that damned news cast

It makes me think back of using the right language for the audience. In any news story I’ve ever seen, there’s always been a certain vocabulary in circulation. Even with their “experts,” there never really has been a sophisticated enough vocabulary to make comprehension a problem even when the subject might be something purely scientific. On the same note, they don’t use simple minded kindergarten sentences. Each phrase is meant to carry some depressing, tragic, or cute and comical tone with it. Most of these slants are difficult to pick up if you’re below a certain age.  This is all generalizing, but with especially biased sources the language may especially change from an obscure bump of the knuckles to a terrorist fist jab depending on the audience. What I found the most interesting in this article, which was also brought to my attention in a class last year that focused on the mass media, is the usage of previously filed information from past events. When we first entered Iraq some of the most recurrent pictures shown were from the Gulf War. Many of the clips on the news have minute labels claiming to be on file taping from whatever footage the casters gleaned. It’s all a show of images and pessimistic events that don’t actually inform you of anything more than every single rape, murder, and natural disaster going on in your backyard. Generally speaking, it’s the boring tails of the boyscout who saved the old lady from the on coming bus that get stuck on the back burner, because realistically if you run a tv slot from 5-6 and don’t have footage of the boy in action who cares?

How We React

I think there are two levels of reaction to disaster. Both of which could be seen in Katrina and 9/11, but only one surprisingly back in 1906. Perhaps this is due to the lapse in time, but back then there was an overwhelming coming together of the nation. After the earthquake there wasn't a covering of tails to blame what limited resources were sent and how much time had passed. All did what they could as quickly as they could to aid those who had been affected. After Katrina, there was a bickering and drawn out relief. Even private citizens and corporations who wanted to aid those in distress had no means of getting money and people down in the areas where it was needed the most. At that time a country within our country developed and they were heavily left on their own. This also happened during the Earthquake to some extent, but in this case authority took power into its own hands through similar means to martial law. All the way up until reconstruction, troops regulated and controlled the growth of the city. After 9/11 the country came together to provide relief and sent caravans similar to the earthquake, but in this case they were of firefighters flooding into NYC to stem the fires and provide aid. There was also a banding together on multiple levels of both government authority and citizens. The disasters had their differences, but in the past there was seemingly less blame and more of an active and quick response to the problems at hand without allowing any of the politics to get in the way. One thing that aren't quite the same, but at the same time similar is the isolation of different races between 9/11 and 1906. After the earthquake the Chinese were excluded in camps due to racial segregation, but after the attack muslims(particularly people from the Middle East in general) began to face discrimination. Disasters bring out the best and the worst.