Media Coverage of the Events of 9/11 (poster abstract)

Media Coverage of the Events of 9/11

I agreed to do a Quick Response grant project applying my interest in media and hazards to this unimaginable disaster (QRR 146). The focus of the case study was the first twelve weeks of coverage by the Los Angeles Times (online edition).

All 558 front screen stories during the study period were classified by central concern, expressed as a single word: (1) "context," (2) "diplomacy," (3) "impact," (4) "investigation," (5) "military," (6) "mitigations," (7) "reactions," (8) "reconstruction," (9) "response," and (10) "restoration." These each included from six to 103 stories. Another seven minor categories were compressed into "other related stories." Stories "unrelated" to the events of 9/11 were also noted. Those stories related to 9/11 were further classified into one of three overarching themes or "metastories": (1) disaster, (2) crime, and (3) war.

Far and away the dominant concern through the first weeks viewed together was the military category with 103, or 18.5% of the 558 stories. Secondary themes more weakly emphasized were those of the crime investigation (n=57, or 10.2%) and of reactions to the disaster itself (n=55, or 9.9%). Dramatically de- emphasized were two other themes: context with just 6 stories (or 1.1%) and reconstruction with 9 stories (or 1.6%).

Collapsed into the three metastory categories, the dominant narrative was the war story, with 168 of the 558 stories, or 30.1 percent. The disaster story was the second most prominent metastory for the twelve-week study period, almost a co-dominant at 152 stories or 27.2 percent. The crime story was the least covered of the grand narratives, with 59 stories or 10.6 percent.

Tracking the themes week by week, the only story consistently prominent each week was the military theme. Investigation, reactions, and diplomacy flashed into prominence for between four and six weeks. In terms of the metastories, the disaster story dominated for just the first three weeks but gave way to the war story for most of the last nine weeks of the study period.

The coverage seems disproportionate in the sense that this is quite possibly the greatest disaster and crime the USA has experienced in the last five decades, but the war is one of the most minor ones in that time in terms of American casualties. For the people directly impacted by these events and involved in responding and rebuilding, their disaster stories were soon submerged under the stories of war. While the war took more and more media attention away from the needs of the victimized people and places, their needs did not just gradually and proportionately fade away with the coverage.

Suggestions for more successful dissemination of victims' needs and expert information in the disasters of the future include the following:

government agencies and non-governmental organizations can actively cultivate personal relationships between particular reporters and particular representatives of their organizations (e.g., Lucy Jones of Caltech and Kate Hutton of the USGS in the case of earthquakes);
non-governmental and victim advocacy organizations are in a position to play to the media's need for human drama by generating "newsworthy" events, including demonstrations;
the Internet can be used with stunning efficacy to generate public interest in and support for victims' needs and the organizations trying to meet them: E-mail, listservers, and news groups enable exponential expansion of a message to reach an audience of a size and geographical scope once the domain exclusively of national media conglomerates (e.g., WTO protests).