As Americans gather to mark the 25th year since the 9/11 attacks, the American media’s coverage of this horrific event from a full quarter of a century ago is front and center, as it should be.
Anyone alive and sentient in that day 25 years ago doubtless has vivid memories of the horror that unfolded on that lovely, September day. First in Lower Manhattan, with the attack on the Twin Towers. Then in Washington with the attack on the Pentagon. And finally in a Western Pennsylvania field as the passengers of United Flight 93, realizing their on-board captors were targeting the plane at either the US Capitol or the White House, crashed the plane in a field in Western Pennsylvania. Killing everyone on board.
But what is the media saying? In part (thankfully only in part!) it is running headlines like this one from The Hill:
Trump attacks New York Magazine for calling 9/11 remarks ‘weird lie’.
There was this from USA Today:
'Number one sponsor of terror.' At 9/11 memorial, Trump defends Iran war
And this, also from USA Today:
Why did Trump reference the 9/11 memorial for Iran war?
Then there was this from The New York Daily News:
Trump invokes 9/11 to defend Iran war at somber Pentagon tribute
There is more out there like these headlines, but the message is as clear as it is now old. To wit: for the post-9/11 media 9/11 is now….. all about Trump! Trump! Trump!
Simply put, they can’t stand him. There are large sections of the American media who cannot abide this President of the United States. Even as the 25th anniversary of 9/11 has arrived, they find it more responsible to focus on attacking Trump than zeroing in on America’s then-and-now enemies out there in the world. Enemies who, as 9/11 vividly illustrated, are dedicated to wiping America and its freedoms off the face of the earth.
And to say these enemies of America are serious is to understate. Here from The New York Post -- one of the sane media outlets when it comes to the President -- is this headline of the leftist group calling itself the Democratic Socialists of America:
Radical DSA manifesto calls to abolish presidency, US Senate and Electoral College
Got that? Goodbye to the Constitution and the freedoms all Americans have come to expect. And that’s before we even get to the issue of America being targeted for violent attacks by radical foreigners.
All of which is to say, there is a real question here when it comes to the media’s post-9/11 coverage.
All too frequently, as those headlines above demonstrate, everything is about Trump! Trump! Trump! And not in a good way, either.
All of which, it should be said, if in fact the remaining two years of Trump’s last term is to be filled with hostile headlines and reporting from the post-9/11 media? Then Americans will be tasked with understanding that the media, even in a post-9/11 America when Americans had supposedly come together, has no intention of giving a fair, “just the facts, please” account of what’s happening out there in the world.
Is that too bad? Yes. Can it be dangerous in a world of instant communications that requires the American people to be informed of, as that old TV detective show of Dragnet had it, “just the facts, just the facts.”
Yes. Dangerous it can be.
So what do Americans do with this information in a post 9/11 world?
They take in all the information from the post-9/11 media that they can, and vet it for accuracy. Facts are what’s needed, not fiction.
That was true before 9/11.
But it is even more true in today’s post-9/11 world.
