Military Metaphors, Masculine Modes, and Critical Commentary

Abstract

This article analyzes the rhetoric that surrounded September 11 in trade publications that cater to journalism professionals. Approaching journalists as an interpretive community, the author examines the ways in which reporters and editors narrate their experiences of producing news about the events of September 11, 2001. The analysis shows that journalists' public memories of their work relied on masculine metaphors of military and sport, privileged empiricist tasks of news production over complex processes of internal reflection, and elevated the work of male anchors. Stories aimed at improving journalists'skills in covering crises bolster their sense of competence, fragment the community along the axis of technology, teach lessons about the profession's responsibilities, and reproduce orientalist tropes of Muslim men. In conclusion, the article considers the implications of the author's analysis of September 11 in trade media for journalists'collective identities.