On the Record:
Media coverage brings stories, images to country

By Glynn Wilson

Remember this as long as you live.

And know this. No matter how you feel about the American news media, we were there for you when the big story broke.

Remember this. Images of a United Airlines jetliner crashing into the World Trade Center in the heart of New York, splitting the first tower, bursting into flames. America attacked, worse than Pearl Harbor, where 2700 people died.

Remember this. It was 8:45 a.m., Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2001, another day that will live in infamy, a crash heard 'round the world.

Remember this. A plume of black-gray smoke. People dying. This is like the Challenger explosion in 1986, where only six people died, among them the first civilian in space, a school teacher. Tragic. America stood still. But the world didn’t change.

Remember this. People jumping out of windows from the 110-foot twin towers. My God. This is like Black Tuesday, 1929.

Moments later, unbelievably, the other plane, caught by the cameras just before crashing into the North Tower, 9:05 a.m. ET.

Then, remember this. One of the world’s tallest skyscrapers, in surreal-like slow motion, collapsing in on itself, as if it were a model made of Lincoln Logs. An untold number of firefighters and police, the first on the scene, crushed and killed beneath the steel and concrete rubble.

Remember this. People running. Debris falling like a cloud of asbestos and concrete snow.

Moments later, another jetliner off course, veering from a path at the White House, crashing into the Pentagon. Then another,, in a barren Pennsylvania field.

Remember thinking. How could this happen?

Just four groups of well-organized terrorists who somehow managed to hijack four of our own commercial airliners. And not international flights, mind you, arriving from London or Tel Aviv. Domestic flights, from Boston, Newark, Dulles, without even a gun or bomb onboard, aimed at us, US! Aimed at the chief symbols of our economy and government.

At no time in our history has the American public depended upon the news media more. So how did we do, America?

On ABC, Good Morning America stopped the happy news routine after hearing about the first crash and focused a camera on the World Trade Center. Then the horror of the second crash caught live.

Every network had the story by then. The somber, sensitive Dan Rather, heir to Cronkite at CBS, a bit boring for the younger generation and without the resources of old. Basically solid coverage and expert analysis at NBC and ABC.

Flip over to CNN, first to get the footage of the first crash, showing people jumping from the World Trade Center, determined not to get scooped by the upstart Fox.

Ah, Fox, the new ratings king, a so-called balanced alternative, calling for blood and the carpet bombing of Afghanistan. Gen. Schwartzkopf calling the terrorists “bastards” on national TV in prime time.

After the first images for TV, it was time to turn to National Public Radio for an alternative voice. Then the print media, now online.

For most of the first day, the Washington Post simply posted a headline with a link to the video on MSNBC. The plug-in didn’t work. By the second day, the Post broke a story or two, but in ways that had media critics calling them sensational, like the tabloids.

The New York Times, our national newspaper of record, was the place to turn for comprehensive, definitive coverage.

By the morning of the second day, it led with an amazing AP photograph of a lone black man standing at rapt attention looking at an American flag across the ghostly melee where the World Trade Center towers stood hours before.

USA Today used the same photo, only some tasteless editor cropped out the flag, ruining the shot. Back to the Times, in which the editorial voices of R.W. Apple, Anthony Lewis, William Safire, Maureen Dowd and Bill Keller begin to put this tragedy in perspective.

Many withheld advertising from the front section, as the TV networks refrained from their incessant commercial breaks. Although to some chains, even here in New Orleans, it was business as usual.

It is a new world coming, and perhaps not a brave one. But don’t give up hope yet.

The news now will focus on the attempt to find survivors, how the hijackers could have done this to us, grieving loved ones and the impact on the economy, our safety versus liberty.

But the next big story will be the response, President Bush’s response.

Will he have the proof of who did this to us? Will he garner the support of nations around the world?

Will we carpet bomb Kabul?

Or will we send a Special Forces team to find and kill Osama bin Laden? Will we rely on the British? The Israelis?

Stay tuned. America is watching.

How will the media handle this day? How will we handle this horrific tragedy?

Remember. The answers will define us for the rest of our lives.

Copyright (c) The Maroon 2001