The coverage of 9/11 - Finkelstein and Filkins
Ethics in the Media Paper #1: Reporters report?Analyse, Compare and Contrast9/11/14
1. What perspective and context on the event does each author offer? Give examples.
The two texts, “Third World” by Dexter Filkins and ”40 Hours in Hell” by Katherine E. Finkelstein, both relate to the attack of the 9/11 in which the two authors were confronted with different realities in this catastrophic event. The first author, Dexter Filkins is a well-known war journalist and published this text as part of a wider collection of journalistic journeys in The Forever War in 2008. There the author tries to provide the reader with an overview on the nature of war as he faced it during his war report coverage. The second author, Katherine Finkelstein is a metro reporter for the New York Times. Here the particularity is that the reporters have become witnesses to historic events. They fulfill then the role of reporter and source at the same time. For this reason the two authors choose carefully how they wrote their stories and offer different perspectives and contexts of the events. I- “Third World” : the plurality of changing perspectivesA- The multiple encountersIn “Third World”, the text starts right in the action letting the reader know immediately that something has happened. The author immediately puts himself as a spectator of the situation analyzing others behaviors as he does for the policemen line 2 ” The police weren’t letting anyone onto ferries that day”. The author gives the perspective of several persons he encounters through his journey in the 9/11 events such as the policemen at the end of the text, the firemen, the shop owners and finally a curious photographer. 1- The policemen The text is framed by the encounters with policemen. First, the author presents us the tense policemen at the beginning of the text trying to avoid curious people to join the ferry. They are the one’s that allow the adventure to start, l.5 “ a policewoman waved me aboard”. They are still
1. What perspective and context on the event does each author offer? Give examples.
The two texts, “Third World” by Dexter Filkins and ”40 Hours in Hell” by Katherine E. Finkelstein, both relate to the attack of the 9/11 in which the two authors were confronted with different realities in this catastrophic event. The first author, Dexter Filkins is a well-known war journalist and published this text as part of a wider collection of journalistic journeys in The Forever War in 2008. There the author tries to provide the reader with an overview on the nature of war as he faced it during his war report coverage. The second author, Katherine Finkelstein is a metro reporter for the New York Times. Here the particularity is that the reporters have become witnesses to historic events. They fulfill then the role of reporter and source at the same time. For this reason the two authors choose carefully how they wrote their stories and offer different perspectives and contexts of the events. I- “Third World” : the plurality of changing perspectivesA- The multiple encountersIn “Third World”, the text starts right in the action letting the reader know immediately that something has happened. The author immediately puts himself as a spectator of the situation analyzing others behaviors as he does for the policemen line 2 ” The police weren’t letting anyone onto ferries that day”. The author gives the perspective of several persons he encounters through his journey in the 9/11 events such as the policemen at the end of the text, the firemen, the shop owners and finally a curious photographer. 1- The policemen The text is framed by the encounters with policemen. First, the author presents us the tense policemen at the beginning of the text trying to avoid curious people to join the ferry. They are the one’s that allow the adventure to start, l.5 “ a policewoman waved me aboard”. They are still