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Coverage of Terrorism
ourselves as holding power to accountability.
Charles Nesson: You speak for the
oppressed.
Murrey Marder: We speak supposedly
for all of those who are subject to
the use of power. Some of them are
oppressed, some of them are very rich
and unoppressed.
Charles Nesson: But don’t you think
that that’s a bit idealistic?
Murrey Marder: Gee, I hope it is.
Geneive Abdo: That’s why this question,
“Why do they hate us?” should
have been asked 30 years ago, and not
asked today for the first time. It took
this crisis for us to ask the most obvious
question. I mean, the resentment didn’t
happen, didn’t begin yesterday. But as
journalists we have become so removed
from the topics that we cover. I mean,
I think a good argument could be made
that we used to represent the oppressed,
now we don’t know who we
represent. Certainly this business has
changed in terms of its whole class
structure during the last century. Now
we are sort of white-collar workers,
whereas before we used to be blue
collar. That, to some extent, has
changed who we represent. Are we
really speaking for the oppressed?
Susan Reed: I think you’re right,
and I think the better question for
journalists is why didn’t we know that
these terrorist networks were alive and
operating and living among us? I think
that one of the striking things about
what has happened, I saw this in a
cartoon where there is this older couple
sitting on the couch reading People
magazine: “Why didn’t they tell us about
these people?” they say. One of the
things I think Geneive is saying is that
journalists have become members of
the white-collar working class, and in
this robust period of economic growth
they have ridden the tide as well, so
that we were all caught surprised on
September 11.
Charles Nesson: What’s emerging
is a picture of journalism serving an
audience in much the same way that
network entertainment serves an audience.
And serving that audience sets
up a kind of loop of shared hallucination
between the folks out there who
want stories and the folks here, who
are generating it for them. This loop
can take on a life of its own.
Susan Reed: Yes, unfortunately in
America it really can. I’ve worked overseas
for several years, and I know that
you’re on the other end of a long telephone
cord trying to get an executive
producer of your evening news show
to listen to you and to put a story on the
air. I also know that it’s very hard to get
Saudi Arabia to let you in to cover the
bombing of Khobar firsthand, and I
know New York Times reporters who
are standing at the embassy in Egypt
yelling for a visa right now because
they can’t get it. So it is more complicated.
But I do think that journalists
weren’t asking the right questions before
this happened.
Charles Lewis: We didn’t do these
[international] stories either at the
Center [for Public Integrity]. I want to
be frank. Look, we all know that international
coverage by the U.S. media
has radically decreased. Is it ABC that
now has seven or eight people overseas?
A lot of bureaus have closed.
From an investigative reporting standpoint,
if you said “I’d like to go investigate
the CIA’s relationship with bin
Laden over the last 10 or 15 years. I’m
going to need about two months on
the ground in Afghanistan,” an editor
would say “Good luck to you, pal. If
you find something, send it in, but
we’re not paying for it.” Nor is there
much in the way of investigative reporting
about a number of the government
institutions involved in this process
now and the failures across the
board. There has not been a great mandate
[for it]. There is no sex scandal
involved. There is no ready, easy video.
You actually have to leave New York to
do the story. It just doesn’t get done
and didn’t get done.
James Trengrove: I might just say
that we’re lashing out at each other
here as journalists for not paying attention
to the stories. After Saddam
Hussein invaded Kuwait, you could
walk down the street and ask people,
“Why did he do that?” How many are
going to be able to say why he invaded
Kuwait in the first place? Nobody
knows? And that war was on television
and in the newspaper. Everybody saw
it. What were the reasons for it? If you
ask people now, even at the time that it
happened, people didn’t know. People
don’t care. Now that it has hit home,
people may care. But we can’t be responsible
for writing stories, or putting
stories on television, or having
debates. We can’t be responsible if
people don’t watch.
Charles Nesson: Did journalists
ever look at that controversy from
Saddam Hussein’s point of view?
James Trengrove: Some did, yes,
but who paid attention to it? Who cared
at that point? All we knew was that
American troops were going over there.
That’s the story that mattered. So if we
asked this question before September
11, “Why do they hate us?” and we even
put it on the front page of the section
as The Boston Globe did, how many
would have paid attention to it? How
many would have read it? We can’t be
responsible. If you look at the top five
selling American movies any week, they
are action adventures. Look at what
people are watching on television. So if
you’re producing news at CBS, ABC or
NBC, and if you’re going to go wall-towall
with international coverage, you’re
not going to last very long because you
have to sell commercial time, and if
people aren’t going to watch, you aren’t
going to be on the air.
Murrey Marder: Our focus tonight
is on asking probing questions that
arise out of events we cover and asking
ourselves what the press can best do
under these circumstances to explain,
to edify, to educate all of us. For example,
we have had overwhelming support
of the President in Congress, one
42 Nieman Reports / Winter 2001