To the chagrin of many, the media gravitates towards controversy. It is
in their (our) DNA. Whether anyone or everyone likes it or not, it is
what they do. It’s why politics and sports, mystery and mayhem dominate
coverage. This story includes the ultimate elixir for media coverage:
emotion, politics, terrorism, religion and bias. Some will say that the
existence of those elements alone shouldn’t mean that the media must
play into the hands of those appealing to biases and the most base of
human instincts. True, so then what makes this controversy deserving of
days and days of saturated media coverage?Who knows how much coverage
is appropriate, but it’s obvious that when terrorists attack the U.S.,
sensitivities will be high to anything large built in that area a year
after the fact or even almost ten years later.The area around Ground
Zero is news because its [sic]Ground Zero. Period. Building a
center two blocks away which supports the very cause that the
terrorists claimed (at least by name) was their calling, increases its
news value exponentially. It doesn’t validate the terrorists’ warped
view of Islam, but, like it or not, in this day and age, it makes it
news. Simply dismissing the entire controversy as a non-story is to
presume that no one should question the prudence of building the
facility at that location. That is also to take a side in the debate.
Emphasis mine. Whatchoogonnado? I mean, who knows what’s appropriate, but it’s obvious that whatever we did was totally appropriate, because SACRED HALLOWED GROUND, and also Muslims who are called to fly planes into buildings, and stuff. Like it or not, we had no choice but to jump on the story and then cover ourselves covering the story and then debate if the coverage was appropriate and then, magically, come to the conclusion that it was! Thank God. I was really nervous for a while there that we might learn something. Crisis averted.
A.
Fuck Mediaite, is all I got to say.
Someone better equipped to work with logic should consider a hypothesis: suppose the news media is overwhelmingly owned by conservatives, who dictate policy about what “news” gets covered and how. How does that fit?
so much for college helping improve the old problems.
Building a center two blocks away which supports the very cause that the terrorists claimed (at least by name) was their calling
Yeah, Mohammad Atta wasway into pilates.
Oh cripes. Has everyone forgotten that 9/11 followed on the heels of 24/7 media terrorizing about“the summer of the shark attack”?
The media has fucking lost me forever. They can wrap themselves in the banner of HALLOWED GROUND and 9/11 all they want but then how do you explain their oversaturated superannuated coverage of less, er, ridiculous topics?
OJ
There’s quite a bit of destroyed sacred ground in Iraq that no one seems to care about…oh, yeah, that’s because those people don’t count and their religion is just a cult.