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Public religious culture post-09/11/01 243

this situation – the knowledge of the exercise of real power by the West in
political contexts in the Muslim sphere of influence and the spreading
through entertainment media of images of the West that shame conserva-
tives there – work together, and worked together in the bill of particulars
carried by Al-Qaida in 9/11.

The “new civil religion” of commemoration and
mourning
No one who watched the coverage of the events of 9/11 on US television
could escape the sense that this was more than a mere “news” story.
Admittedly it was, and one of the most significant and striking of all time.
Like earlier moments in television history, “being in the right place at the
right time” made the careers of some previously less well-known reporters
and anchors. What soon emerged, though, was a kind of rhythm of repre-
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sentations, narratives, accounts, and remembrances. The nearly incessant
replaying of the images soon became problematic for some, especially chil-
dren. But, there is a sense in which such coverage, and conventions of
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coverage that emerged with 9/11, were part of a larger media landscape.
That landscape is a long tradition of mediated public experiences
stretching back at least to the Kennedy assassination in 1963. That event
was a major turning point in American media and journalistic history.
Occurring at a time when television was just coming to its own as a news
medium, the events in Dallas provided an unprecedented opportunity for
the visual, real, and instantaneous power of the medium to emerge. As
with 9/11, there were technical and logistical reasons for this, including the
presence of so many media to cover what was a politically significant
event, the recently perfected ability to send television images back and
forth across the country, the eventual emergence of actual amateur film of
the shooting itself, the live-on-camera shooting of the assassin himself, and
the fact of the “media-friendliness” of the Kennedy administration. Also as
with 9/11, the overarching reality of the event played the key role. A
young, popular, charismatic president, known to the public because of tele-
vision, was killed so unexpectedly and publicly. The shooting occurred on
a Friday. The American (and indeed, the world) public thus had a whole
weekend to watch and to try to come to terms with the events. And, as
they unfolded, there was continuing drama. The search for the killer, his
eventual arrest and then killing. The hurried inauguration of the new presi-
dent. The return of the body to Washington the same night, with live
images from the tarmac as the casket and the young widow, still wearing
her blood-soaked clothing, entered the hearse. The statement from
President Johnson attempting to reassure the public of a stable transition.
And then later, the lying-in-state, the state funeral, and the burial. Few
who were alive at the time can forget the images and the emotions.