was that my uncle would take over the TV at any hour of the day, turn it to CNN and play it at full volume (he's hard of hearing - with the TV so loud, that's no surprise). He always falls asleep at the TV within a few brief minutes, but wants to make sure that everyone is captive to his morbid tendencies.

I took CNN in my digital TV package, but I won't even watch it until maybe October. I have enough to deal with from chronic depression. No need to expose myself to a station that will enhance that.

Re:

[strangeanimal.livejournal.com]

CNN at full blast? triple oy.

[newschick.livejournal.com]

As a member of the media, I would just like to say we are not all heartless bastards. We (as in at CFCO, not we the media) are trying our best to find a happy medium today - we don't want to overwhelm listeners with 9-11 coverage, but there's also a lot of stuff to talk about - New York memorials, Canadian memorials, local memorials, terror alerts, interviews with psychologists, and on and on and on. But this is a great example of why I went into radio and not tv - we don't rely on images, we rely on words. We don't play clips of people screaming, we play clips of people talking calmly and rationally about what's going on. Screw CNN - listen to radio!

Re:

[strangeanimal.livejournal.com]

"happy medium"s, or at least reasonable mediums, are great. it's the saturation coverage that makes me want to vomit.

[thothmeister.livejournal.com]

That radio is less blatant on such events I'm very grateful about.

I tried to watch TechTV today, since all the other channels played memorials and blanketted us with 'events' coverage.

Unfortunately, all the commercial space covered it - including devoting each commercial block to reciting a portion of the names of 9-11 victims. That was very heartbreaking.

Re:

[newschick.livejournal.com]

UPN in Detroit went on with their regular programming yesterday, for which I was very grateful (even if their regular programming isn't so hot, it was better than the endless 911 coverage on all the other stations) but every commercial break was filled with "American Signatures" or some such thing, profiling fire fighters and police who survived. While I understand it's an American channel and their US viewers probably eat that stuff up, it kind of made me gag.

[thothmeister.livejournal.com]

What really upset me about all of this coverage is that like many in North America, I suffer from chronic depression. The actual events left me shattered for a week; refreshing the wounds won't last as long, but it's still a pain I didn't need. Many don't. Yet, our feelings and moods don't seem to matter to the media in the US.