American History

Media is commonly regarded as the fourth pillar in a society for its role of passing information into the society. The other three pillars are legislature, judiciary and executive. The media is known to have a capacity to make, break or protect an administration through responsible reporting of the activities that happens in a country.  In the US, media enjoys relatively very high levels of freedom from interference from other three pillars in shaping the social welfare of the US citizenry. However, the 911 event put the media in the frontline in passing of the information about all that was happening, the causes and answering all the possible questions in the minds of citizens (Li, 2007). The revelations about 911 event is as a result of the information systematically passed forward to us by these media channels.

It is true that the media has gone ahead to explore this event and how it could have been stopped. According to guardian, if then president and the White House had keenly heeded to earlier threats from al-Qaeda in 2001, it could have led to arrests of some suspects involved in the 911 and the attack would have been prevented. The Times underlined how the transitional team that helped the Bush administration to take over the leadership from Clinton shifted its focus from Afghanistan and al-Qaeda related activities to that of China and Russia. This is where the new administration missed the point on planning of the ways to handle the terrorism activities of Taliban that led to their successful execution of 911 attacks (Kuypers, 2002).  The obsession of the White House to topple Saddam led to the undermining of the terrorism activities of the Taliban in Afghanistan. According to the Times, there was a foreknowledge of ongoing activities of al-Qaeda by the White House and discussions were underway on how to stop them. However, the decision was overtaken by the activities of al-Qaeda. While the White House continued debating on how to wage their offensive against al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, 19 terrorists were busy preparing their final touches on an attack that would touch the heart of the nation. On its issue (Vol. 159 No. 21) of May 27 2002, the Times talked of underlying events that took place while American slept. However, there have been reports of lopsided reporting of the event by most of major media channels on crucial matters and question about this attack which gives an impression of a media that is working for the protection of the administration.

The media actually explored the faults of the US citizenry and the government for providing a viable environment that gave a room for the planning of the attack. The complacency of the citizens and their tolerance of slackness by the government to tackle critical issues regarding to the safety of the population was cited as a major contributor towards this incident. The 19 plotters of the attack were living among the American population. In addition, some were even trained in the American institutions. This raises concern over how these terrorists were able to find a safe heaven among this population (Campaine, Gomery, 2000).

The constitution which is a representation of aspirations of Americans and its extreme freedoms was pointed by the media as part of the blame in this attack. In the other hand, the government was blamed by its total failure to take appropriate measures to smoke-out such people from population despite its receiving numerous reports of underlying activities related to terrorism from all sources. In addition, the government through its military arm was faulted by its failure to protect the citizen from aerial attack despite having all the necessary capacity. In a normal case, planes that lose contact with the control towers are intercepted by jet fighters within ten minutes (Buckley, Fawn, 2003). On 911, the jetliners responsible for the attack were allowed to circle the sky for more than an hour and a half yet they were known to be victims of hijacking activity.

The media gave reports as they were released by relevant security bodies. Apart from giving live reports immediately after the occurrence of the incident through the television and other channels, the media went ahead to unearth some vital information about the attack. As per now we know of the close correlation between the Middle East occupations of Israel, US support to Israel, US history of relation with Muslim world and the Middle East oil had a lot to play in the execution of this attack (Brunn, 2004). The US foreign policy has also been pinpointed by the media to lack clear cut policies in relation to some of Arab worlds. This have been found to have fostered negative perception towards the United States.

On the bigger picture, the US media has played a lead role in covering and uncovering this incident. The major areas of focus were the effects of this attack. For once, then event brought Americans closer together than ever in supporting the victims of this tragedy. The event caused unprecedented military actions by the government and its allies against the Taliban in the Afghanistan and other groups in the name of fight against terrorism. The relation of US before and immediately after the attack with the foreign world ranked very high, however, with reduced improvement in the military activities of Bush administration strained this relationship. By 2008, the US foreign policy ranking had fallen as low as 20 percent.  Back at home, in 2002, the government passed the Homeland Security Act and the USA Patriot Act. The 911 incident brought about negative sentiments and stereotyping of people from Middle East especially those who were perceived to be Muslims in the United States (Torres, 2006). The event has not helped the US relation with Muslim world. All of the 19 suspected masterminds of this attack were Muslims. It has therefore made the US administration handle the Muslim in and out of this country with skepticism. With restrained foreign relation with the US, the economic performance in the US was affected negatively. The security of people living in the United States was also put to question.

Most of people who lost their sources of income and potential to remain economically productive will forever put a mark in the lives of these people. This attack put some fear on most of the American over the concern of their security in and outside of the United States. One of the most absurd cases is the assurance of by the environmental watch body that the air emanating from ground zero was very healthy to breath yet we know the air must have been polluted (Lasorsa, 2006). This might have posed risk to a number of American populations living and working near to the site.

The media was and is still concerned about publishing unsubstantiated reports due to the fear of legal action from the government. The first reports by the governmental sources were reported as they were. Any other unconfirmed sources were kept at periphery but this has not prevented speculation of inside involvement of the governmental operatives in the event.

The media focused on three perspectives in their reporting. The media focused this attack on the aspect of social and the impact of this attack on the victims and their families. In this, the attack was seen as a target to overall American population and its ideals. This view supports the notion of lowering of self esteem of the victims at home and abroad by increasing their fear of insecurity. At some point, the media portrayed the attack as an act of retaliation to American political regime and its policies abroad (Greenberg, 2003). This angle was supported by the zeal of the perpetrators to punch holes on the security might of the US and its administration. In addition, the media focused on the attack from an economic angle. The attack was also seen as a way of trying to cripple the economy of the country by creating a kind of undisputable fear of security among the US citizens.

The reporting of this event cooled down when there emerged reports of grade anthrax on mails. This caused an immediate suspension to the investigations of the 911 incident. The origin of these tainted mails was never revealed. The incident was also overlapped by the events happening on the invasion of Afghan.

Most of the media took a conservative viewpoint over this issue. The reports given showed a skewed reporting o the incident. There has been a consistent and systematic cover-up of the actual events that took place prior, during, and immediately after this terror attack The inability of access of most of the video tapes that were recorded by most of the media houses raises a lot of questions. The black boxes from the flights involved were also reported to have disappeared hence denying the public a lot of vital information (Galga, Wesley, 2004). People with vital information who were willing to pass it out were suppressed creating fear among many witnesses. Some of vital messages from some witnesses have been given a cold shoulder by the media.

In summary, this is one of the events in history that has gone to prove the capacity of the media to hold back information and only feed the public with reports that it so wishes. In this case, we see a clear collaboration between the media and other three pillars involved in the governance of a society to successfully muzzle the truth of the 911 from reaching the public with outmost success.