The "War of the Worlds" Crisis

Imagine you were watching your favorite television program, and you were in a very intense scene when suddenly the commercials came on. You were so mad that they left you hanging that you decided to channel surf for a few minutes (and everyone knows that you have to turn it to the news, or you might get hooked on something else), so you switched to your favorite news station. As you half listened to the reporter you noticed she was talking about a major bombing in the United States a few minutes ago. What would your reaction be? I bet you would at least forget about your show.

The people who were listening to the radio the night “War of the Worlds” was broadcasted had this same scare. Suppose that the reporter in the scenario above had started the program stating that the story was fictional, maybe even came from a new controversial book or something along those lines, but you didn’t hear that part. Is a bombing so unlikely?

After September 11, 2001, a lot of people came to realize that America could be affected by other countries. Since we hadn’t been attacked since Pearl Harbor during World War II, a lot of citizens thought we were invincible, but the truth is that there are ways to get past security (even though they have greatly diminished since that tragic day in September). The people who believed the Hallows Eve broadcast had been through the Great Depression and were still wary of wars breaking out throughout the world, so was it a far stretch to believe we were under attack? I don’t think so.

By missing the first part of the program, many people thought the broadcast was factual. My question is why didn’t the program tell the listeners periodically that the news report was actually a story? How hard would it have been to say “for those of you who just joined us, all of the following content is fictional and not based off a real event”? Just a few words every once in a while would have solved many problems. I personally think that it was irresponsible and poorly thought out to have a warning at the very beginning of the show, but leave the people who tuned in late in the dark.

The study said that people who were less inclined to critical thinking or more religious were likely to be more affected by the broadcast, but I have to ask myself why? Why wouldn’t a logical thinker believe that America could be under attack? Is this why our country wasn’t prepared for September 11, because our leaders thought we were invincible? That doesn’t sound right to me. The logical thinkers, in my opinion, should be more cautious when it comes to our nation’s safety, not assuming that nothing could go wrong. This being said, I personally thought our government handled the Twin Towers incident to the best of their abilities and don’t blame them. My point is that the broadcast was believable.

If people were overly cautious it was for a good reason, and I think we need to keep preparing for devastating incidents, even if they are far fetched.