Why media coverage is circumspect over remains at WTC ( Media use FEMA footage)

USAToday ^ | September 27, 2001 | Peter Johnson

[testforecho]

Because so-called ground zero is a crime scene as well as one of an ongoing search-and-rescue effort, network camera crews have been prohibited from the World Trade Center disaster site in New York.

And that means that ever since two planes crashed into the twin towers on Sept. 11, local and network news organizations have largely relied on video shot by two Federal Emergency Management Agency public affairs officers who have been documenting the often heartbreaking and poignant efforts at the scene.

[testforecho]

Thanks for the photo link. Remarkable photos - I didn't see the original thread. But you were right about the size - it killed Netscape the first time I tried to load it.

[Mrs. Kosh]

I profoundly agree with everything you have said. In 1978 I watched a long series on PBS, aired after midnight in Tucson so the kiddies were in bed and so nobody would accidentally find it, called "The Unknown War." It was narrated by Burt Lancaster, and it was SOVIET footage of what they saw when the camps were liberated. I thought I had seen plenty in my history books, but this footage included stacks of heads, huge piles of human hair, some of the scarcely alive looking at their liberators with famine and torture sunk eyes. Also there was footage of the special machine Hitler had built to drag behind a locomotive to shred the railroad tracks. And the total demolition of Warsaw, after nobody living was left...I never listened to or told another Polish joke. Truly, I do not know how Poland ever rebuilt. When "Schindler's List" came out and friends asked if I was going to see it, I said, no, I saw it a long time ago. These images haunt me and I can call them up right now. I will never forget. May we be so haunted about September 11. May we never forget.

[irish guard]

I was always impressed that Eisenhower insisted on filming the concentration camps (Alfred Hitchcock was among the film crew), particularly after all he had seen in the war. But that was something the Germans had done to people who lived in their own country.

The lefty crap in Berkley and Harvard is nauseating. These folks must not have any friends who died, or they might feel differently. My son is a college student and the vast majority of his mates are in favor of some form of retaliation and he goes to a Catholic University.

I certainly understand your pessimism. This country (well enough to elect X42) sat idle while he desecrated everything we all hold sacred. There is every temptation for us to believe CNN, ABC, CBS and NBC will show dead Afghanis instead of our own dead, when the time comes......but think of this...

That day that our President stood on that pile of rubble and told those rescue workers that "the people who knocked down these buildings will hear from us soon" was magical and most importantly unifying. Can you imagine the outrage and disappointment if the media began to show body parts at that moment? I do believe that we have limited time before our country loses its stomach for retaliation....I simply do not know how long that will be.

However, I know this....the man I voted for has the stomach necessary. I saw it in his eyes last Thursday and that is all that matters. he won't give a damn what all the lefties in the media think. Not if he is true to that badge he carries he won't.

[Senator Pardek]

The other day, I spoke with a local volunteer fireman who assisted with the cleanup.

He claimed the smell of rotting corpses did not come out after taking a shower. He spoke like a robot.

[cajungirl]

I don't know. But the humans who saw this will testify and will be powerful. This is going to haunt them forever. I think the families of the dead would be in agony with pics for the public at this point anyway.

[ChemistCat]

So if we could get the people who are crying out for peace there, would they BELIEVE?????

Or would they still say, "The Jews in the camps aren't our problem, even if they're being killed, which I doubt."

[GovernmentShrinker]

No one is censoring what is being said or written about the crash/site/rescue/recovery etc. Legitimate reporters are visiting the scene and reporting what they see. While under some circumstances, government prohibition of photos might constitute substantive censorship, I don't believe it does in this case. Video of the 2nd crash and both tower collapses were broadcast live; the WTC was essentially open to the public (albeit with tight security procedures by office building standards); everyone who's interested knows what kind of place it was, what happened to it, and what kind of place it is now--in short there is nothing of significance which could possibly be concealed by restricting photo/video coverage. In light of that, I don't think it's unreasonable for government authorities to spare grieving families the horror of seeing body parts which might belong to their loved ones broadcast on TV, internet, tabloids, etc.

[StriperSniper]

I was there yesterday, the police won't let you get close enough to get a good look. They had a bus with the windows blacked out blocking John St. to make it hard to see much. There are signs all over near the best views saying no photos or your gear will be confiscated.

The one thing that you do get from being there is the stench, It has that sickening burnt-sweet smell that means only one thing. Be prepared if you go.

[rockfish59]

i'm as pissed off as you and savage. yes, we have a 'free press', BUT, that is part of the problem as MOST of the media is run by communists. if they AREN'T showing the gore, it IS because 'they' don't want to piss us off and have us retaliate fully or take it out on citizens. that is their PLAN!! (yes, they STILL have a 'plan'). the media sucks!

i personally don't need to see the pics nor do i want to. i will be FOREVER outraged! i worked tearing down buildings and saw a 20 year old kid crushed to death from a falling beam. the hard part was his 2 brothers were also working on the job. the even harder part was seeing his brother hold him as he passed away. but the REAL hard part was, it was my friend who cut the beam.

i've always wondered about people who can photograph things like this. how can they shut out reality, click the shutter and say 'it's my job'? is it the lure of the 'pulitzer'?

but don't worry jack, i'm sure the film crew from 'faces of death' will provide more than enough blood and gore for all to see.
savage is great, but all his ranting does for me is frustrate me more than i already am.
(all 'DU' lurkers can go f**k yourselves)

[NYCVirago]

They're not showing us the grief, the funeral scenes, the widow's wailing.

Maybe not nationally, but New York media has certainly covered that extensively. The New York tabloids have reports on each day's set of funerals. It's almost too much to bear.

[aculeus]

Once again the Constitution takes the short end.

Translation: We are the Press and we demand the right to take pictures of this gruesome scene, interfering at will with the dreadful work being done because we are more important than ordinary citizens.

You guys are worse than lawyers.

[Chemnitz]

That is a joke. We do not have a free press. Most journalists are in bed, figuratively and literally, with the politicians who feed them stories. It is a managed press. Fortunately the Internet and radio have combined to get past the censorship of the elite, but most people take their opiates directly from the old-line broadcasters and chain newspapers.

I believe it would be crude to show "reality" in this case.

[mombonn]

I don't know how you balance that with respecting the families and the obvious pain these images are going to cause. But I'm very much afraid that if we sterilize this event, make it as pretty and as innocuous as possible, we will have social disconnect and denial

You want to put a face to this? Consider Barbara Olson for a moment. We all shudder to think of what happened to her, many thousands of us.

Multiply that by 7000 victims, and the countless people who knew each of them.

That isn't going to go away, it will NOT being sanitized. The horror of that day will be etched in our minds even completely than Kennedy, Challenger, etc. because millions of people throughout the country were touched personally by this in a way that exceeds the national tragedies I mentioned.

Rescue workers will remember, survivors will remember, WE will remember.

[StriperSniper]

Once again the Constitution takes the short end.

Alternate translation: Control the images, control the thoughts, Nanny knows best.

[Hoosier Patriot]

I agree with your analysis. It is human nature to try to block out of the mind horrible occurences. It somehow makes these events seem less real, more distant. The more horrid the event, the more we want to make ourselves believe it never happened. When a wound is incurred, we want the resulting pain to subside quickly. We wish that we had never been wounded in the first place.

This is simply human nature.

However, horrid events do happen. Wounds are incurred. Pain is felt. It is real. Looking away does not change that fact. Denial does not change that fact. Blocking it out does not change that fact. Wishing that it never happened does not change that fact.

It is fact!

Facts cannot be denied. No matter how horrid, how evil, how barbaric, how maniacal. No matter how intense the pain, no matter how hard we try to look away, no matter what. Facts remain just what they are.

We must look!

Yes, by looking, we will most likely feel even more pain. Pain that hurts like no other. But it must be faced. It must be endured. It must be felt. It must be dealt with!

If we choose not to look, we choose to deny fact. It we do not look, we cannot deal with the pain.

And if we do not deal with it, it will deal with us, and we will be at its mercy. We can tell ourselves that we already know what evil looks like. We tell ourselves that there is no need to see it. We tell ourselves that to look at evil is somehow evil in itself. We tell ourselves that we shouldn't look out of deference to others. Those others are telling themselves the same thing.

The end result is that we have all convinced ourselves that evil is something etheral, a notion, a concept, a description to be read from a history book.

Evil is very real. It has substance. It has form. It has a face.

If we intend to defeat evil, we can do no less than stare at evil willingly, without downcast eyes, without dropped chin, without slumped shoulders, without shame, without fear!

[Razz]

But I'm very much afraid that if we sterilize this event, make it as pretty and as innocuous as possible, we will have social disconnect and denial.

I agree 100%. Even as shocking as the news footage was, and the concept of as many as 15,000 dead, the human suffering never really hit me until I saw the latest issue of people and all the injured, horribly bloddy refugees.

No, we don't neeed to be bombarded with pictures on the 5:00 news, or magazine covers, but 1 picture of the scene would make a tremendous impact. Of, course, those who don't want to see, don't have to look. that whole 'responsibility for your own actions' thing, you know?

[gargoyle]

...Don't worry, there will be plenty on the gory galleries, I'm sure. I've seen a little carnage first hand, and plenty of it in pictures. I disagree with Savage on this call. I believe citizens will rise up and demand retribution. My imagination is not that vivid, but I can see that this tragedy could turn the stomachs of even the hardest professionals.

... BTW, I agree, the 1st amendment is taking a big hit, but on this one, I'm torn, and at the moment, I'll let it go.