OpinionJournal: Cable TV Coverage of D.C. Sniper is "Pure Melodrama"
In one of the more candid opinion pieces published during the entire D.C.-area Sniper Case, Daniel Henninger of OpinionJournal.com likens the coverage of the investigation to the "Unreal City" that T.S. Elliot spoke about in his poem The Waste Land.
What we've all been watching on these stations lately is mostly live, so in some sense undoubtedly real. But what could be weirder or more bizarre than the unreal city of cable news, which reports, without discrimination, what it knows, what it almost knows and what no one knows?....Not since long ago when villagers whispered that witches danced in the night-forest, has mere rumor been elevated to such high status in the life of a society.... Making such terrible events seem somehow unreal was a challenge. But we've met it. Trying to "report" live, much less talk about something like this for hours on end is not normal.