# Media Stupidities Perpetrated while Covering this Tragedy **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 12, 2001, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/media-stupidities-perpetrated-while-covering-this-tragedy/81081 "2001-09-12T14:36:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![cantara](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6f9a4e/32.png) [@cantara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cantara)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2001, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/media-stupidities-perpetrated-while-covering-this-tragedy/81081/61 "2001-09-17T17:05:26Z")
At 10:08, the first tower collapsed on itself, and the video footage was being braodcast. I don’t think CBS got it live (as I was flipping channels). Dan Rather comes on with the footage and says “We are getting reports that the tower has collapsed, but I think we will cautiously say that the tower appears to have partially collapsed.” I didn’t understand the need for caution in reporting that it was fairly obvious that it had crumbled, but didn’t want to say how much. I recall watching the Gulf Crisis/War in the Gulf on CNN and other networks and made a couple of observations: 1. The flashy titles and dramatic music was instantaneous with the transition from ‘Crisis’ to ‘War’. 2. Watermarks on the bottom corner of the screen came into their own. 3. Propaganda and disinformation being spread through CNN because the military knew Saddam was monitoring it. With the O.J. ‘crisis’ :rolleyes: they were also very fast to come up with graphics and music. Tuesday: 1. It seemed to take the entire day before the networks came up with their titles, graphics and music (obviously unprepared…yes, yes, understatement). 2. The title for the crisis was very similar across the networks, some variation of America Under Attack, Attack on America, Attack on U.S., etc… (I was surprised there was no ‘Terror Tuesday’, ‘Twin Tower Terror’, et al) 3. CNN has started a news headline ticker on the bottom of the screen, and NBC followed suit. 4. To combat rebraodcast of their images (having their watermark ‘splatted’ out), CNN has the bottom third of the screen covered with a banner displaying their watermark, crisis graphic, segment title, and ticker. The stupid thing is that it obscures video images as they broadcast them. 5. Other stations have managed to carry the CNN broadcast and place their own watermark over the CNN symbol by placing an opaque one on top. It doesn’t matter that the other stations is opaque because the banner is already covering everything. 6. I notice TLCs watermark now includes a flag. 7. CBS (I think) had a beautiful silent full-screen graphic of a waving flag. Very supportive given the events, but it felt a little ‘1984’ to me…kinda ominous. 8. Dr. Mark Heath is a boob, but networks showed his stuff anyway. ---
**Author:** ![toadspittle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c0e974/32.png) [@toadspittle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/toadspittle)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2001, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/media-stupidities-perpetrated-while-covering-this-tragedy/81081/62 "2001-09-17T19:37:07Z")
As a New Yorker, I can honestly say that I hope they never stop playing these images until we have taken care of everyone who perpetrates such vile crimes. I want these disgusting images pounded into my fellow citizens’ heads so that they truly understand the enormity of what has happened here, and that it has to stop. Many people still don’t get it. > **[AFTER THE ATTACKS: THE HEROES; At 8:48 a.m., Two 'Normal Guys' Met a Moment...](https://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/16/us/after-attacks-heroes-8-48-am-two-normal-guys-met-moment-transformation.html)** > > John Paul DeVito, chief operating officer of May Davis, small investment bank located on 87th floor of 1 World Trade Center, and Harry Ramos, its head trader, are forced to make extraordinary choices when building is struck by airliner on morning of... > [@](#): > > …They started struggling down the stairs again. When Mr. Ramos went ahead to scout, Victor cried out in fear. “Harry, please help,” he begged. > > “Don’t worry, we’re not leaving you,” Mr. Ramos said. On the 39th floor, Mr. Ramos spotted an open door — a credit union. They decided to go in and rest. > > The phone rang while they were sitting there. Mr. Zhu answered. It was a customer, worried about his account. > > “What do you mean accounts?” shouted Mr. Zhu. “We need help!” But the caller kept on demanding whether his money was safe. Mr. Zhu hung up on him. My wife works at a coffee shop on the Upper East Side. The owner ordered the managers to close all the shops in the chain at 5PM every day last week. On Wednesday night, at 5:15, a woman began pounding on the locked door, shouting angrily at the employees cleaning up inside, “Why are you closed? This happened way down at the other end of the island. It doesn’t affect us.” At my magazine’s office Wednesday morning, our receptionist (one of four people who came in) fielded a call from a reader. READER: Thank goodness you picked up! I’ve been bounced around to a dozen different voice mail boxes. Is it still possible to enter the “Bed and Breakfast Giveaway Contest” listed in your August issue? RECEPTIONIST: Ummm… I’m not really sure. Have you seen the news lately? A lot of the editors are out today. READER: Oh–well don’t transfer me to someone who’s not there. So I say keep playing that shot of the poor souls leaping from the towers until it sinks in to everyone’s thick skulls just how horrendous this act was, and gets them good and angry enough at the perpetrators of such violence that they decide to put an end to it. ---
**Author:** ![toadspittle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c0e974/32.png) [@toadspittle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/toadspittle)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2001, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/media-stupidities-perpetrated-while-covering-this-tragedy/81081/63 "2001-09-17T19:42:21Z")
As a New Yorker, I can honestly say that I hope they never stop playing these images until we have taken care of everyone who perpetrates such vile crimes. I want these disgusting images pounded into my fellow citizens’ heads so that they truly understand the enormity of what has happened here, and that it has to stop. Many people still don’t get it. > **[AFTER THE ATTACKS: THE HEROES; At 8:48 a.m., Two 'Normal Guys' Met a Moment...](https://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/16/us/after-attacks-heroes-8-48-am-two-normal-guys-met-moment-transformation.html)** > > John Paul DeVito, chief operating officer of May Davis, small investment bank located on 87th floor of 1 World Trade Center, and Harry Ramos, its head trader, are forced to make extraordinary choices when building is struck by airliner on morning of... > [@](#): > > …They started struggling down the stairs again. When Mr. Ramos went ahead to scout, Victor cried out in fear. “Harry, please help,” he begged. > > “Don’t worry, we’re not leaving you,” Mr. Ramos said. On the 39th floor, Mr. Ramos spotted an open door — a credit union. They decided to go in and rest. > > The phone rang while they were sitting there. Mr. Zhu answered. It was a customer, worried about his account. > > “What do you mean accounts?” shouted Mr. Zhu. “We need help!” But the caller kept on demanding whether his money was safe. Mr. Zhu hung up on him. My wife works at a coffee shop on the Upper East Side. The owner ordered the managers to close all the shops in the chain at 5PM every day last week. On Wednesday night, at 5:15, a woman began pounding on the locked door, shouting angrily at the employees cleaning up inside, “Why are you closed? This happened way down at the other end of the island. It doesn’t affect us.” At my magazine’s office Wednesday morning, our receptionist (one of four people who came in) fielded a call from a reader. READER: Thank goodness you picked up! I’ve been bounced around to a dozen different voice mail boxes. Is it still possible to enter the “Bed and Breakfast Giveaway Contest” listed in your August issue? RECEPTIONIST: Ummm… I’m not really sure. Have you seen the news lately? A lot of the editors are out today. READER: Oh–well don’t transfer me to someone who’s not there. So I say keep playing that shot of the poor souls leaping from the towers until it sinks in to everyone’s thick skulls just how horrendous this act was, and gets them good and angry enough at the perpetrators of such violence that they decide to put an end to it. ---
**Author:** ![toadspittle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c0e974/32.png) [@toadspittle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/toadspittle)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2001, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/media-stupidities-perpetrated-while-covering-this-tragedy/81081/64 "2001-09-17T19:52:04Z")
And I, it seems, need to keep pounding my posts into everyone’s heads… ---
**Author:** ![Tenebras](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/977dab/32.png) [@Tenebras](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tenebras)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2001, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/media-stupidities-perpetrated-while-covering-this-tragedy/81081/65 "2001-09-18T00:41:45Z")
Harking back a little, when the thread started, somebody mentioned that they were upset by the people leaping from buildings to their death. To the actual field reporter’s credit, the one that I was watching actually said “Now, people are jumping out of the tower, but that’s not the type of thing that we show on TV.” the shot cut halfway through to show the people jumping. (I think the exact same shot mentioned before, where they disappear behind a low, squat looking building.) Then the reporter was visibly shaken about putting that up, and even made a somewhat apologetic comment. Also, it seems to me that anybody who doesn’t yell and scream and offers some sort of rational comment gets cut off as soon as they start getting into it. For instance, Saturday night I saw a guy talking about what the CIA can and cannot do in the Middle East and at home, and the anchorwoman cut him off in midthought to go to a “breaking news story”, complete with a 30 second animation (with dramatic music). Needless to say, the story was nothing. It was a field reporter standing in the dust who breathlessly informed everyone that there were phone numbers to call to find out if your loved ones are ok. The same phone numbers that scroll periodically across the bottom of the screen. Come on! Also, some of those ridiculus banners at the bottom of the screen actually obscured the shot of the airplane flying into the building on one video, so they showed it in a smaller picture-in-picture kind of thing, so that they could keep the bottom 20% of the TV to themselves. Oh yeah, and last night a talking head promoted Colin Powell to Vice President. I thought that was sweet of her. Ok, rant over. Sorry. Tenebras ---
**Author:** ![anya\_marie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ebca7d/32.png) [@anya\_marie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/anya_marie)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2001, 9:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/media-stupidities-perpetrated-while-covering-this-tragedy/81081/66 "2001-09-18T09:31:45Z")
When I was walking out the door, just before I left for work, there was a blonde with some kind of poofy hair on TNN, saying what a horrible tragedy for America this was. And all i could think was that it would not, could not, should not, be a lesser tragedy had it occurred in ANY another country. This was not made into a more hideous crime because it was perpetrated against American civilians, it is a hideous crime no matter who WAS killed. ---
**Author:** ![TheeGrumpy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/779978/32.png) [@TheeGrumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheeGrumpy)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2001, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/media-stupidities-perpetrated-while-covering-this-tragedy/81081/67 "2001-09-18T20:35:41Z")
Speaking with my media hat still on, I’ll say that a similar incident occuring in England, Japan, or Australia would NOT have the same impact to Americans as this does. It would NOT (I daresay) entail round-the-clock coverage. The Eiffel Tower could have been knocked over, and you would still see regularly scheduled programming on TV. Shameful, I suppose, but the first rule of news is “Make it local.” Well, that’s one of the first rules, anyway. ---
**Author:** ![Mandelstam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Mandelstam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mandelstam)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2001, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/media-stupidities-perpetrated-while-covering-this-tragedy/81081/68 "2001-09-19T13:55:03Z")
This is not a coverage issue, but a media stupidity pure and simple. Clear Channel Communications–owner of way too many radio stations in the US–has issued a list of songs that they recommend DJs refrain from playing. Some choices clearly reflect a (heinous) desire to censor anti-war sentiments and radical politics (however non-violent): viz. John Lennon’s “Imagine” and _anything_ by Rage against the Machine. But some are just mind-numbingly inexplicable. Brace yourself: DJs are being asked not to play “Bridge over Troubled Water.” I’ll pay $100 to anyone who can come up with a rational explanation for that one. Source: > **[THE POP LIFE; After the Horror, Radio Stations Pull Some Songs (Published 2001)](https://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/19/arts/the-pop-life-after-the-horror-radio-stations-pull-some-songs.html)** > > Clear Channel Communications, Texas-based company that owns about 1,170 radio stations nationwide, circulates list of 150 songs and asks its stations to avoid playing them because of attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon; some listed songs... (As with all NYT articles, you have to read this one pretty fast before it’s archived.) ---
**Author:** ![thinksnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thinksnow/32/2849_2.png) [@thinksnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thinksnow)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2001, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/media-stupidities-perpetrated-while-covering-this-tragedy/81081/69 "2001-09-19T20:49:52Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Mandelstam \* > This is not a coverage issue, but a media stupidity pure and simple. Clear Channel Communications–owner of way too many radio stations in the US Already covered in **Esprix** s [thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?postid=1625058#post1625058). And by “covered,” I mean “shown to be false with cites and everything.” ---
**Author:** ![HairyPotter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3ab097/32.png) [@HairyPotter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HairyPotter)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2001, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/media-stupidities-perpetrated-while-covering-this-tragedy/81081/70 "2001-09-20T00:02:22Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Mandelstam \* > \*\*This is not a coverage issue, but a media stupidity pure and simple. Clear Channel Communications–owner of way too many radio stations in the US–has issued a list of songs that they recommend DJs refrain from playing. Some choices clearly reflect a (heinous) desire to censor anti-war sentiments and radical politics (however non-violent): viz. John Lennon’s “Imagine” and _anything_ by Rage against the Machine. But some are just mind-numbingly inexplicable. Brace yourself: DJs are being asked not to play “Bridge over Troubled Water.” I’ll pay $100 to anyone who can come up with a rational explanation for that one. > > Source: > [http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/19/arts/music/19POPL.html](http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/19/arts/music/19POPL.html) > > (As with all NYT articles, you have to read this one pretty fast before it’s archived.) \*\* The Bastards in the media don’t want rational thoughts of peaceful coexistence with fellow human beings to disrupt the war and revenge mania they are working so hard to work up. I watched very little of the coverage of the Sept. 11 disaster. And the public responds willingly to the media brainwashing. The administration and media of this country is only to happy to encourage U.S. citizens to willingly increase military spending, freeing up $40 billion to show the world how a barbaric, high-tech culture can respond with pure animal instincts to an inflicted injury. Please THINK, people. Do you really want individuals who feel “Imagine” would be in poor taste at a time like this to brainwash you into responding to this disaster with pure hatred and thirst for vengance? Please recognize the motives of the powers that be; there are paybacks to friends in defense-related industries that have to be made after the expensive Presidential election. I believe we need to look carefully at the bias of the media, and we need to reflect on the reaction the media are trying to program in us. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/media-stupidities-perpetrated-while-covering-this-tragedy/81081.md?page=3)