Forget Sept. 11? Just Try

That old line about media setting the public agenda--telling us not what to think, but what to think about--is pretty much on the money.

On the one hand, piling it on somehow fit the subject of this month’s crush of Elvis gushers noting the 25th anniversary of his death. His personal life was defined by excess, from overuse of prescription drugs to his garish Graceland house in Memphis.

On the other hand, television’s Sept. 11 bandwagon is already buckling under the tonnage of its good intentions, as the one-year anniversary of that national calamity approaches.

Broadcasters are hardly alone in turning up the wattage. This newspaper and others, along with magazines, are cooking up their own shebangs, keyed in part to elaborate ceremonies New York is planning. President Bush is expected to address the nation that night as well.

No one in the U.S. media wants to be left out, motivated in part by competitive pressure and concern that doing too little to commemorate Sept. 11 (however that is measured) would be construed as dishonoring the nearly 3,000 who died in those attacks. Being called disloyal is not on anyone’s agenda, especially when Americans are urged now to present a united front against terrorism.

Yet how much is too much when noting a dark event that’s already been circled indelibly on the calendar? Try this.

Too much is several dozen one-year memorials airing on TV almost shoulder to shoulder, not counting the few already dribbling in, such as tonight’s “48 Hours” on CBS, about Middletown, N.J., pulling together after losing 32 residents on Sept. 11 (see review, Page F2).

Too much is at least a third of these being compressed into Anniversary Day, on outlets as diverse as Court TV and Turner Classic Movies. And programming ranging from UPN’s 60-second hero tributes to CBS’ 13 hours of live coverage capped by an interview with Bush on “60 Minutes II.”

Too much is when the combined weight of these densely packed retrospectives and other specials threatens to flatten the intended message through sheer, numbing repetition, and reduce Sept. 11 to something as generic as an area code or phone call for help. Mention it enough times in close proximity and the intensity diminishes.

It’s possible that TV’s thickening clot of Sept. 11 shrines will be seen globally as the U.S. stiffening its back and flipping off terrorists in an act of good old-fashioned American resolve. There are better, more lethal ways of doing that, however.

As we know, Sept. 11 is no one-night stand, another case of the media hopping into the sack for quickies on Cinco de Mayo or National Boss Day. Nor is it a musty relic packed away in mothballs for nearly a year, the equivalent of Black History Month or Holocaust Month, for which TV routinely dusts off obligatory testimonials that are later returned to the attic after getting 30 days of light.

Instead, Sept. 11 has bled yearlong, its memory becoming America’s throbbing ache. Our heads are swimming in it, our brains are tattooed by it. Not that you’d know that from the title of NBC’s two-day Sept. 11 bloc: “America Remembers.” Get real. America never stopped remembering.

There are no amnesiacs present, no memory buttons that need pushing. Not a day has gone by that TV, radio and newspapers have not referred to ground zero again and again in some way: Here is Bush commenting on fighting terrorism and bringing down Saddam Hussein. Here are talking heads on the meaning of Islam. Here are Rudy Giuliani updates. Here are security induced travel snafus. Here are victims’ families filing a trillion-dollar lawsuit against those they hold responsible for Sept. 11. Here are TV’s familiar bags of bull handicapping the fate of Osama bin Laden.

And this week, also, here are CBS, and especially showboating CNN (“Terror on Tape!”) airing pre-Sept. 11 video of Bin Laden and his henchmen declaring holy war on the U.S., and his Al Qaeda network training for violence and appearing to conduct poison gas experiments on dogs.

Then on Wednesday, as if on cue, boom! Cable’s joined-at-the-hip news channels fixed their live cameras on a Miami International Airport concourse being evacuated because of mysterious fumes that were causing breathing problems.

Al Qaeda-released fumes? Before TV’s breathless commandos could strap on their gas masks, authorities had blamed a leaky pepper spray can in what they called a non-criminal matter.

Given the attention it drew, it was surely a Sept. 11-memory matter.

That’s because all of this is ongoing, all of it tied to terrorist attacks on New York and Washington that Americans have hardly forgotten.

Although it’s no headline when entertainment becomes an escape, there may be something symbolic about last week’s hefty Nielsen ratings for the banal likes of “American Idol,” “Dog Eat Dog,” “Meet My Folks” and “Big Brother.” Their popularity may affirm that millions prefer even the fiction of TV’s most witless “reality” shows to dwelling on the cratered post-twin towers realism the media expose them to daily.

No dishonor of Sept. 11 intended.

Howard Rosenberg’s column appears Mondays and Fridays. He can be reached at howard. rosenberg@latimes.com.