In Dr. Hunter S. Thompson’s short narrative regarding the terrorist attack of September 11th, 2001 titled Fear & Loathing in America from his weekly column for ESPN’s Page 2 called Hey Rube, he recounts his experiences surrounding the “news” coverage following the devastation. He compares the events to prior historical event like the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the 1862 Battle of Antietam where an estimated 23,000 souls were lost in a single day. He plays on the Patriotism felt in the United States in the following days and retells witnessing the towers fall and cries out for the lives lost, including 343 firefighters at the World Trade Center. His emotionally gripping recounting is aided by the ire felt by our citizens and their desire for
…show more content…
Thompson. The nightly news had become a 24/7 event which we were not able to escape from since it dominated all networks. This is also where the majority of Americans gathered information and had in effect, acted as a Public Affairs organization. The propaganda of looming terrorism was a frenzy within media outlets effectively dealing the psychological blows intended by the group that had orchestrated these attacks. Although the media did provide what little new information was available they furthered the knowledge that we did not know what we were up against. Noted was that the National Terror Alert had been raised but without any reliable information regarding true danger nor credible evidence of a secondary attack (Nacos, Bloch-Elkon, & Shapiro, 2007). These details are presented without emotion and are very “to-the-point” with an extensive list of references to lend credibility to the paper.
The end (thus far) result has been fifteen years of an ongoing War on Terrorism with an enemy who presents a new face every now and then. As former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld put it “…It will take time. Not a matter of days or weeks. It’s years…” (Perez-Rivas, 2001. pp
Thompson. The nightly news had become a 24/7 event which we were not able to escape from since it dominated all networks. This is also where the majority of Americans gathered information and had in effect, acted as a Public Affairs organization. The propaganda of looming terrorism was a frenzy within media outlets effectively dealing the psychological blows intended by the group that had orchestrated these attacks. Although the media did provide what little new information was available they furthered the knowledge that we did not know what we were up against. Noted was that the National Terror Alert had been raised but without any reliable information regarding true danger nor credible evidence of a secondary attack (Nacos, Bloch-Elkon, & Shapiro, 2007). These details are presented without emotion and are very “to-the-point” with an extensive list of references to lend credibility to the paper.
The end (thus far) result has been fifteen years of an ongoing War on Terrorism with an enemy who presents a new face every now and then. As former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld put it “…It will take time. Not a matter of days or weeks. It’s years…” (Perez-Rivas, 2001. pp