In Class: Freewrite

My three texts are all news related and very factual about the events panned out during the Olympic bombing. They all make this seem like a horrible and tragic act of terrorism with their descriptions of the scene and the bomb exploding and all of the injuries and deaths sustained as a result of this event. All of them use emotional appeal as the primary appeal and instill fear in the reader. The first source used the sight of ambulances and emergency personnel rushing to a scene where people were panic stricken and covered in blood. The others make it sound like terrorism is a rising trend and we should be on the look out because we never know when it could strike again. They mention past events involving terrorism such as the Oklahoma City bombings and an airplane crash that happened just weeks before and the events at the Munich Oympics in the 1970s.
They are different because of the different viewpoints of the authors. The first one which was a video was this news anchor's own recount of what happened as he had just left the park shortly before the blast occurred. He seemed more concerned with himself than the well-being of the people that we actually in the park. The second article was an editorial making the claim that terrorism cannot be eliminated and that our society would not want it to be eliminated. I thought that was particularly odd because nobody really wants terrorism to plague our country. The third article was from Sports Illustrated and really made this sound like a truly horrible event and that the bombers only objective was to kill. Even though the main objective is to inform all of them are different in their own way.
The general knowledge we must have is that terrorism is a horrible thing that happens around the world. We need to know that America is vulnerable and that we are not an exception to the violence. Terrorism is not a thing that just happens in Israel and Baghdad. We must also assume that the person who planted this bomb wanted to kill a lot of people, as he did place the pipe bomb in a crowded area. Terrorism is often associated with making an underlying statement, even though we do not know what that statement or purpose may be at the time. We must know what Centennial Olympic Park is and what goes on there to explain why it was so crowded during the time of the explosion at 1:25am.
I do think that we live in a culture of assertion. The news is there to not only inform us about events but also to put some fear in our heads. The news primarily covers tragic and sad events that occur in the world and not so much the happy ones. We as a society do not know the bomber's intentions at all when he planted that bomb in the park. He even went on to call the police and warn them there was a bomb in the park and that it would detonate in 30 minutes. Maybe he really did not want people die, he simply wanted people to notice him or make a statement. We turn these people who are in the news into bad guys who should be shunned forever.