December 7, 2001
Television, Terrorism, and the Making of Incomprehension
Of the many things Americans have learned this fall, we must not underestimate this one: We have now seen in a new way the extraordinary emotional power of television news. On September 11, television once again became the medium that made public mourning into an act of national self-definition. TV news took this role by doing what it does best, which is presenting political crises and policy issues as private stories.
On the day of the attacks, when I heard from a colleague that
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