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Coverage of Terrorism
Understanding the ‘Why’ of September 11
Using the Web, Globalvision’s world news site helps readers dig deeper
and broader for answers.
By Danny Schechter
Visual coverage of the events of
September 11 was as riveting as
the unbelievable images it conveyed.
Answers also came fast and furious
to questions of who, what, where
and when. It was the “how” and, even
more difficult, the “why” part of journalistic
inquiries that, perhaps understandably,
was not as well explored, as
television reached for its cast of familiar
pundits who often turned out to be
as confused and predictable as they
were jingoistic.
What became hard to find after September
11 were places to go for news
in which the broader dimensions of
the story about the terrorists’ attack on
America were unfolding. There were,
of course, in mainstream media questions
asked—and answered—
about who was responsible, how
the acts of terror came to be, and
how the nation’s defense and intelligence
agencies missed signals
about this attack. Often, though,
the level of indignation coming
out in these interviews exceeded
the depth of good information and
analysis provided.
As a way to respond to what we
perceived to be a vacuum,
Globalvision launched its own
online News Network
(www.gvnewsnet.com) prototype
for a more diverse global syndication
effort. By using this vehicle,
we were able to offer stories from
news outlets throughout the
world. It became our way of bringing
information and views of local
sources—and often unheard
voices—to audiences more accustomed
to a narrower range of
Anglo-American news. Our news
network provides a panoply of “inside-out”
coverage (for example, coverage
about Pakistan is written by Pakistani
journalists, not Americans) instead
of the conventional “outside-in” international
approach. On a given day, our
lengthy collection of stories—linked
for reader convenience—can include
reports from Interfax Russia, The Kashmir
Times, Middle East Newsline, Islam
Online, Iran News, The Moscow
Times, The Times of India, Mandiri
News, Israel Insider, and Radio Free
Europe. We call ourselves “context providers”
and are turning a collection of
stories into a news product that we
hope news companies and Web sites
will acquire to compliment existing
wire service reporting as a way of offering
more and deeper sources to their
readers.
Our initiative emerged as a response
to media trends that over the years
The homepage of mediachannel.org.
have shortchanged the public and, in
turn, eroded our democracy. While
Globalvision is not alone in rejecting
the dumbing down of news, we are
trying in a practical and credible way to
counter the pervasive withdrawal of
international coverage by networks and
newspapers. Yet it still surprises me to
learn how many in the media business
don’t appear to recognize the scale of
this problem or the scope of its consequences.
Pulitzer Prize-winning media
writer David Shaw reported recently in
the Los Angles Times, “Coverage of
international news by the U.S. media
has declined significantly in recent years
in response to corporate demands for
larger profits and an increasingly fragmented
audience. Having decided that
readers and viewers in post-cold war
America cared more about celebrities,
scandals and local news, newspaper
editors and television news executives
have reduced the space and
time devoted to foreign coverage
by 70 to 80 percent during the
past 15 to 20 years.”
Long before September 11, my
colleagues and I had become
alarmed by the consequences of
America’s media-led isolationism
as it fueled citizens’ ignorance
about the rest of the world. We
could understand why headlines
in other nations’ newspapers soon
read “Americans Just Don’t Get
It.” And we could read about how
this absence of engagement
through public communication led
the Indian writer Arundhati Roy to
suggest that Washington’s foreign
policy was the consequence of the
power of the U.S. media to keep
the public uninformed. “I think
people are the product of the information
they receive,” Roy
writes. “I think even more powerful
than America’s military arsenal
has been its hold over the media in
some way. I find that very frightening….
[J]ust as much as America be-
Nieman Reports / Winter 2001 57