NY Times Asks If Recollection of 9/11 is Too Much, Too Soon?
An article in today's New York Times reviews the large number of special programs about the attack on the World Trade Center and asks "Are we in danger of a 9/11 overload?"
Television has long been the defining medium for great and terrible national events like war, assassinations and presidential elections. But nothing in the past has generated this sheer volume of reportage and commentary, because Sept. 11 was an unprecedented event occurring in an age of unprecedented media exposure. (The Zapruder film of John F. Kennedy's assassination became so crucial because it was the only one.) The variety and quantity have been staggering-- valuable (much of it), but also alarming.