September 11's Impact on American Journalism

The division of all the US presses on the mass and quality is rather conditional. Because any mass newspaper aims to make good and quality materials, and any quality newspaper aims to increase their circulation and reaches the greatest possible number of readers of the audience at which the presses are oriented. Of course, at first, the social orientation of publication affects its contents. For example, Wall Street Journal is designed for the wealthiest Americans and highlights the problem of how to make money in the broad sense of the word.

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Many things have changed in American journalism since September 11, 2001. The well-known researcher of foreign journalism P.Y. Rykovanov notes: The analysis of the coverage of tragic events in New York and Washington on Sept. 11, 2001 with the world's most powerful arsenal of media in this country allow us argue that the US media makes the USA in a hysterical campaign of a fear in the first minutes of the monstrous acts of a terrorism. The leading role, of course, was given to television, which continually broadcasts the live coverage from the places of the tragic events. For the first time in its history, American television abandoned the principle of episodic and thematic news feed. It used the situational principle, which allowed gushing the rumors, speculation, whispers, inaccurate information from the TV screen. During the first four days, the "intense reportage" was broadcasted by all television networks of the US without stopping by the advertisements. Americans became witnesses of such long feast, which was characterized by violence on their television screens. The country was defeated in shock. The word crime disappeared from journalistic comments, when the terrorist attack was stopped. The word war was quickly replaced and it sounded like an incantation the act of the war of qualified terrorist leadership (Voroshilov, 2004).

In anticipation course of new events, TV channels started to use a new technique. For many days they shared the screen into two parts, combining the show the most ominous scenes of sensational terrorist attack with a continuous supply of verbal and visual information. Many networks was accompanied by the video overprint with a running line: anti-American sentiment is gaining ground from radical Islamists, The Europeans observe three minutes of silence, Walmart has sold more than 300 thousand American flags since Tuesday. Soon the tone of the statements changes: no fear, no doubt. There is an obsession in a worthy military - and no other - a reply unknown enemy. Reporters and officials insist on the necessity of unity. On September 15, President Bush said that the war was declared to America, and we will accordingly respond. So, the TV already prepared to make this decision for public opinion. According to the results of its survey conducted by the New York Times on September 13-14, 2001, 67 percent of Americans, according to the newspaper, responded positively to the question: Should the US take military action against initiators of attacks, even if it means that thousands of innocent civilians can be killed? Most of the respondents answered yes to war. They are sure that victims will be in the camp of the enemy the US, outside, no matter where! The TV has quite quickly changed the compassionate nature of the terrorist attack on the lighting heartless, vindictive, revanchist and aggressive (Voroshilov, 2004).

Based on unpublished comments by Scott Peterson and Daniel Benjamin in the conference in the U.S. Institute for Peace The media perceives that the American public suffers from compassion fatigue. The crisis does not sell the history, but the fact that the military arrives to do something about it do it. Unless the U.S. troops are involved, it is difficult to convince an editor that a story is worthwhile.

In any case, there is strong marketing pressure on the media to conform to audience expectations; it is not in the interest even of an international news organization like CNN to show footage, or give its reporting a slant, that will offend the sensibilities of the American public. In fact, the criticism of the allegedly liberal American media after 11 September 2001 was that they became cheerleaders for the War on Terrorism, a knee-jerk pandering to the public, according to Australian journalist Carwyn James, reflecting a mood of patriotism rather than informing viewers of the complex, sometimes harsh realities they need to know. For his part, CNN president Walter Isaacson confessed, If you get on the wrong side of public opinion, you are going to get in trouble. (Alessandra Stanley, Opponents of the War Are Scarce on Television)

According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, after September 11 and during the invasion of Iraq, there was a clear trend of attack the US authorities on the confidentiality of journalists' sources, including cases of prolonged detention of several journalists who have resisted the decision of the judges in criminal cases. According to research by the Committee there are established three categories of attacks on the American press:

1. The attempts to limit the flow of information, which is announced on the US government-funded radio stations, and attempts to persuade the private TV networks, as well as at least one foreign broadcaster to censor the news;

2. The attack of the US forces in their known foreign offices of the TV channels, as well as a blow to the hotel, where the foreign journalists were;

3. The long imprisonment of foreign journalists by the US forces, which are practiced in overseas military bases (Cpj.org, 2016).

The invasion of the right to protect their sources most obviously manifested in the well-known case of Judith Miller, a journalist of the New York Times, who has refused to disclose sources in the case of leakage of information from the CIA. But even before Miller was taken into custody, a federal judge sent another American journalist under house arrest, because he refused to cooperate in another criminal case. On December 2004, Jim Tarikani, correspondent, who worked in the NBC TV station WJAR-TV (Rhode Island), spent 121 days under house arrest. He was not sent to prison only because of medical contraindications. The judge also banned him to work, gibe the media interviews, and even use the Internet for personal needs (McMurry, 2016).

Also in 2004, even more journalists were accused in a civil lawsuit, in which a scientist, who previously worked in the laboratory of the US government, Wen Ho Lee, accused government of leaking information of his personal files to the press. Despite the fact, that the case was finally solved, the decisions of the court have weakened the ability of journalists to protect their sources in the civil case.

On August 1, 2006, a federal judge of San Francisco sent a journalist, video-blogger Josh Wolf, in prison without the right to post bail, because he refused to provide video in another criminal case. After thirty days, a federal appeals court dismissed a journalist on a bail, saying that the argument of the journalist, that he has a common legal privilege does not give the tape, haves sense. The United States also sought to limit the press at home and abroad. Less than one month after the attacks of 9/11, the US Secretary of State Colin Powell asked the Emir of Qatar to use his influence to curb the broadcast of Al-Jazeera, which was financed by the Qataris authorities (Rcfp.org, 2006).

This request was made public because of the anti-American bias of the channel, and also there were the solutions to repeat an exclusive interview by 1998 with Osama bin Laden. A week later, on October, 10 then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice has asked a group of US television to show messages from bin Laden and his members. Rice claimed that such posts are at the best propaganda and may contain coded instructions to terrorist cells. The leaders of television agreed to censor future tape from bin Laden, throwing out the text, as it may contain propaganda of hatred for the Americans.

Three months later, on September, 11 the US government-funded radio station Voice of America has released a new collection of rules prohibiting interviews from the state sponsors of terrorism. The changes became in response because of a pressure of the State Department after a journalist of Pashtun service did an exclusive interview with Taliban leader Mullah Omar. The journalist was also forced to leave work. Also there were registered cases of attacks on the media in the form of physical attacks by US forces. On November 2001, during the American campaign in Afghanistan, a rocket hit the building of the Afghan Bureau of Al-Jazeera in Kabul (Rcfp.org, 2006).

Three media center came under attack during the invasion of coalition forces in Iraq on April 8, 2003. On this day, US forces destroyed the Baghdad office of Al-Jazeera, as well as the office is near Abu Dhabi TV. Later that morning, an American tank released a shell to Baghdad Palestine Hotel, a center for foreign journalists. As a result of the attacks on April 8, there were two journalists were killed and three wounded. CPJ conducted its own investigation after hitting the hotel, in which it became clear that the victims could easily be avoided (Pbs.org, 2016).

Finally, the United States turned to the practice of detaining journalists for prolonged periods without charge, and in one case, there was an attempt to recruit a reporter as informant. On October 2005, CPJ has asked the Pentagon to respond to allegations that military investigators were trying to recruit abiding imprisoned journalist as a spy. Operator Al-Jazeera Muhidinov Sami al-Hajj was arrested by Pakistani authorities near the Afghan-Pakistani border on December 2001, while they were performing their professional duties. He was transferred to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where he was held without charge for four years. On September 2005, the British newspaper The Guardian wrote that investigators claimed al-Hai that he would be released, if he agreed to become an informant inside Al-Jazeera. However, the situation in Iraq caused particular concern. Only in the second half of 2005, the Committee gave the seven cases with local reporters, photographers and cameramen, who were detained by US forces for long periods without charge. At least, three documented cases of imprisonment were exceeded for 100 days, others lasted for weeks. These cases involved journalists, working for CBS News, Reuters, the Associated Press, and Agence France-Presse (Pbs.org, 2016).

The Committee noted that prolonged detention of journalists without charge was typical of many repressive regimes. The Committee noted that repressive regimes around the world had attention of US media restrictions after September 11, trying to justify the violations of the rights of journalists. In the first anniversary of September 11, the Committee noted as authoritarian regimes have estimated the rhetoric of the war on terror", trying to justify the restrictions on press freedom in their countries (Newsland.com, 2011).

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