Friday, August 11, 2006

Terrorism lessons from NBC

American news services are not particularly good. They are constant - but they are not comprehensive. Rather, they are delivered with a rapid-fire, breathless urgency by which they assume a gravitas, a sense of importance, is imparted. This delivery is meant to obscure the fact that the stories are short on detail or explanation. They are essentially grabs. Everything is grabs. Teasers followed by grabs.

Tonight, however, NBC actually decided to expand its coverage of the foiling of the London terrorists by delivering a blueprint of what they intended to do. Yes, the newscasters who give habitually truncated reportage of world news, suddenly have gone thorough. Too thorough. From the sublime to the ridiculous. They have gone to the trouble of preparing detailed graphics and computer renderings so they can show exactly how the terrorists would have exploded planes over major cities. They showed the ingredients. The common household ingredients! They showed the tools. They showed how mixes would be made and of what and where. And where the terrorists would sit and connect with each other. It was a copybook "how to".

Well, aren't they smartypants exploitationist showoffs "in the public interest"?
And aren't they complete morons!




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