Topic Difficulty

When choosing a topic to blog about, sometimes I have difficulty coming up with a suitable topic. It would be completely easy for me to blog about things I know a lot about. For example, I have an interest in topics regarding the Sept. 11 tragedy. I could blog all day and night about that. Also, I am addicted to reading about the Kennedy assassination. History in general is something I have a great interest in.

For this class, however, we are to choose subjects that are current in media and journalism. I always try to find topics that would relate to both journalism and things I am interested in. This can be a struggle at times.

For now, I'm going to blog about Sept. 11 and the media coverage of it.

When Sept. 11 happened, we all knew about it nearly immediately. It was on CNN, the radio, the TV; it was everywhere. Isn't that amazing in and of itself? When President Kennedy was assassinated, the news got out immediately, but how many people learned about the assassination through CNN or CNN.com? No one. People had to rely on their radios or word-of-mouth.

Sept. 11 was an unspeakable tragedy, but it was also historical simply because it was one of the first times in American history where the general public could see first-hand how bad things were. The public were able to read about people jumping out of buildings, people being burned, where the President was at any given moment, and on and on. We saw videos on CNN. We looked at pictures in the newspaper or on TV. The coverage of live events had never been on such a massive scale as it was on Sept. 11. At that moment, we saw media history unfold before our eyes.