"It's hard to be cynical on a day such as this. It's also difficult to recall those events clearly now, despite last week's repeated, and some might say 'ghoulish', replays of all the deaths."
Keeping in mind the concept of "the medium is the message", it is hard not to be cynical about the "public" commemoration. Predominantly it is brought to us by television which has the shortest attention span of any media. It is at best a disingenuous,manipulative and parasitic medium, at worst, which is most of the time, it is exploitative and irresponsible. It will present the tragedy of bodies falling from the WTC then within a day, if not an hour, normal programming will resume with 2 year old Billy Jo Bob falling off the balcony into the swimming pool, scaring the bejeezus out of family dog on "Funniest Home Videos". It devalues most of what it casts its lense across. It has a limitless ability to turn pathos into "Low Fat" "Whiter than white" "Ring now, our operators are ready for your call" bathos.
It is hard not to imagine the commemoration planning. The artistic directors of the last 6 Olympics would have donated their services, the best vantage points auctioned off, tapes of Diana's funeral pored over for pointers and the commissioning of the most maudlin/patriotic background music. A commemoration that looks good on the screen must have greater gravitas than an unheralded, unremarked, dignified private grieving in a lonely living room. By the living Harry, the media is going to have gravitas ... marching bands, music, bells and whistles and Oprah and Jerry and David and Jay and Barbara. The sincerity of the medium is flagged and touted by a sonorous presenter informing us that this channel will be running the commemoration commercial free. Ah yes, we television companies know about sacrifice too, we share your grief.
Those victims (and I don't use the word innocent, some of them may have been right bastards as people. But what happened to them is no less tragic.) deserve better, MUCH better than what came to us out of the small screen.
