Boston and 24-Hour Tragedy Porn

I have an affinity and personal fondness for Boston. As a college student, I interned at a weekly newspaper in nearby Watertown, Mass. in 1990 and made frequent trips into the city. In 1993, I was enrolled in an expository writing course at Harvard University’s summer school in Cambridge, and hung out in Boston, haunted its bars, visited museums and attended a Red Sox game at Fenway Park. I rode the “T” into the city with friends and visited historic sites and Italian North End.  

Since then, I’ve visited a few times, loathing its insane motorists and its labyrinthine road configuration. Yet the city’s vibrant history, steeped in colonial America and penchant for being tough, resilient and independent-minded appeals to me.

On Monday, the world’s attention shifted to Boston as an act of violence rocked the city.

Two bombs exploded near the finish line at the Boston Marathon, killing three – including an 8-year old boy – and injuring over 170.

Boston will endure and bounce back, like it has in the past. This is a tough town, the birthplace of the American Revolution, independent political passion and New England pride. They even endured a molasses flood in 1919 that killed 21 people.

No senseless, evil act such as a bombing will dampen that city’s spirits.

President Barack Obama expressed reluctance and didn’t dub the incident a terrorist attack on Monday, called it an “act of terrorism” the following day.

But the networks and news outlets were ready with the narrative beforehand.

The 24-hour cable news networks showed their usual aplomb and deftness as the story unfolded with over-saturation and hyperbole. The ghastly footage of the bombs exploding, panicking people fleeing and sidewalks drenched in blood played in a constant loop, an endless snuff film of violent death and chaos.

How many times can we stomach video of rising flames, rushing of smoke and flying limbs?

What occurred in Boston was horrific. The images reflect that. Thanks to technology, we can capture life in real time, as visceral and as brutal as it is. Whether the images should be shown ad nauseam while excited pundits pontificate on the severity of the act, or speculate who was responsible, is debatable.

Reporters should report the news.

They should not improvise what happened, nor sensationalize with lurid details of shadowy conspiracies, international plots or disgruntled lone wolves. 

News networks decreed “we’re calling this an act of terror”. Since when did news networks have the authority to deem something an act of terror without confirmation from a law enforcement agency? Shouldn’t they wait to obtain the facts and cite credible sources before calling it an act of terror? Anything less just muddies the waters and creates confusion where pandemonium already reigns.

National newspapers reported a “Saudi national” was interrogated by the FBI, but cleared as a suspect. Authorities searched an apartment in Revere, Mass. For a possible connection, and law enforcement sources have a “leading theory” the bombs may have been packed in a pressure cooker and contained nails.

Without knowing the details as the story is unfolding, the media scrambles to determine what happened.

Details do not come in rapidly, as investigators are examining evidence, interviewing eyewitnesses and following leads. Gradually, the truth will emerge as to who is responsible and why.

In the meantime, in a quest to provide any tantalizing tidbits, the media falls on its own sword.

We’ve seen this kind of around-the-clock nattering, this idiot parade of pundits and stuffed shirts peddling mass murder as if it was a grizzly sideshow act.

We’ve seen it in Newtown, Conn., Virginia Tech, and Oklahoma City.

Airplanes crashing into the World Trade Center, shattering glass, and explosions.

Massacres at movie theaters, high schools, offices.

In the aftermath of each one of these aberrations there will always be the inevitable talking heads, agent provocateurs and partisan hacks who will spin the situation to their own ends.

Ramp up the fear! Protect us by taking away our rights! Release the hounds!

Despite the death and carnage that seems to occur on a daily basis, we must not lose heart and become cynical.

You cannot destroy what’s good in this world with spasms of violent retribution. Such calamity merely enjoins and emboldens good people, who refuse to slink into the shadows and instead shine through deeds of kindness, mercy and love. We see it with the police officers, firefighters and first responders tending to the wounded, and to complete strangers helping people they don’t know. We see it in the charitable, unselfish acts of unlikely heroes who don’t consider themselves particularly heroic, but are just doing the right thing.

Because they’re humans and not monsters.

Because life matters to them.

Because in spite of the bombings, shootings or acts of hatred, there will always be people who shun the darkness and favor the light. There will always be healers and helpers who show the world humanity’s eternal goodness.

Stay wicked awesome, Boston.