Monday, May 16, 2011

Chapter 15: 9/11

                             Hijacked United Airlines Flight 175 heads for the World Trade Center...          

          September 11, 2001 was a day that I truly will never forget.  It was my 17th birthday and the beginning of my senior year in high school.  After hearing about the attack in school, one of the first things that came to my mind was all the footage and pictures that the media was and already had released.  Would it be graphic or censored? Certainly they would never show video of the planes exploding or the towers falling...right? When I got home from school and was watching the news I was shocked and horrified at what I saw.  The planes crashing and the buildings falling was hard to watch but knowing that there were people inside them made it even harder.  The next day, all the New York newspapers, and all the papers around the world, were covering the attacks.  The chapter in this book specifically mentions the New York Times from September 12, 2001.  I have that newspaper and I remember getting chills reading it.  Just trying to absorb the events was horrific but reliving it over and over through the media was like a never-ending nightmare.  I also felt so badly for the loved ones of the passengers on those planes and of the people in the building; knowing that they had to relive their loved ones death over and over again.  It was so cruel. 
        There were a lot of times that I was angry with the media for replaying and publishing the gruesome images over and over again.  I was getting used to seeing the planes crashing and the buildings falling but I was not prepared for seeing the people jumping to their deaths from the top floors of the burning towers.  One picture is of a man falling upside down to his death.  That morning, that man, and literally HUNDREDS of others trapped high in the towers made the decision to jump to their death rather than suffering and burning in a 2000 degree farenheit fire.  I could not even put myself in that man's situation.  Knowing all the thoughts that must have went through his mind during that fall is too horrific to think about.  Again, that's when I thought, is it really necessary for us to see this? What good is this going to do for us to see these violent and disturbing images/videos? I later realized that these images/videos showed us how much our enemies hate us and what lengths they will go to to make Americans suffer. 


New York Times newspaper September 12, 2001


                                        New York Times newspaper from September 12, 2001

          After 9/11, the United States, and the world, was trying to understand why this happened.  Why did people hate us so much that they would cause this much destruction? Many people had their own theories, as expressed in the chapter of this book, but the one that disturbs me is Susan Sontag's claim that our alliances and actions are the reason for the attack.  150 newspapers in the United States voiced their outrage at her comment.  Two journalists, Peter Carlson and Charles Krauthammer, both said how offended they were by her comment and labeled it, "Un-American" and "...disgusting".  I completely agree.  In my opinion, the only people we can truly blame are the hijackers and the people who masterminded this attack.  The last sentence of this chapter says that, "the news media failed the public in their coverage of 9/11."  I disagree with this statement.  Even though the papers were not able to give us a definite why to the answer of why we were attacked, they also refrained from printing false motives.  Yes, some people were looking for a reason why but the media can't always answer such complex questions when the public wants them to.  In my opinion, printing false information that would later be retracted was more beneficial than giving us a temporary "answer" until the real one is discovered.  And although I was against showing the violent photos/videos, it needed to be shown.  We needed to truly understand how heinous this attack was to motivate us from preventing it from ever happening again.


Peter Hanson, his wife Sue, and their 2 year-old daughter Christine (the youngest victim of 9/11) were all passengers aboard Flight 175. 


"The Falling Man" documentary about the above picture of WTC victim falling to his death.

- Flight 175 picture
- Newspaper photos taken by me
- Hanson family portrait courtesy of Eunice Hanson
- "The Falling Man" documentary
                         http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXnA9FjvLSU

Monday, April 25, 2011

Chapter 7: Defying the Ku Klux Klan

                                                         The Klan marches in Washington

            William Joseph Simmons was the founder of the Ku Klux Klan.  He persuaded people to follow the Klan with promises that they could join together to express their hate for specific religions and races.  In their minds, many people felt the way that they did but had to outlet to express their feelings.  The Klan was the perfect way to unite in hate.  The Klan was a force to be reckoned with and even elected some of their members into the U.S senate.  The KKK slowly began to fade away when the promises that the Klan made to their followers went unfulfilled.  The media also had an affect on the evaporation of the Klan.  Negative articles about the Klan in such papers as the New York World and Commercial Appeal did great damage to the Klan’s reputation and convinced many that following the Klan would not lead to anything positive.
            In the early 1920s, the Klan started to show some signs of life again.  In 1925, they invaded Washington D.C and marched down Pennsylvania Avenue to preach their cause.  They made more promises to their followers, one specifically convincing them that they had more power than the president to turn the country around in a positive direction.  Journalists were mixed when it came to deciding whether to give the Klan coverage in their papers.  Some were fearful of the power and influence the Klan had while others treated them equal to any other public group.  Some chose to ignore them in fear that they would gain more publicity and obtain more followers. 
            In 1921, the New York World published a series with the intent on exposing and disbanding the Klan.  The paper was syndicated around the country to draw national attention on the Klan.  Along with the text, there was artwork that was added as shock value to convey to their readers that the main goal of the Klan was to promote hate and discrimination.  What was scary was that the Klan was actually helping Senators and governors get elected into office.  The news knew that having their men getting into positions of power would add fuel to their fire and would help the Klan expand and gain more followers.  During the election in Memphis, the Commercial Appeal newspaper printed negative editorials and pictorials to fully depict the Klan's "use of vigilante violence as a means of terrorizing the city's African Americans, Catholics and Jews" (Streitmatter, 115).  During the election, Mayor Paine defeated W. Joe Wood (the person the Klan was supporting).  Many believe that it was the paper's negative depiction of the Klan that coaxed the community to vote against a Klan supporter for Mayor.  The paper even received the Pulitzer Prize in public service for making the community aware of the Klan and what they were all about.
              Despite the positive outcome in part due to the Commercial Appeal, there were still newspapers that were defending the Klan.  Grover Cleveland Hall was against the Klan and openly bashed them in editorials in the Montgomery Advertiser.  He pushed for a law that would incarcerate anyone wearing a mask and/or a robe.  He called the Klan's actions a "...new monstrosity..." (Streitmatter, 122) that could no longer be ignored.  At first, Hall had succeeded in his request.  Later, it was overturned by a governor who was a member of the Klan.  Hall was also awarded the Pulitzer Prize. 
               What strikes me most about this chapter is the impact that the media had on such a violent organization.  People were afraid to challenge the Klan face-to-face and expressing their anger and opinions through editorials and cartoons seemed like the only safe way to let out their emotions.  Sure, having the spotlight on the Klan in their newspapers did boost the Klan's membership but the bigger story was that it also stopped the Klan from interesting New York City residents to join.  Grover Cleveland Hall's efforts also prevented the Klan from achieving power in Montgomery, Alabama.  Many feel that the discrediting and negative view that people had about the view were attributed to the newspapers.  The newspapers were ultimately responsible for the decline of the Klan and hold a special place in history as the only person/organization to be able to say that.     


It truly make me sick to think that parents are teaching their children that this kind of hate is acceptable and expected in our country.
First picture:

Second picture:

"Mightier Than The Sword" Second Edition by Rodger Streitmatter