effort that the accompanying media circus will exert in keeping its consumers “informed”. (18) The inherent stupidity in trying to apply realtime commentary and analysis to a virtually uncontrollable, non-negotiable situation leads to the sickening creation of “armchair experts”, all eager to profess how best to handle the situation from the comfort of the other side of the screen. Talk radio shows carried listeners’ fuming about whether or not the storming of the building was correct, even as the fighting raged on. General assumptions about the inadequacy of Russian Special Forces (Spetsnaz) from most commentators revealed a sickening superiority and deep hypocrisy about how to “correctly” handle terrorism. (19)
The BBC surpassed itself in terms of tasteless timing with the launch of a new series, two days after the horrific conclusion to the siege, called ‘Crisis Command : Could You Run The Country?’ where unqualified “contestants” from the public are placed in ministerial roles as disaster unfolds in “realtime”. Haplessly wet liberals are joined by murderous sadists in making impossible decisions, such as the number of people who can justifiably be saved or shot in the event of widespread panic, or worse. “Professionals” are kept on hand to prod consciences lest anyone makes drastic choices too eagerly, and the momentum of the escalating misery is sustained with regular, simulated news bulletins. Luckily, this anchors the connection between the “ministers” and their population, intensifying the agony of treating them as statistics and insinuating that real emergencies on this scale can be negotiated properly with the help of the media.

The ongoing spate of apocalyptic docudramas and reality disaster shows only really serve to assist the maintenance of a culture of pessimism, and at the very least have the effect of annihilating the viewer’s confidence in the emergency services when faced with a serious national catastrophe. The government are probably quite happy, as we citizens should also be, that perhaps the main truth to be retrieved from these exercises in speculative scaremongering is that if in doubt, the army will shoot or quarantine us, if they have time to do so. Contingency planning is a tricky thing, of course, so we might also have to expect a few failures in the communication chain before we get those Iodine tablets; it really just depends which way the wind blows, and we might all be mercifully wiped out in an instant by that pesky errant asteroid anyway.

“One thinks it's a rope because he has the tail, one thinks it's a tree because he can feel the legs, one thinks it's a wall because he can feel the side of it, and nobody actually has the big picture. You can't really get to the answer, because there isn't one.” (Gus Van Sant)

A tragedy captured on film and broadcast live quickly achieves a critical density of interest and starts to assume mythic proportions, fed by a legion of voyeurs intent on finding reasons and answers even before the events reach their conclusion. Nature abhors a vacuum, and the slow filling of an infinite void with fragile, transient data continues in earnest. Preserved in a variety of formats and accessible to anyone with an internet connection, aggregate documentary evidence is cast into a virtual orbit, information waiting for a chance trajectory to unite with any preconditioned mind gagging to absorb it. The computer, as extension of the will, forms part of a composite being who is both empowered and restricted by technological parameters, and who, even when employing finely honed criteria on a search engine, will easily unleash a proliferating tirade of competing discourses and become engaged in a process of incessant recontextualisation. (20)

it would be fair to suggest that truth will continue to be distorted by every faction with any interest in maintaining the current climate of fear. If there is anything worse than a terrorist desperate for martyrdom or a president with a belief in the Second Coming, it is that both will have a sound working knowledge of how the media shapes public opinion. The siege at the school in Beslan in 2004 serves as both a terrible reminder of the lengths to which fanatics will go to achieve publicity, and also of the corresponding