USD Magazine, Summer 1992

PRPER TIGERS & VIDEO POSTCRROS

TELEVISION NEWS,

TERRORISM

AND AMERICA'S

MORAL PANIC

S ocial

critics insist that Americans watch too much television, that too many hours of staring at the screen have anesthetized us to the violence we see there. They have a point. On a typical evening of prime-time drama, we see multiple stabbings, shootings and other acts of violence, safe in the knowledge that law and order will prevail, the victims avenged and the criminals punished. The triumphant hero, happy-ending scenario is one we like, one that makes us feel safe. When it is absent, we are troubled-and some televised images have definitely troubled us: • Blood-splattered bodies on the floors of the Vienna and Rome airports; • The face of wheelchair-bound Leon Klinghoffer, thrown into the sea from a cruise ship near Cairo; • The passenger-filled plane sitting on a runway in Beirut, swarthy gunman clearly visible behind the white-haired pilot; • Thin, pale Americans sending assurances to their families as they "celebrated" Thanksgiving at gun– point in Tehran.

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USO MAGAZINE