Political Media Bias in the U.S. in and After 911

Political Media bias in the U.S. in and after 9/11

        The September 11, 2001, for the people in the United States and even much more people in the world who deeply loved peace, is a memorable day that worth to be. It is not only the tragedy with more than 3,000 lives gone, but it is also the turning point in the progress of world peace since the Cold War. Technically, the 9/11 event is not only what happened to the United States, but it should also contain a series acts aftermath the terrorist attacks happened that day including the Afghanistan War and Iraq War. To be simple, it is called the War on Terror.

        The 9/11 attack is an end. It ended the era of hegemony of the United States, because this is the first time that an attack happened in the mainland of the United States. This didn’t happened even in the first and second world war and cold war. It started the time that the whole world against terrorism.

        In this research, I choose the documentary “Fahrenheit 911” as my primary resource. In the documentary, the director Michael Moore use a lot of video records to criticize former president Bush and the Bush administration for falsifying the election winning in 2000, illegally gaining $1.4 billion each year in the transaction will Saudi Arab when he was the president, starting the war in Afghan and Iraq. The charges in the film will not come as news to those who pay attention to politics, but Moore illustrates them with dramatic images and a relentless commentary track that essentially concludes Bush is incompetent, dishonest, failing in the war on terrorism, and has bad taste in friends.

However, what I am focusing is that how did Bush administration cheat to the public as a lot of critics already explore the truth. The answer to this question is also clear, because this role in Bush’s drama is played by the media industry especially political media which is the thing that American are most proud of.

It is ruled by the U.S. federal Constitution that congress cannot intervene the freedom of talk and publish, and that regulation ensured the right and status to monitor and criticize legal agency for the media. As the most basic way to transfer information from policy maker and general public, the media and their opinions are very important to both politics and citizens. How the media think of a policy may directly affect how the public perceives. However, while the media played an important role in American political life, their operations are still under the control of political powers. There is no absolute freedom, even the supervisor of laws must obey the laws.

In this research, I will focus on the political power of media, and the relationship between public media and politics. I will find out what those media told us and what they didn’t in and after the 9/11. To better illustrate my views, I will firstly talk about the media power in 2000 president election. Then, I would also discuss the role of media in the 9/11 attack. And then, I will introduce the debate of media spectacle during the war on terror and how it instigated the country into wars.

There is an inevitable fact is that there is a complex and twisted relationship between the media industry and political powers in the United States. The contradiction of media is embodied in the media industry must get supported by who they intend to fight against. That is why most of the media agencies have their distinct political tendency which is also recognized as media bias. At the beginning of the movie, Moore queried Bush’s victory in his 2000 president election. According to him, the democracy candidate Al Gore actually won the election in Florida and several TV channel had announced the result but Bush and his family falsified the result and Fox firstly announced that result. Then, other TV companies followed Fox and announced Bush is actual the winner. Besides Moore, there are also some pundits accused the mainstream media of distorting facts in an effort to help Bush win the election. Based on a research by Pew Research Center, Gore received 87% non-positive tones of coverage during the election while Bush only get 76%. This media bias apparently would give Bush a big advantage in the election. Compared to the election result that Gore won more population vote, we can figure how powerful the media is.