reporting 911

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reporting 9/11 Sean Phelan
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Lecture overview (1) were all Israelis now -
reporting the Middle East in the immediate
aftermath (2) State/terror discourse on US
television (3) Representations of Islam on US
television the CNN messageboard (3) British and
Irish current affairs immediate framing -
Primetime Newsnight (4) Arguing 9/11 - play Fox
clip here
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were all Israelis now Israel/Palestine and
American media in the immediate aftermath of 9/11
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Van Dijks ideological square
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Whos celebrating?
San Fr Chronicle Palestinians on the West Bank
celebrated In the West Bank town of Nablus,
about 3,000 people poured into the streets USA
Today Palestinians celebrating in the streets,
apparent Palestinian jubilation New York
Times some Palestinians rejoiced, big crowds
of Palestinians marched in celebration, The
Washington Post Thousands of Palestinians in the
West Bank and Gaza Strip cheered the attack,
Palestinians in refugee camps in Lebanon fired
weapons into the air in celebration
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Whos celebrating?
Boston Globe RAMALLAH, West Bank - Palestinian
youths danced and handed out candies on the
streets here and in Jerusalem yesterday to
celebrate, Palestinians in Jerusalem celebrated
outside the Damascus Gate Fox News
Palestinians celebrating in the street, CBS
some Palestinian militants ABC more militant
Palestinians in Jerusalem CNN Palestinians
took to the street
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American Israeli oneness as victims
Spilled Blood Is Seen as Bond That Draws 2
Nations Closer (New York Times Headline)
juxtaposed with Palestinian joy ... Israelis
also took cold comfort in concluding that
Americans would now share more of their fears,
while some Palestinians rejoiced at the same
thought (NEW YORK TIMES)
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- Israel as (singular) Middle East victim
Tuesday's strikes may have helped convey to
Americans a little of what they have been feeling
over the past year of violence (USA Today)
Arab-Israeli violence now racking Israel (SF
Chronicle) Israel is, of course, a country,
that has seen its share of terrorism (Fox News)
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lexical coherence of Palestinian Joy firing
joyfully(USA Today) Palestinians rejoicing
(New York Times) show of glee (The Washington
Post), Palestinian youths danced (Boston
Globe). jubilant Palestinians (SF Chronicle)


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Signifiers of Palestinian joy Others
offered candy to passers-by, a traditional
gesture of celebration (The Washington Post)
celebratedfiring guns in the air(Chronicle)
- some drivers honked their horns in triumph
(New York Times) Palestinians took to the
street (CNN)
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Palestinians bogus grief
- The popular as disclaimer Leaders Deplore,
But People Rejoice (Boston Globe Headline) -
Grief as PR repair job Arab League spokeswoman
Hanan Ashrawi hastily organized a candlelight
vigil ... in East Jerusalem nearly 24 hours after
hundreds of Israelis flocked to the U.S. Embassy
in Tel Aviv in a spontaneous outpouring of
grief(USA Today).
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Palestinians bogus grief
- Grief as Coercion Palestinian
schoolchildren were made to stand in silence to
commemorate the American victims (Wash Post)
Palestinian Authority announced that all
Palestinian schoolchildren would stand (NYT) -
Culpability in discourse structure? Muslim
groups and Arab leaders, including Palestinian
leader Yasser Arafat and Afghanistan's ruling
Taliban, condemned the attacks. (SFC)
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Representing the other
- Hatred as primary definers - Theres no
shortage of people in the Middle East, who for
various reasons hate the United States (CBS)
little room for moderation among those who
actually define themselves by their hatred for
the US (Fox) - Hatred as historical
fable/hatred from nowhere? (play Fox clip) -
Palestinian Q subsumed as Arab grievance Arab
leaders and citizens have expressed growing anger
over U.S. political support and military aid for
Israel and Islamic fundamentalist groups,
including Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda, are also
offended by the U.S. military presence in Saudi
Arabia (WPost)
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Representing the other
- Animal metaphors It is the carrier that you
have to get -- the regimes from which these
terrorist plots are hatched (Netanyahu in the SF
Chronicle). a war... between humanity and
those who are bloodthirsty " Sharon said.
(Globe).Israel intensified its hunt for
Palestinian militants (USA TODAY) - Ideological
uses of agency Palestinian analyst juxtaposed
with A Professor of political studies at Hebrew
University in Jerusalem (SFC) - Arafat as
metonym for the Palestinian Q His Palestinian
Authority (Wash Post)Arafats Regime (Boston
Globe) - Arafat as dictator Arafat's
Palestinian Authority has suppressed videotaped
footage (WP) Palestinian leaders try to
repair image - Effort includes threats to media
(USA Today - Headline)
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Representing the other

- The street signifier/popular as threat But the
attack clearly had support on the streets(New
York Times) street reactions ...reflected a
popular sentiment (Wash Post) - Our Muslims
Certainly most American Muslims dont share the
views of the militants overseas (Fox News)
...Muslim and Arab leaders in the New York area
emphasized that they were reacting to the
emergency first and foremost as Americans (New
York Times)
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ABC news clip Sept 11th

- The popular as disclaimer a sympathy not
shared... - Catch all noun phrase of more
Militant Palestinians - Palestinian Muslim in
conflation of more militant Palestinians
these Muslims in Lebanon - Qualified denials
Palestinian groups active denials of
responsibility qualified by their condemnation
of US Policy - Palestinian militant
spokesperson delegitimated by his not being
identified - Is there culpability in discourse
structure?
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De-emphasizing Israel on the make
- Diminution of agency 'Arafat is our bin
Laden,' Israeli says amid fighting (USA Today
Headline)... Three killed as Israelis Move Into
Two West Bank Towns (New York Times Headline)
- Rhetoric of attack as defence operations to
prevent terrorist bombings (New York Times) -
Security as euphemism - Israel has taken active
security precautions in the aftermath of the
attacks on the US (Fox News)... - Rhetoric of
military precision an Israeli government
spokesman siad that the military activity had
been guided solely by tactical considerations
(New York Times). in what the army said was a
search-and-arrest mission to seize Palestinians
of anti-Israeli Violence (NYT)
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De-emphasizing Israel on the Make
- Rhetoric of democratic warfare 13 people were
wounded in the exchanges of gunfire(NYT)
Trading gunfire with residents (SFC) - Sharon as
moderate under pressure from hard-liners in his
government (Wash Post).. Despite such calls,
government officials said Israel would remain
restrained (SF Chronicle) - Non-dramatic rep.
of Israeli actions Israeli troops entered Jenin
around 2 a.m (SFC) - Reliance on Palestinian
agency Israeli tanks enter Jericho on West Bank
- Aide to Arafat charges U.S. attacks used as
pretext (NYT)The actions brought accusations
from Palestinian leaders that Israel was using
the terrorist attacks in the United States as a
smoke screen (SFC)
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Ideological Square inverted?
- Clear agency Israel has launched a military
offensive in Palestinian-controlled territory in
the West Bank and Gaza Strip that has killed a
dozen Palestinians in the last three days. In
the tank thrusts into Jenin, the army destroyed a
Palestinian Authority building and killed at
least 11 Palestinians in the two days of clashes,
including a 9-year-old girl - Dramatised
Description of Israeli Bullya column of Israeli
tanks accompanied by infantry roared into
contrasted with token Palestinian resistence
into the sleepy Jordan Valley town of Jericho
before dawn today, triggering a smattering of
opposition - Emphasising Palestinians good
qualities Only Palestinian source is desrcibed
as a top Palestinian peace negotiator and a
moderate
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Ideological square inverted
- Dramatisaiton of impact on Palestininans ...
13 Palestinians were wounded, including one
woman who was hit by shrapnel in her bed.
juxtaposed with There were no Israeli
casualties... - Disclaimers Israeli officials
said Palestinian gunmen who shoot at Israeli cars
have operated from Jericho. However, it was
unclear whether there was any direct connection
between the attack on Jericho and those gunmen. -
Ideological uses of agency These actions
couldn't have gone on for so long if it weren't
for the attack at the World Trade Center, said
Roni Daniel, military correspondent for Israel's
Channel 2 television station. "This is a window
of opportunity that the Israeli army will use to
push Arafat into a corner."
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Print opinion analysis- 3 Perspectives
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Israeli Partisans Until Tuesday, I felt
selfishly grateful for the physical and psychic
distance from the line where civilization
confronts barbarism . But we're all Israelis now,
all of us New Yorkers, all of us Americans
(Samuel G Freedman, USA Today And in this
Black September, after the worst act of terrorism
in history, the question arises from Israelis
like this official Do you get it now? (Clyde
Haberman - New York Times) Like Israel, maybe
now we will begin to take these men more
seriously.'(Bill Keller, New York Times) Was
this not the ultimate expression of President
Arafat's very own philosophy? (Michael Kelly in
Wash Post)
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Consensual Rhetoric We can empathize with the
Palestinians who have lived for a half-century
under Israel's thumb -- and boot. But such
empathy ends when we see cheering on the streets
of Palestine as people watch televised images of
the collapse of the World Trade Center. (Gregory
F. Treverton - SF Chronicle)
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Empathy with Palestine ...But it may easily
seduce us into this small voice is extremely
dangerous for us forgetting that with or without
Islamic fundamentalism, with or without Arab
terrorism, there is no justification whatsoever
for the lasting occupation and suppression of the
Palestinian people by Israel. We have no right to
deny Palestinians their natural right to
self-determination (Amos Oz, NYT) If we want to
avoid creating more terrorists, we must end the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict quickly and in a way
both sides see as fair (Caryle Murphy - Wash
Post).
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American TV in the immediate aftermath

• Analysis of transcripts from 5 American
  television news networks CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS and
  Fox.
• Total corpus size of 4.18 million words
• Most interesting preliminary findings
  cross-compared with CNN message board corpus of
  just over 2.39 million words

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State concordance with terror

• Results suggest collocation of state and terror
  common in both media fora but more frequently on
  the message board.

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Collating state and terror television uses

• None of the 41 noun phrases indict either
  America, Israel or any other Western democracy
• Only 1 use could be construed as alluding to US
  involvement and thats uttered by Colin Powell! -
  ignored by interviewer Bob Schieffer

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More state/terror concordances
Television Not once Not once 22 times (11 refs
to domestic terrorism chief)
Message board 24 times 3 times 12 times
Phrase American Terror American Sponsor Domestic
terror
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Israel concordance with terror

• Further searches of TV corpus showed that noun
  phrase "Israeli Terror" is only ever directly
  collocated with "experts
• Phrases "Israel is a terrorist state and "Israel
  is behind" are not used at all on TV.

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what history tells us
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Islamic noun-phrases
Fig 1 The 15 most popularly used noun phrases
from the TV transcript corpus where Islamic is
used as an adjective.
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Islamic noun phrases
Fig 2 The 15 most popularly used noun phrases
from CNNs online messageboard where Islamic is
used as an adjective.
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• Our Muslims versus theirs??
• All 15 TV refs to Islamic centers refer to
  attacks on US centers
• 13 of the 15 refs to Islamic society are
  references to Dr. Muzammil Siddiqi, Imam of the
  Islamic Society of North America.
• Of the 11 refs to Islamic community, 10 are
  Anglo-American
• Of the 10 refs to Islamic conference, 6 refer
  to conferences which had Bin Laden as the main
  delegate
• Phrase Islamic civilisation not used once on TV
• High use of Islamic world
• Much higher usage of Islamic noun phrases on
  messageboard
• Much higher ranking of Islamic terrorist on
  m-board

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Primetime/Newsnight of Sept 12th compared

• Both countries claim a special relationship
  with Britain
• Both have a direct experience of terrorism
• Yet both programmes reveal a very different
  attitude towards US power
• And both tackle the question of
  why/rationalise/contextualise in very different
  ways?
• Why so?
• Are the programmes metonyms of wider national
  political and media responses?

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Primetime order of discourse (1) Introduction
Foregrounding the Middle East and the need
to know why (2) Historical context - Middle East
report (3) American perspective - an interview
with former Congressman Bruce Morrison - MOC on
the need for US maturity re retaliationBM
acknowledges legitimacy of pol grievances the
need for US foreign policy to address them (4)
Bin Laden profile - a report - traces as far back
as Soviet invasion - acknowledges past CIA
sponsorship (5) Discussion on the official
American response Fintan OToole Prof Ronan
Fanning - on the dangerous war rhetoric - RF
links Bushs rhetoric to that of the British
during the War of Indepdence.. almost as if he
didnt understand the concept of guerrilla war-
FOT on the understandable, yet irrational war
talk - doomsday predictions - things will get
worse and worse and more visceral - were
going to see horrors beyond anything weve
imaged in terms of casualties
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Newsnight order of discourse (1) Introduction
and preview the how, why and what next - we
shall tackle them all tonight (2) How did it
happen? On intelligence failures/previous
warnings etc.. (3) Studio discussion re why and
how (play this) (4) How can the US respond - a
speculative report (5) Studio discussion on
what next - (6) Discussion on British context -
casualties/practical security measure/Br Al
Quayeda links/labour backbencher concern about
Blairs blank cheque to Bush (7) On the impact
on Americas self belief perception a
report (8) Studio discussion re US self belief
reject isolationist tendency (9) Discussion on
the impact on the global economy the big q what
impact on inter finance mkts?
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Arguing 9/11 - Fox News 9/13

• - Discussion as symbolic warfare
• Atmosphere of extreme symbolic Violence
  (Bourdieu). Is it a form of censorship?
• Symbolic capital of telling it as it is
• Modality posture of certainty
• Timorous liberal dissent ... but .you
  know I agree with you on the Israeli issue
• Mediator as eunuch/co-producer of zeal
• Pundit geography its not just in the Middle
  East there, its right there in Palestine
  harboured by the Palestinian Authority!!!
• Rhetorical uses of history ...what history
  tells us.
• The threat of the popular? Saudis worried
  about Islamic fundamentalists in their own
  country!!!