I remember exactly where I was when it became clear that something terrible had happened on September 11th, 2001. We all do. It was a formative moment for anyone that was old enough to experience it; it was an event that no passage of time can ever truly erase from our minds.
So why does the media insist on reliving it every single year?
I don’t have cable television, and I don’t frequent mainstream media sites if I can avoid it. But when I logged onto Tumblr, I was immediately inundated with images, remembrances, and old headlines hammering home the date. I know the date. We all know the date. There’s no chance that anyone who was alive then will ever forget it. Is the constant rehashing necessary?
I remember the first anniversary of the attacks. I was twelve, it was a Wednesday. It was brought up awkwardly in my eighth grade classroom. Footage was replayed over and over on all of the news networks – local and national. The towers, posthumously rising again and again, only to come crumbling down. The digitally remastered footage ultra-zoomed so that individual doomed and now deceased people could be pointed out in the windows of their office. The sound and sight so graphic that had it happened in a movie, it probably could not be shown on a network during the daytime hours without being pixelated or edited. I was in Denmark visiting family on the ten-year reunion – and honestly, I was relieved.
Footage that first year made me feel sick and angry. I hadn’t even lost anyone in the attacks, and I still felt like my emotions were being exploited through this inescapable, constant programming. And it was all under the veil of patriotism. By showing this footage and commenting on it nonstop, it was as if the news were saying, “This is for you. Never forget. We haven’t forgotten, we won’t let you forget, we are doing this for you and for them and for the country.”
But who is this obsessive focus really for? I’ve never met a single person who enjoyed the retrospectives or the graphic replays. I’ve yet to see someone write in a personal blog or a Facebook status, “Really happy to see that Reuters decided to post 9/11 pictures at 10 minute intervals on their Tumblr – it just feels right.” In a This American Life episode that tackled the idea of how to grieve for the September 11th attacks ten years later, a survivor said that she is always relieved when September 12th comes around. When host Ira Glass asked her who the memorials were for if not for people like her, she said simply, “Well, I don’t know.”
I don’t either. I’m not begrudging anyone – particularly those directly affected – their personal rituals. I’m certainly not objecting local, state, and federal public servants hosting events for the survivors and loved ones who lost people in the attacks. I don’t mind Nancy Pelosi’s Facebook update, or Barack Obama’s tweet. But there comes a time when commemoration turns into exploitation, and that line is sprinted over by 11AM every September 11th. There comes a time when the lives lost become just another manipulative card for politicians and the media alike to play.
So here’s my plea to Reuters and all the other media that just can’t resist turning all of today’s programming into an uncritical rehashing of one of the worst day’s in our nation’s history: please think before you broadcast. Think about whether or not the things that you are posting are adding value to the ongoing conversation, or support to those affected. Do not simply post picture after picture, video after video, as though we are goldfish that must be reminded every ten seconds.
We all remember. We all hurt. We will all never truly stop grieving – for the lives lost, for an era ended, for a time before the wars that have lasted half of my life. We will never forget – even if everyone eases up on the minute-by-minute replay.