I agree with your post and miss the old Free Republic. It seemed that, no matter the topic, there were several people in that field, at that event, or living in the area that knew participants to a news item. The depth of knowledge we would all get from one little article posted and then the following commentary was amazing.
And also the immediate timeliness of the breaking news and events. I think we knew that the space shuttle Columbia was destroyed on re-entry before NASA did. There was a thread posted for watching the shuttle come back and land, and one of the freepers on the thread said he saw the shuttle overhead in his part of the state and it looked like it had broken in multiple pieces. After I read that, I looked over at my television and the personnel in the NASA control room were still trying to get an answer from the crew and looking very confused.
Free Republic was simply the greatest website on the internet in so many ways.
Your post gave me chills. I think FR recognized the first plane hitting the tower as terrorism before the plane got all the way into the building.
I’m grateful for FR and all she stands for.