Tavaly ilyenkor nem bírtam felkonnektálni a CNNre. Az ADWOFF-on követtem az amerikai csajok közvetítését. Volt egy 16 éves lány, aki miatt izgultunk, mer Manhattenbe járt suliba, és ott volt a Brooklyni ápolónő, aki aztán elmesélte, hogy is indult az a nap. Egy lány, aki tévénél dolgozik és nekünk sírta el, hogy riporterként nem szabad neki érzelmeket mutatni, de nekünk igen. A. aki akkor még nem volt terhes azon izgult, hogy folytassa e a próbálkozást, mert mi lesz ha mégis háború … Döbbenetes nap volt.
És a hétvégén ugyanazok, aki egy éve a szemem és a szívem voltak, arról kezdtek el írogatni, hogy mennyire rossz ami most media címen folyik.
Hogy SPKAZt idézzem:
“Well… as some of you know, I work in the television media as a producer/assignment editor. (I don’t report, but I get to boss reporters around – fun!)
Personally… I’m fried. I had the ironic thought of starting this post “As the anniversary of 9/11 approaches…” – and realized that THAT phrase is just what this peeve/rant/weep is all about.
The anniversary isn’t even here yet, and I’m tired. I can’t watch any more coverage… can’t handle any more pseudo-heroic stories of “The Victims of 9/11″… can’t deal with watching the same “carefully edited” footage of the Towers play over and over and over again.
What I mean by “pseudo-heroic” is the stories that are written about survivors or families are supposed to inspire, supposed to impress – what I see, being on the other side of the media fence, are articles being carefully targeted to bring out the most heedy emotional response possible. “If we make you cry, by god, that’s a 4-share!” That’s what news writers do… they find a human button to push and jam their thumb on it.
It’s weird to be on this side… I don’t have family members that lost their lives, nor was I anywhere near those sites, but I feel strangled. I told my boss that I don’t want to come to work that day, I don’t want to watch any specials, I don’t want to work on finding families or victims or rescuers or anyone!
I’m still emotionally drained from last year. I sit here and call people who have been most affected, and I make sympathetic noises and wrangle an interview out of them and I can’t do a single damn thing to help. I didn’t go over there to dig through fallen concrete, and I didn’t work at preventing something like this, and I don’t currently work at preventing something like this from happening again. I just sit here and create careful tv pieces to elicit an emotional response from people who don’t need it.
I don’t even get to write fiction to bring people away from reality. I voluntarily drag them into reality and pound on them to boost ratings.
I channel surfed all weekend – desperatly looking for anything besides 9/11 coverage – AE even had hours of 9/11 stories – I ended up watching hours of the Style network (which I hate), 5 hours of Trading Spaces, and a couple of episodes of Iron Chef. (yeah, I know, turning off the tv entirely came to mind, but there’s some sort of ingrained bug in me that I have to have the tv on, just in case – another result of 9/11 – don’t miss anything! And Zero likes it. And then I thought, “damn it! I shouldn’t have to turn off the tv! I should be able to watch tv! So I’m going to! So there! You didn’t win with your stupid programming! HA! I’ve got 584 channels, including QVC! You’ll never win!” The dog thinks I’m nuts. We went to Target on Saturday – there were 9/11 books, magazine covers, and the tribute songs playing in their cd section.) Then I came to work today and it’s non-stop CNN, MSNBC with all of their 9/11 coverage.
I know that I picked this job and this kinda comes with it. Mostly I just leave work at work and get on with life. I live for the fun stories I get to do and for the adrenline that comes with some day-to-day run and gun stuff. This is beyond me… I tried to explain to a friend, who is not in this business, what I was dealing with, and she said something like “Oh my God, how can you not want to remember? These people DIED!!” And then I just felt like I had some patriotic, civil, human duty to watch the 9/11 interviews, stories, specials, footage, etc.
But I can’t do it. Others in this business either feel indifference or bury whatever they feel or drag out whatever they feel and see if that emotion can be turned into tonight’s story. Others, like those that pick the 9/11 coverage, feel like they’re doing some sort of patriotic duty by replaying those scenes over and over again, while more just forget feelings all together and do the job. I’m working on being in the latter category… like being some kind of 9/11 media lemming.
I can’t ever forget, and I don’t want to. But I can’t deal with the constant media bombardment that is forcing me to be overly emotional, and all I really want to do this week is watch endless episodes of Trading Spaces because they don’t insert any “carefully edited” footage of the Towers.
I don’t know how to explain what else I feel… I just know that I have to get it out of my system because I have to come to work on Wednesday. I’ve looked at other jobs and wonder why I’m still in this one. Haven’t figured that out yet. Maybe next year it will be a little easier and what the media does will have more “
