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My personal musings about anything that gets on my radar screen--heavily dominated by politics.

2006-08-28

Anniversary Pop Quiz

Quick, as we approach the anniversaries of two major moments in recent history, pick which image (or close approximation thereof) you are most likely to see in Old Media in the next two weeks.

Heck, I'll even handicap the contest: since there's only a few days left until the first anniversary, we'll prorate the first images by a multiplier of 2.5. Only for the purposes of the pop quiz, of course . . .

Image 1:














Image 2:



















Image 3:

















Or, perhaps, image 4:












Seriously, which image do you suppose we're likely to see more of in the MainStream Media?

I know which one's got my bet. And even without the odds I gave, I will bet anything I've got (ha ha ha) that we will see images of the desperate suffering of poor, black people in New Orleans about 20 times more often than we will see images of desperate victims flinging themselves out the hundredth story windows.

And it's not that we shouldn't see the former--images of persistent poverty need to be in front of the American populace, if for no other reason than to create a debate about opportunity and smart choices.

But the one image plays a certain way politically, and the other plays the other way politically (because, like it or not, every time the American people are reminded of the horror of 9/11, it reminds people that only one party is serious about terrorism)--and, therefore, we will see the second image very little.
Posted by: Michael / 8/28/2006 01:37:00 AM

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