The Loudest Voice 1.2: September 11 and After

The Loudest Voice continued to make history in its second episode, depicting September 11 and its aftermath in way that's never been done before.

That way is the reaction and the role played by Roger Ailes.  As a disclaimer, I should say that I have no idea if what Ailes is depicted as saying is 100% true.  I was on Fox Magazine for a 10-minute interview on October 20, 2001 about propaganda in wartime, but that's the closest I got to Fox News in this crucial period.   Ailes is shown to be shocked by the twin towers attacks - as was every American, especially those of us living and working in New York - and then quickly turning to his seeing how this could be an advantage for Fox News, and then close to calling some of the shots with Dick Cheney and through him Bush and the White House in the subsequent attack on Iraq.

What is undeniable is that this was the period of time in which Fox surpasses CNN to first place in cable news.  MSNBC was so far behind in third place that it's rarely seen or mentioned.  Ailes got Fox to this commanding place by both supporting the US attack on Saddam Hussein and to a degree making it happen.  In that sense, Ailes is like William Randolph Hearst, who at the end of the 19th century leveraged the U. S. into the Spanish-American War over Cuba with his newspaper's reporting.

That war set up America for the 20th century, just as the war in Iraq, based on the fiction that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction - a fiction promoted by Fox News - set up America for the 21st century.  Given the current war of words with Iran, which grew far stronger when we crushed Iraq, we clearly are still experiencing the effects of that war in Iraq today.

If nothing else, The Loudest Voice is a vivid tableau on the media determinism of television news.  But it is much more than that, and I'll be back with a report on what I see next week.

See also:  The Loudest Voice 1.1: Fox Launch

Designated Survivor 1.2: Unflinching and Excellent

A powerful episode 1.2 of Designated Survivor with the past Wednesday, with jolting references to what's going on in our own reality off-screen, and President Kirkman even saying "dammit!" in Jack Bauer voice at one point.

But, look, I'm going to stop making snide references to 24, because, as great as that series was, Designated Survivor is its own show, and so far a very good one, deserving assessment in its own right.

Given the world in which we live, you don't have to look far to find something on our news which mirrors through cracked glass what we're seeing in Designated Survivor.  The train crash in Hoboken this week is apparently not the work of terrorism, but the mangled station and train brought forth all the feelings we still carry with us about 9/11.

Kirkman going down to site of the attack in Washington, the ruins of the Capitol building, taking the bullhorn, making like George W. Bush at Ground Zero after September 11, was very well done.  The whole backdrop of the destroyed Capitol is one of the most effective, haunting scenes I've ever seen on television.  It kicks you in the gut every time you see it.

The attack on innocent Muslims in Michigan, ordered by its Republican governor, also kicks you in the gut, and is obviously but convincing a reference to what could happen in our country if Donald Trump and his ilk get into power.   Kudos for Designated Survivor for not flinching away from this issue.

We still don't know who set the bombs, but the likelihood that an un-exploded bomb was deliberately left there to point investigators in the wrong - Islamic - direction continues to percolate, and supports the sense I had in the first episode that the perpetrators are domestic.  Designated Survivor is now much-watch television for me, and I'm looking forward to more next Wednesday.

See also Designated Survivor: Jack Bauer Back in the White House


  terrorist squirrels and bombs in NYC

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