[Infowarrior] - All Terrorism All the Time: Fear Becomes Reality Show

[Richard Forno]

August 12, 2006
Coverage
All Terrorism All the Time: Fear Becomes Reality Show
By ALESSANDRA STANLEY
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/12/arts/television/12tvwatch.html?pagewanted=
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By yesterday the morning shows were back to consumer tips ‹ only the advice
was about packing for red alerts, not campgrounds and water parks. An expert
on ³Today² instructed Ann Curry on how to ³be a minimalist.² On CBS, Harry
Smith performed a cheery show-and-tell about the risks of carrying aboard
lip gloss, conditioner and, most of all, nail polish remover.

Even ³The Insider,² the syndicated gossip show, found its own way to the
foiled terrorist plot: on Thursday night¹s edition, it reported on
celebrities ‹ Kim Cattrall and Kevin Spacey ‹ who were delayed at Heathrow.

The averted bombings ‹ an extensive attack that may have been timed to
coincide with the anniversary of Sept. 11 ‹ does not answer the question of
whether the public is safer now than it was five years ago. European and
American security forces are more vigilant, but terrorists have also grown
more virulent.

What the close call did show is how far terrorism has metastasized on
television. It¹s a fact of life at airports and on news programs, but even
entertainment shows feel compelled ‹ or entitled ‹ to weigh in. Islamic
terrorism is woven into the fabric of prime-time thrillers like ³24² and
³The Unit,² but it also surfaces on police shows and legal dramas. The first
season of the Showtime series ³Sleeper Cell,² about an undercover agent who
infiltrates a cell of Muslim conspirators in Los Angeles, eerily presaged
the London plot ‹ including terrorists who are Westerners who converted to
Islam.

Through magnification and repetition, cable news does two opposite things at
once: it stokes fear and inures viewers to danger. CNN chose a relatively
prosaic rubric for its report, ³Security Alert,² while Fox News chose the
more vivid title ³Terror in the Sky.² (MSNBC went for the wordier ³Target
America: Terror in the Sky.²) All the cable news programs used music and
graphics to hype any new development as a ³breaking news² bulletin so
important it would seem to merit interruptions by the Emergency Alert
System. (³If this had been an actual emergency, you would have been
instructed where to tune in your area for news and official information.²)

Yet the fact that the United States raised the security alert level to a
limited red for the first time was relayed quite calmly. Yellow alerts have
come and gone over the past few years, and this terrorist attack, however
elaborate and deadly, was safely defused before the public knew of it.
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff made appearances on almost
every news program imaginable to reassure the public that this was just a
precaution to match Britain¹s security rating, but also, perhaps, to take
the victory lap that the British officials who broke up the plot were too
busy to make.

Comedians felt safe enough to joke about it. On Comedy Central, Stephen
Colbert said he had elevated his show¹s security level to brown. (³Somebody
spilled coffee on the chart.²)

CNN and others kept repeating the rules of the liquid ban (no to baby oil,
yes to baby formula) long after travelers had caught on and airport delays
had abated ‹ mostly because the piles of discarded shampoos and after-shave
provided a way to illustrate a story that fortunately had few vivid images.
By late afternoon yesterday, even CNN was making light of the restrictions
on lotions and creams, showing a lively montage of passengers tossing out
toiletries. (A woman who threw away an $80 tube of foundation winced and
said, ³That hurt.²)

Television labeled the changes ³the new normal,² a catchphrase that by
yesterday had spread throughout the spectrum, from the ³NBC Nightly News² to
Tucker Carlson debating, on his MSNBC show, ³Tucker,² whether the
administration was right to secretly beef up surveillance measures.

These kinds of precautions are not new, and they certainly are not normal.
It¹s the coverage that has normalized.