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On September 11, 2001, I was 18-years-old and a freshman in college. I remember walking back from a much-to-early government class to my dorm, passing strangers on the sidewalk that were using phrases like "end of the world." I had no idea how much the world was going to change.

I forget what I was wearing that day.
I forget the names of the people I sat on a dorm room floor with.

I forget how many times I tried to call my parents.
But I'll never forget the images that came across that TV screen.

Images that meant many different things to many different people. But, no matter how 9/11 affected you or your loved ones, I can say with certainty that you sat in front of a TV, or stared at photographs of the Twin Towers falling, for hours.

During afternoon rush hour, it's almost a certainty that the term, "rubbernecking" is blamed for a highway backup. The media's scare tactics work because of this sociological phenomena. There's something about an accident, a tragedy, or a scary hypothetical that humans cannot take their eyes off of.

Even though I had seen the second plane hit and the towers fall a dozen times, I watched over and over again.

I'm not even exactly sure why.

But I've watched other stories with the same intensity: Princess Diana's death, the capture of Saddam Hussein, the London bombings, hurricanes, snow storms, and the list goes on.

But to blame the media for using such poignant scare tactics as evoking a sense of fear or doubt in the public is a bit ridulous. While the media acts in such a way as to hold public officials accountable and the public informed, it's important to remember that since the fragmentation of the news in the 1980s and 90s, the media is just as much a business as a gatekeeper of the truth.

They publish photos because we buy newspapers with those photos scattered across the frontpage.
They air bloody and horrific footage because we sit with our families with our eyes glued to the TV.
They talk about possibilities like they are certainties because we trust what they say.

It is not the media, but the American public, that fuels the fire of sensationalism.

The media uses scare tactics and sensationalized news stories because we buy it.

If they don't think Americans will watch a story, they're not going to air it.

Why do you watch?

Learn more about this author, Sarah Dohl.
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