Media frenzy
Shop windows have been full of military-style clothes – pleated camouflage skirts, combat trousers, berets. Television has been advertising alarm systems. Everywhere there is the smell, the reminder of war. When news reports stop showing rows of injured soldiers and civilians, they turn their attention to bunker bombs, to F117s, and to laser-guided bombs. Until today, you could only see such digital simulations of weapons and aircraft at armaments exhibitions. Now they are on television. Private channels have even adapted their entertainment programs to the war frenzy. They advertise films with superheroes, films that continue to offer us a satisfactory simulation of war in our own living rooms. One of the worst moments in recent news coverage was that of a 7-year-old boy being terrorized by television cameramen. The boy was shouting, «Dad, Dad!» while the cameras surrounded him and targeted him like guns. The cameraman was obviously not smart enough (or perhaps did not have enough time) to ensure that his colleagues were not in the shot so that the viewers could assume the boy was seeking his lost father; as it was, it was evident that the boy was calling for his father to rescue him from the glare of the TV cameras. And the crew didn’t respond to the boy’s appeals, didn’t seek to pacify him, didn’t put down their accursed cameras but, with silent determination, continued their ostensibly peaceful coverage of the media war…
