9/11 is boring

I should probably qualify my title at the risk of sounding insensitive. After watching the marathon coverage of 9/11 in the screening, I truy did become bored of seeing the same footage repeated ad nauseam. At first it seemed strange to me that such a horrific event, with such emotionally stirring images that go alone with it, could lose its emotional effect on me. Yet this seems to be what Barthes was describing when he says that the reproducibility of the image, the way that it is brought closer to the listener through its reproductions, also causes the original to become less significant. Im not sure the concept entirely covers this situation, but it seemed that we were being brought to look at the similarties between the different networks coverage, that across the board the newscasters were saying the same things, and everyone was showing the same footage over and over. Maybe the disinterest I felt was more a result of desensitisation, but that in itself is distressing. It has always been a question regarding the media if the constant barrage of horrific images serves to stir us to take action, or if instead, as in Keenan's arguement regarding the Sarajevo riots and the general lack of arousal within the viewers. Of course, in a situation as traumatic and heavy as 9/11, everyone WANTS to see the explosions and the people running, a voyeuristic desire to rubber neck without being at the scene that the news networks are more than happy to indulge.