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OPINION
Memento moribund
BY CHRIS WRIGHT

A couple of weeks ago, I came across a newspaper story that gave me a jolt: " Los Angeles Lakers center Shaquille O’Neal will have surgery on his right foot on Sept. 11, and could miss the start of the season. " First, I should mention that I don’t give a hoot about Shaquille’s foot — nor, for that matter, about the Lakers’ upcoming season. What made the story remarkable for me was that it was the first September 11 article I had read in a long, long time that had absolutely nothing to do with September 11.

In the week leading up to the first anniversary of the terrorist attacks, media coverage of the event became — there is no other way to put this — frenzied. We were fed countless survivor testimonials, how-could-this-have-happened editorials. We were informed, over and over, how " things will never be the same. " We were reminded, as if we needed to be, of our " collective grief, " our " lost innocence, " our " uncertain future. " In an effort to cover every conceivable angle relating to the attacks, the nation’s media did everything but go to remote regions of Bora Bora to see how the natives were coping with the new, post-9/11 reality.

A week later, the 9/11 anniversary has come and gone. We’ve had our candlelight vigils, commemorative concerts, church services. We’ve had our America Remembers network specials. And this, perhaps, is as it should be. But we should also remember that, on September 11, 2002, future anniversaries were established: couples fell in love, people were run over, jobs were lost or found, Shaq went to get that troublesome right foot looked at.

Today, there is another September 11 separating now and then. For this reason alone, blanket media coverage of the so-called aftermath must end. There are words that need to be retired: fateful day, raw emotions, sacred ground, a terrible void. No longer can the events of 9/11 be seared onto the nation’s consciousness. No longer can our sense of security crumble along with the Twin Towers. There are no more abstract nouns — hope, heartache — to be pulled from the rubble of the World Trade Center. We are a resilient people. Everything changed. The attack shook us to the core.

Blah, blah, blah.

I do not mean to diminish the importance of September 11, or to denigrate its victims, or to deride our collective response to the attacks — we needed to work this stuff out, together, and the media helped us to do that. But now, after a year of nonstop coverage — print-friendly buzzwords, eye-catching graphics, suitably grave voice-overs — we’re coming perilously close to divesting that day of its meaning. Unless we, the media, refrain from such facile repetition, the horror and hurt of 9/11 will descend into cliché. The victims of terror deserve better than that. We all do.

Issue Date: September 12 - 19, 2002
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