- Where is our citizen war footing?
Sixty years ago, enterprising and patriotic Americans
saved tinfoil and bacon grease to help defeat Hitler during World War II,
heeding the old Office of War Information motto, "Use it up. Wear
it out. Make it last."
Some pockets of panic in California did develop
immediately after the Pearl Harbor attack of December 7, 1941. However,
when Japanese balloon bombs drifted near the West Coast or Nazi U-boats
were spotted off New Jersey, Americans learned how to extinguish an incendiary
bomb or spot the silhouettes of enemy submarines.
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They were not making a run on the local supplies of
bottled water and duct tape in a hysteria somewhere between snowstorm panic
and the last shopping day before Christmas.
But then, the good folks on the home front were
not pummeled by a 24-hour media with time to fill.
"Are you ready?" asked ABC News yesterday,
trotting out a "Good Morning America" home-improvement editor
to demonstrate how to turn a laundry room into a fallout shelter with duct
tape and plastic dropcloths.
"Duct tape sales rise amid terror fears,"
noted CNN.
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MSNBC offered mixed messages, saying that "jittery
Americans were stocking up for disaster" while offering an online
poll that said 71 percent of the respondents were "doing nothing"
to ready themselves for terrorist attacks.
Some were already weary of the fear-mongering.
"I'm not afraid of these jerks," said
one Westwood One Radio Network host yesterday. His listeners concurred,
many saying they would not join the race to hoard duct tape.
Others used the stuff to shore up their agendas.
"Washington is urging people to prepare for
chemical attack by purchasing duct tape, while it fails to provide fire
departments with funds for protective suits or bioterror detectors,"
a New York Times editorial said yesterday.
Though the Federal Emergency Management Agency
revamped its "Are You Ready?" citizen-preparedness guide after
the September 11 attacks, the media pounced upon the same information rereleased
Friday as "breaking news."
TV reports were immediately emblazoned with orange
"high alert" banners and rife with talk about poison gas, microbes
and imminent threats. Even pet owners were advised to pack an emergency
kit for their dogs, complete with "bottled water and food supply."
Syracuse University broadcast analyst Robert Thompson
says news organizations have slipped into the instant "bunker mentality"
they adopt during bad weather.
"Americans are subjected to split-screen
broadcasts which show the terrorist alert symbol on one side and weather
and fashion on the other," Mr. Thompson said yesterday. "What
do they focus on? Many buy into fearful hype."
Indeed, some news coverage has centered on consumer
panic and the sudden appearance of "homeland security" sections
in local hardware stores.
"The trouble is, if we connect the dots between
some of the really serious news events ÷ the possible dissolution
of NATO or divisiveness within the United Nations ÷ then that gets
scary," Mr. Thompson said.
"We have reached a new era which requires
us to go on living life knowing the 'big event' may be just around the
corner," he said. "That's what people do in other countries."
News coverage in dire national moments is still
a work in progress, however.
"There is a massive difference between a
crisis and a catastrophe, and in the case of a bioterror attack, the effect
of media coverage on public perception could be the deciding factor between
the two," notes Barbara Cochran, president of the Radio Television
News Directors Association.
The group issued its own practical guidelines
on bioterrorism, terrorism and war coverage two months ago, urging members
to "present the facts as clearly, objectively and dispassionately
as possible."
Charles Figley, a Florida State University trauma
psychologist who has studied media disaster coverage for two decades, faults
federal offices for issuing guidelines open to interpretation by both the
media and the public.
"Ideally, you want the vast majority of people
to be on alert, but not dramatically alter their daily routines,"
Mr. Figley said yesterday. "People should already have an emergency
plan in place anyway for bad weather, industrial accidents or the like."
Changing disaster scenarios requires flexibility,
he said.
"We learned there's no magic bullet, no one
way to modulate public information to prompt people to do the right thing,
at the right time," Mr. Figley said. "But if unsubstantiated
warnings go out, people don't pay attention after a while."
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- http://www.washtimes.com/national/20030213-11870357.htm
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