Top 10

Top 10 Initial Reactions To 9/11

10.Flying Blind: WABC’s Naïve Nonsense

Fly a plane against a skyscraper, it’s your fault. Flying two planes into a skyscraper and having a newscaster call it an accident … well, what an embarrassment to the newscaster WABC, New York’s ABC Network affiliate, whose live coverage was simulcast on CNN that Tomorrow, I had no idea after the impact of the second plane. First, the presenter did not realize that the second explosion occurred in the other tower. Despite the television monitor clearly indicating otherwise, he assumed that the huge fireball was the fuselage of the initial plane on fire. That didn’t make any sense.
Soon, colleagues in the newsroom alerted him that it was, in fact, a second plane in the opposite tower. What followed was one of the stupidest monologues in the history of television broadcasts: “Maybe some kind of navigation system,” mused the presenter without thinking, “or some kind of electronics would have put two planes in the World Trade Center inside. of … seems like about 18 minutes of each other. ”This ridiculous assessment was repeated, prompting CNN to move away from WABC and switch to another network’s broadcast. WABC’s respected host Bill Ritter recalls listened to the live broadcast from his shower, of all places: “I remember the man who was anchoring … said that, for two planes to hit the Twin Towers, something had to be wrong with the FAA radar system. I remember throwing the bar of soap against the shower wall. Difficult. And I remember yelling out loud, ‘WE’RE UNDER ATTACK!’ ”

9.Prepared and Practical: FOX News Channel

Other networks did well from the start, including the national news channel FOX 24/7. Even before the second plane crashed into the second tower, all but confirming the dire intent, that morning’s host, Jon Scott, was able to conduct an interview with a former National Transportation Safety Board investigator. Scott asked him rightly: “Can you think of any reason for a pilot to crash into a building this tall on a day like today?” He asked, referring to the crystal blue sky that morning, “… if it wasn’t intentional? ”When the expert complained and complained about the possible distraction of the pilot and even the angle of the sun, Scott momentarily gave in his suspicions, and correctly pointed out that the towers were near a major air traffic lane, the Hudson River. Just two minutes later, at 9:03 am, the second plane hit the adjacent tower before his eyes and everyone else’s. The newsroom gasps audibly, and Scott is understandably taken aback for a few seconds. Regaining his composure. , states simply and directly what was unbelievable and completely obvious: “We just saw another … Another plane just hit the second tower. This poses …” Scott pauses, then finds less careful words As but more appropriate: “This HAS to be deliberate, folks.” Examined or not, Scott knew when to abandon journalistic norms and say what was absolutely true.

8.Business as Unusual: WNYC Radio’s Silly Inflexibility

Many stations, especially radio broadcasts, continued to publish commercial breaks during the early moments of the crisis. But WNYC, the New York City affiliate of the ad-free National Public Radio, had no such limitations. With the World Trade Center ablaze in view of their Manhattan studio, the newsroom had a unique opportunity to cover a global event taking place right in their backyard. At first, they succeeded. The pivotal journalistic moment was when the second plane crashed, essentially eradicating any possibility that this was simply an accident. For its part, WNYC instantly recognized that it was a separate plane hitting the other tower; there was disbelief, but no confusion. Eyewitness accounts followed one another for the next few minutes. And then, less than 10 minutes after the second plane hit … did they split up for a story about President Bush’s child literacy tour? That’s right, they ran a canned article about President Bush’s scheduled trip to Florida to promote child literacy, including the news that First Lady Laura Bush would testify before Congress later that day about early learning (spoiler alert: both the Mrs. Bush as Congress had to cancel). The mundane segment lasted FULL FIVE MINUTES as the story of the century unfolded.

7.The Coolest Head in NYC: Pat Kiernan (NY1 News)

If you’ve never lived in New York City, Pat Kiernan is among the most famous people you’ve never heard of. Since 1997, he has been the anchor for the city’s NY1 cable news on weekday mornings. Witty and wry in humor, Kiernan adapts to the station’s tight budget, including the segments in which he literally reads the morning papers aloud. On September 11, during a critical half hour, the only camera NY1 had on the Twin Towers was several miles away. outside; Kiernan stood out despite the detriment. By interviewing an eyewitness, he instantly discerned not only which Tower was hit first, but from which side (North Tower, North Face). Without exaggeration, he called the first accident suspicious, saying that an accident on such a clear day was hard to imagine, and he cared aloud for those gathered at Windows on the World, the restaurant at the top of the North Tower. The camera angle was so far away that Kiernan couldn’t instantly tell it was an airplane. Even so, he recognized that it was the other tower and quickly verified the origin of the impact. Kiernan’s best (albeit horrible) moment that morning was when the South Tower, the first to fall, collapsed at 9:59 a.m. Most broadcasters, even those with closer and sharper video streams, initially thought the collapse was partial. In less than a minute, Kiernan came to the correct conclusion, saying simply: “That tower is no longer there.”

6.Shockjock and Awe: Howard Stern Calls For Blood

Howard Sterns 911 Broadcast with Paired Footage – YouTube

A decidedly out-of-the-box immediate response came from a media personality best known for his humor. Syndicated morning radio host Howard Stern, the self-proclaimed “King of All Media,” was live in his New York City studio when he learned of the impact of the first plane shortly before 9:00 am. . The shockjock stemmed from a theme indicative of his usual content, a story about how he almost slept with Pamela Anderson, and, along with the rest of the world, speculated on how a plane might have flown into the tallest skyscraper in the area. plane crashed, and the Howard Stern Show took a darker turn. Within minutes, Stern opined that “We are too lax in this country.” He proceeds to speak to several of the show’s not-so-sophisticated regulars, calling from all over town. At 9:12 am, one refers to “those towel-headed bastards.” The conversation centers on Stern and co-host Robin Quivers calling for the indiscriminate bombing of the entire Middle East. Despite the political incorrectness and bellicosity of the broadcast, Stern’s raw real-time emotions were appreciated by many. Freed from journalistic limitations, Stern was able to wear his fear on his sleeve and say out loud what many others were no doubt thinking. Recently, Conan O’Brien praised it as the most honest coverage of the day.

5.“BOMB! RUN!”: The Commuter Crush

Not surprisingly, the World Trade Center had train tracks underneath. At the Cortlandt Street station, a train operator reported an “explosion” just one minute after the first plane hit. Subway service was stopped and the station was destroyed in the collapse. Fortunately, no one on the subway system died that day, but there was another rail line: the Port Authority’s Trans Hudson commuter trains, better known as PATH. Buried underneath not just the towers but an underground mall, a PATH train packed with commuters from New Jersey stopped at the WTC station just as the first plane hit. No one felt it, and the train bounced. I know, because I was in it. An extremely long set of escalators took commuters to the mall, where they went up to their WTC offices, exited at street level, or moved to New York City. Underground. A minute or two after impact, those on the standing-only escalators heard a cascading human telephone yell from above: “BOMB! RUNS! ”Too many people + panic running = stomping. I saw some people fall in front of me and I was too preoccupied with life to look back. I left the north side of Tower One, the same side and building hit by the first plane, less than five minutes after impact. While no official trampling deaths were recorded, it is impossible to be certain considering the scale of the disaster.

4.Pet Goat-gate: George W. Bush’s Bad Rap

Top 10 Initial Reactions To 9/11

When the second plane crashed, the President of the United States was reading “The Pet Goat,” a book designed to help young children learn to read. It wasn’t a very presidential look, and Bush scoffed for sitting for seven minutes after Chief of Staff Andrew Card whispered the news in his ear, adding that “America is under attack.” The 2003 invasion of Iraq is universally criticized: criticism of his reactions that day is undeserved. First, the book. Yes, it was a pet goat. He was reading to young children. Was he supposed to be reading Sophocles? Maybe Penthouse Forum? And upon learning of the second impact, he was supposed to jump up and yell “Run for your lives!” in front of six-year-olds? What, please, was Bush going to do with planes flying to major landmarks from an elementary school in Sarasota, Florida? From there, the message “Where was Bush all day?” the criticisms are just as silly. Upon learning that a third plane crashed into the Pentagon, and after receiving threats that the following was “Angel”, the Secret Service code for Air Force One, the smart move was a flight escorted by a fighter plane to a military base. That’s what Bush did, staying in close contact with Vice President Dick Cheney, who was leading the initial response from an underground White House operations bunker. Bush was in an optically impossible situation that day, one that would have made any leader seem distant and aimless. .

3.Parties and Panic in Palestine: Yasser Arafat

While Bush was as measured and rational as possible, a world leader was sweating bullets. Palestinian National Authority President Yasser Arafat was reportedly terrified that the United States would blame his questionably loyal compatriots for the attacks. Arafat had good reason to be nervous. To begin with, he saw the Palestinians celebrating the collapse of the Towers; In the West Bank city of Nablus, some 3,000 people took to the streets singing “God is great” and, in their traditional gesture of celebration, handing out candy. It’s not looking good, Yasser. It wasn’t a good time either. The attacks occurred just a year after the failed Camp David Summit of 2000, after which most participants, including US President Bill Clinton, blamed Arafat for never bringing a serious peace offer to the public. the negotiating table. Arafat was reportedly furious at Clinton’s assessment, even though his priorities were clear as day: Ararat did little to quell the unrest that broke out in Gaza shortly after the summit began, indicating his reluctance to reach an agreement. It is clear that his organization had neither a realistic motive nor the competence to carry out four simultaneous suicide kidnappings. Given the Saudi roots of the terrorists and Osama bin Laden’s recent history of closely coordinated mass bombings, al Qaeda was rightly singled out and Arafat went free.

2.“This is Not a Drill”: The FAA and US Air Force

At 8:34 am, the hijacker of American Airlines Flight 11, Mohamed Atta, mistakenly relayed a message to air traffic controllers rather than to the petrified passengers on the plane. “If you try to make any move,” he said, “you will put yourself and the plane in danger. Just be quiet.” Just six minutes later, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in Boston informed military air defense officials that “we have a hijacked plane and I need them to bring some kind of fighters here to help us.” The revolver order became official at 8:46 am, just as Atta crashed the plane into the North Tower. The military, then, had an order to scramble planes … but where? The frantic confusion is evident in the FAA / NORAD audio recordings. Soon, however, it became clear that other airliners had been hijacked and the first fighter jets took off at 8:53 a.m. They had no opportunity to do anything about the next two impacts: Tower Two and the Pentagon, respectively. However, it is likely that the fighters would have intercepted United Flight 93 before it reached its target, the Capitol or the White House, if the passengers had not stormed the cabin and forced it to crash into a Pennsylvania field. they have missiles on their planes, and instead they would have been forced to ram the plane, sacrificing their own lives as well as those of the passengers.

1.When the Networks Couldn’t: The Photojournalists

Top 10 Initial Reactions To 9/11

There was a reason television stations weren’t broadcasting close-up footage of the towers burning that day and it had nothing to do with technological limitations. They did not approach because doing so would have clearly shown people leaping to their deaths from the upper floors. Instead, the most heartbreaking images of the day came from photojournalists, including freelancers and hobbyists. Notably, Associated Press photographer Richard Drew captured a man collapsing to his death from the North Tower. Nicknamed “The Falling Man”, the image was so fascinating that most newspapers refused to publish it. Later, the photo became the basis of a documentary in which the identity of the condemned man was discovered, but it was not only professionals who took photos that day. The event left millions of people with a clear line of sight to the devastation, many of whom took some of the most fascinating and gruesome photos of that day. Others shot with portable video cameras, including footage so close that desperate victims can be seen trapped on the upper floors stacked on top of each other, leaning out of broken windows for air. One photojournalist even lost his life that day. Freelance William Biggart took dozens of dramatic shots, including the collapse of the South Tower from surprisingly close. Unfortunately, Biggart tried to get even closer to the North Tower and was killed when it exploded. Rescue teams found his body four days later along with his intact digital cameras.