I’m proud to be an American. In other countries I may not dare to write this article, nor could I depend on receiving an education beyond basic communication. Since I was rather young I always had an appreciation for how lucky I was to be born in the states—and after September 11, 2001 this pride, as it was for many others, was multiplied exponentially. However, since those attacks I have seen a lot of America and I’ve watched her mainstream media with a skeptic eye as well as the public’s response to said media. And now, with the ninth anniversary of the September 11th attacks come and gone, I find myself asking: Who are “We”?
I remember after 9/11 I saw something in America that I had not seen before then and have only seen sparingly for the past 6 or 7 years: humility. We responded to those abhorrently violent acts with arms linked together, flags held high, and a patriotic song on our voice. We, for a short while, were not a country: we were a nation. We were proud to be Americans, but over the years that sentiment, though still passively present, seemed to fade—among other things, being engaged in an unwinnable war founded on lies ripped us apart—but again, disaster brought about hope.
In 2005 Hurricane Katrina ravaged our Gulf Coast, and we watched on TV as people sat for days waiting to be rescued: there was again something to unite us. Americans donated an incredible $4.25 billion to charities who aided in the recovery of the gulf coast. The public outrage as to how the disaster was handled is still being reported on today. Once again the American nation was formed and brave men and women interrupted their normal lives and helped assist in the clean-up—but the adhesion of the nation was not as strong as it had been in the past and concerns over the response to Katrina, social security, and ever-rising gas prices quickly polarized the nation once more.
Just this year, however, disaster pulled the American Nation back once more from its dormancy—but this time it was not an American disaster.
On January 12, 2010 a 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck Haiti and killed nearly a quarter of a million people and left over a million homeless—The American response was swift and effective. Four days after the quake, Secretary of State Hilary Clinton reported that $48 million dollars had been collected to help relieve the Haitian people. Promised pledges from Brazil, Canada, the European Union, and America were anywhere from 475 to 100 million dollars (respectively, American adjusted). Other countries sent tens of millions of dollars in food and supplies—The World Bank even put a five-year forbearance on Haiti’s loans.
Since 2007 The Project for Journalistic Excellence (PJE) has been assembling weekly indexes of media coverage, taking into account print, online, and television news media. In the week following the earthquake PJE reported that 27% of American news was focused on Haiti—in fact, if you were watching CNN, then 6 out of every 10 minutes of airtime was devoted to the disaster. By the last week of January the earthquake was still ranked in the top three news stories and didn’t leave the top five until mid-February.
It was really something—Americans had once again stood together in the face of tragedy and shown the world that when we stand united, we can make one hell of an impact.
I wish I could say that was a decade ago… I wish I could say that America doesn’t exist any more because the good sentiments and noble ambitions of the people had been eroded away by something like an unwinnable war, a great leader being assassinated, or a giant white-collar scandal—but none of these things have happened in seven months—so what happened to us in seven months?
In late July floodwaters began to swallow up the country of Pakistan. At its worst, one fifth of the country was underwater. People are still, weeks later, dying of starvation, waterborne diseases like dysentery, or lack of shelter. Over 20 million people have been killed, injured, or made homeless by these floods—More than Haiti and Katrina combined. Five weeks after the earthquake individual Americans had raised $900 million; yet, five weeks after the floods in Pakistan began Americans have donated $25 million—a figure we nearly doubled days after the earthquake in Haiti. And according to PJE the floods in Pakistan only ever filled 4% of the American newshole across print, internet and television (which gave the most coverage at 11%); This story has never made the top five.
So where was Justin Timberlake singing a heart-wrenching rendition of Hallelujah while Taylor Swift took donations and gave thanks on behalf of the people of Pakistan? Where was Anderson Cooper saving a young Pakistani boy’s life and regretting never learning his name, but being content in knowing he was safe? Where were George W. Bush and Bill Clinton to urge us to open our hearts and wallets to help out a country that has been giving us support during our time in Afghanistan?
I am embarrassed to be an American right now.
I am embarrassed to think that there are tens of millions of people suffering right now that we—the greatest country in the world—have straight up ignored.
And why?
The week of August 16-22, when PJE projected that the Pakistan floods had reached a negligible 4% coverage—at 15% the top story by far was the Manhattan Mosque.
The American mainstream news media—and certain key figures outside of it who use it to create controversy and gossip—have chosen an enemy: the nation of Islam. And the weapon they have chosen to fight them with is ignorance—they have consciously chosen to ignore a group of suffering innocents and in their place demonize at worse, and over-expose at best, their peaceful-hearted brethren.
Outside the Manhattan Burlington Coat Factory (the site of the proposed—and actually approved—Islamic community center), there have been many protests—one slogan from these protests shocked me and furthered my embarrassment: “Everything I needed to learn about Islam I learned on 9/11.”
Intelligence isn’t about what you know, it’s about what you want to know. If we as Americans cease to want to learn more about other countries, cultures, and religions and begin down a path of ignorance and self-righteousness it will lead us to a dark place. The same dark place, I imagine, that a bitter old Islamic man is sitting in—plotting his organization’s next attack on a western world that he doesn’t understand. But he isn’t planning to attack America: The Unified Nation of Equal-Opportunity Philanthropy and Justice; but instead—America: The Polarized People of Hypocrisy and Intolerance. But who is he to make that distinction from his literal and platonic cave? And who are we to allow the shadow puppets on our own TV screens dictate whom we should be generous to… what countries we should support… what nations we should abuse with ignorance?
Who are We The People? We the indomitable—or, We the malleable?
Media Coverage Indexes from The Project for Journalistic Excellence can be found at journalism.org
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