The New Media After 9/11
The landscape of news reporting and media influence has transformed due to the effects of 9/11, which shifted the use of freedom of the press to now a more constructed thought of what to air as a result.
Before 9/11, the media and entertainment industry used the freedom of the press to exploit many events and cultures for their gain. The consistent exploitation of events made way for media to be more offensive and insensitive to the backgrounds and circumstances of the subject that was being portrayed, even borderline racist.
Before the twenty-first century, the media and entertainment industry had no regard for cultural sensitivity as well as the idea of sensitivity to their viewers. This can be characterized in films such as Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961) with the use a Caucasian male portraying a Japanese man which stemmed from anti-Asian stereotypes towards Japanese people or in True Lies (1994) with the use of Arab terrorists in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center.
The newscasting format for TV stations was also not shy from over-using sensitive content for their growth. TV stations used more fluff pieces such as lifestyle segments in their morning broadcast, as well as a desk of attractive reporters and current events as a template for their shows. The use of videos, insensitively, such as the Space Shuttle Challenger explosion or the assassination of Pres. John F. Kennedy was consistent in the news reporting.
The aftermath of 9/11 caused an influx of a new way of showcasing events. In the days after the attacks, David Westin, then president of ABC News, ordered that video of the jets hitting the World Trade Center in New York City not be repeated over and over so as not to disturb viewers, especially children. This gave way to shows having a segment for international affairs – especially terrorism. According to a study of the five years after 9/11 report done by ADT Research, a market research group, a number of minutes devoted to coverage of foreign policy were up 102%, coverage of armed conflict rose 69%, and discussions of terrorism rose 135%.
Today’s media coverage of major events has major news organizations re-examine their coverage of graphic stories such as mass shootings or terrorist attacks. Even when a video is available, some are deciding that it is too graphic or if it could misconstrue facts to the public.
The shock of 9/11 also shaped how the entertainment industry made its content for the masses. One notable example is Disney’s Lilo and Stich (2002), where a scene in the original format had Stich having a joyride in a 747 airplane, weaving through an urban setting of skyscrapers, to a final re-edited version that changed the 747 airplane to a spaceship, weaving through Hawaiian mountains. At that time, the movie was already nearly done for the 2002 release but with the effects of 9/11 still on American’s psyche, it made them re-edit the movie for children.
The topic of terrorism was no longer something that was joked about within the entertainment industry after 9/11, with it being still a consistent taboo topic in today’s age. In the highly popular and successful tv show, Friends, they made a significant edit in the episode 'The One Where Rachel Tells Ross,' in which Chandler is taken into custody by the TSA after making a quip about bringing a bomb onto a plane; that scene was removed.
