Reflection: News in Real Time

When visiting the Newseum in the past week, I realized the effect of the news media on a certain situation, and the true personality of the mass media. We have become accustomed to, especially in the age of more frequent allegations of media bias, associating media outlets like the major newspaper or television networks across the country with a small, unseen, and select board of editors deciding the news that reaches the world.  In the Newseum, however, I saw a different side of journalism.

In watching the 9/11 video, I was a bit taken aback about the degree journalists undertook their job, risking their own lives on that fateful morning in order to deliver the news to their eagerly awaiting audience.  Without them, we may have never even known, without being in Manhattan that morning, whether or not people had been jumping out of the buildings.  The journalist who had the grimacing duty of interviewing a local resident showed, to me at least, the personable side of journalism, as even the journalist could not hold back his emotions as he was interviewing the woman who was holding back tears.  In this rare occurrence, we see the media not as ratings-greedy conglomerates, but as ordinary people.

The personable effect of journalists also was evident in the exhibit on Hurricane Katrina.  It seemed as if the emotions of the journalists reflected with some accuracy the feelings of the nation during the hurricane and its aftermath.  The frustration was evident in their deliverance on clips from television that were given, such as how the local and state government did not have a prior plan to protect the city of New Orleans from such a catastrophe by installing new levees, and how there was little refuge within the city planned out beforehand, leading residents to be haphazardly housed in the Superdome for days.  There was also, particularly in the newspaper timeline exhibit, a larger frustration toward the federal government, as there was a sense of relief in the papers that announced that the federal aid to the region has arrived, but more of a feeling of distrust, wondering what took so long for the aid to arrive, while thousands of residents were trapped.  It was just an interesting take on actual power the media holds, as (rightful) constant criticism of the responsible governments involved over the disaster lead to decline the popularity of President Bush.