Networks Shrink 9-11 Anniversary Coverage(ABC loses EXCLUSIVE on tape ownership dispute)

Miami Herald ^ | Sep. 11, 2003 | AP DAVID BAUDER

[fight_truth_decay]

NEW YORK - Television networks somberly paused Thursday to remember the terror of two years ago, although coverage was scaled back from the first anniversary of the attacks on New York and Washington.

NBC's Katie Couric and Ann Curry wore black outfits on the "Today" show, with Couric saying, "Obviously, Sept. 11 will never be just another day on the calendar."

Yet in contrast to a full morning of special coverage last year, ABC, CBS and NBC offered only brief reports during key moments of memorial services on Thursday, otherwise sticking with regular programming.

"The coverage reflects the events of the day," said CBS News spokeswoman Sandra Genelius. "I think it's appropriate."

It was different in New York, where the local ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, UPN and WB affiliates all stayed with the ground zero ceremony until it concluded.

CNN carried virtually all of the two-and-a-half hour ceremony at New York's ground zero with little voiceover and no commercials, as children read the names of the 2,792 people who died at the former World Trade Center two years ago.

Its news rivals, Fox News Channel and MSNBC, used the ceremony for a backdrop for other 9-11 stories. Before the ceremony was complete, Fox News had moved on to stories about the Kobe Bryant case and California recall.

Fox and MSNBC both ran commercials Thursday morning, and both maintained graphics that reminded viewers of stock prices. CNN dispensed with its usual stock report until after the ceremony was over.

"Clearly, the story of 9-11 remains fresh in the minds of all Americans and, during the morning memorials, we made the decision there was no other story more important to cover," CNN spokeswoman Christa Robinson said.

Along with the ground zero ceremony, MSNBC stationed reporters at the Pentagon and in rural Pennsylvania, where a terrorist-hijacked plane went down two years ago, said Mark Effron, the network's vice president of live news programming.

"Our approach was to give our national audience, which isn't just in New York or Washington, a real flavor of what the day was like," Effron said.

CNN refused to show any footage of the attacks two years ago. While it has shown the images as recently as in a documentary on Sunday, "we felt that certain images have been seared in our consciousness and on a day like this, we do not need them to be replayed to tell the story," Robinson said.

MSNBC showed street-level video of the aftermath of the attacks, but avoided replaying images of the planes hitting the World Trade Center or the towers collapsing, Effron said.

Fox News Channel showed more extensive video from that day, including a segment that repeated what some of its anchors were reporting.

On "Good Morning America" Thursday, ABC News ran a portion of the only known video that shows both planes hitting the World Trade Center two years ago, after cutting a deal Wednesday to buy the rights to the material. But ABC quickly lost its exclusive.

The videotape, whose existence only recently became known, was shot by immigrant construction worker Pavel Hlava, who was making a sightseeing tape as he was riding in a sport utility vehicle from Brooklyn to Manhattan on Sept. 11, 2001.

However, the driver of the SUV, Brooklyn resident Michael Cohen, gave a copy of the video to New York cable news station New York 1, part of AOL Time Warner. The station was also airing the video.

Cohen objected to selling rights to the videotape.

"To me, it was blood money," he told New York 1. "It is profiting from someone else's tragedy, and my morals did not let me do it. Period."

Hlava's lawyer, Bob Reicher, did not immediately return a call for comment Thursday.

New York 1 stopped playing the video Thursday afternoon after hearing from ABC and Hlava's lawyer. It will wait until ownership issues are resolved before playing it again, said general manager Steve Paulus.

[fight_truth_decay]

If 'immigrant construction worker' Hlava shot the tape, how did the driver of the SUV think he had the right to 'give' the tape to New York 1 (ABC). ABC had to know it was an 'Exclusive' tape and all the specifics when deciding to air.

If you owned this 9-11 videotape, would you sell it, donate it or keep it?

[Peach]

It was different in New York, where the local ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, UPN and WB affiliates all stayed with the ground zero ceremony until it concluded.

This wasn't just a New York event, but for purely political purposes, the networks would much prefer the rest of the country forget 9/11.

[Bikers4Bush]

Keep it and ultimately donate it.

Never sell it.

[LetsRok]

This is America. America is a capitalist society. I would sell it because if I donated it, the recipient would definitely make money on it and so should I.

[fight_truth_decay]

Yet in contrast to a full morning of special coverage last year, ABC, CBS and NBC offered only brief reports during key moments of memorial services on Thursday, otherwise sticking with regular programming.

[fight_truth_decay]

OK..Who would you sell it to?..the highest bidder or a conservative based network (taking for granted you are a conservative)that expresses your political views?

[Greybird]

CNN carried virtually all of the two-and-a-half hour ceremony at New York's ground zero with little voiceover and no commercials, as children read the names of the 2,792 people who died at the former World Trade Center two years ago.

B-- b-- b-- but! They're full of liberal traitors to this country! They have no regard for human life! Ann Coulter told us so! How can this be TRUE??!!

{/sarcasm OFF}

[Timesink]

This is the Mainstream Media Shenanigans ping list. Please freepmail me to be added or dropped.
Please note this is a medium- to high-volume list.
Please feel free to ping me if you come across a thread you would think worthy of this ping list. I can't catch them all!

[mhking]

CNN carried virtually all of the two-and-a-half hour ceremony at New York's ground zero with little voiceover and no commercials, as children read the names of the 2,792 people who died at the former World Trade Center two years ago.

I know first-hand (as a former CNN employee myself) that there are some folks inside of CNN Center that "get it." It's just too bad that those folks are more often than not overruled by the leftists at the top.

[an amused spectator]

CNN refused to show any footage of the attacks two years ago. While it has shown the images as recently as in a documentary on Sunday, "we felt that certain images have been seared in our consciousness and on a day like this, we do not need them to be replayed to tell the story," Robinson said.

MSNBC showed street-level video of the aftermath of the attacks, but avoided replaying images of the planes hitting the World Trade Center or the towers collapsing, Effron said.

Kudos to CNN for doing the 2 and a half hour thing, but I also feel that not showing the attacks is a deliberate suppression of information for the purpose of manipulating American public opinion. It's easier to crap all over Bush if you don't have to deal with the images from 9/11.

I watched a special showing people jumping from the twin towers a couple of days ago. It suddenly struck me - I wonder what a poll of the people who lost friends and family in New York, Pennsylvania, and the Pentagon would show? Do they think that Bush is doing a good job?

Things that make you go hmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

[Greybird]

Kudos to CNN for doing the 2 and a half hour thing, but I also feel that not showing the attacks is a deliberate suppression of information for the purpose of manipulating American public opinion.

Give me a break. Please. If any recent images are eligible for being classified as not being "suppressed," they are the images from the destruction on Nine Eleven. They have been seared into news reports, documentaries, and countless books by now. I read recently of a child of a WTC victim who still will not watch television, nearly two years after the fact, for fear of footage being shown with bodies falling out of the sky.

In any event, these images didn't fit with coverage of a memorial ceremony, which is what this was.

Some people are incapable of acknowledging honor, even a smidgen of it, in their "enemies," when it's an opportunity to try to score rhetorical points.

It's easier to crap all over Bush if you don't have to deal with the images from 9/11.

Oh, that's all that's important here? Not "crapping" on Bush? Inserting such footage into a solumn remembrance becomes less barbaric if it's used to make a cheap political point?

I defy you to find someone on this continent with a TV set who has not "dealt with" these images by now. Of any political persuasion.

I'll say what I omitted earlier: Kudos to CNN for preserving the dignity of this occasion in its coverage.

[an amused spectator]

Whatever.

[an amused spectator]

Kudos to CNN for doing the 2 and a half hour thing, but I also feel that not showing the attacks is a deliberate suppression of information for the purpose of manipulating American public opinion. It's easier to crap all over Bush if you don't have to deal with the images from 9/11.

A clarification for the non-Bushhaters out there in FR: I also feel that not showing the attacks for the past two years is a deliberate suppression of information for the purpose of manipulating American public opinion. It's easier for the Democrats and the media (but I repeat myself...) to crap all over Bush if they don't have to deal with the images from 9/11.