1

Background

On September 11, 2001, terrorists hijacked planes and crashed them into the World Trade

Center and the Pentagon. Thousands of people from many different countries lost their lives that

day and hundreds of firefighters and police officers were lost trying to save the lives of the

people caught in the buildings. Journalists were forced to immediately cover these events and

were unprepared to cover an event of such urgency and importance. They had to improvise the

entire thing and journalists basically had to ‘learn’ 9/11 as they were reporting it (Bouvier,

2005). So in actuality, the reporters were learning of the information just moments before or

even experiencing the events as they occur with the audience tuning in. Due to the fact that

America has not had a major terrorist attack for a while now, journalists’ crisis management was

chaos. Journalists, however, were able to capture the total destruction of the Twin Towers and

the Pentagon.

Consistent news coverage was aired of the attacks within seconds of the planes crashing

into the Twin Towers at 8:45 a.m. EST. Television broadcast stations were blacked out in New

York except for New York’s WCBS that had a backup transmitter on the top of the Empire State

Building. Internet publications posted pictures of the the people trapped inside the building

jumping to their deaths.

The events of 9/11, while are a tragic piece of our country’s history, are also a

“celebratory and unifying event” (Bouvier, 2005, p. 23). Americans became more patriotic after

9/11, as well as nationalistic. Other countries reacted to the event with great sympathy. The 9/11

terrorist attacks are believed to be a global media event. Along with specific criteria for

identifying media events (see Appendix III), Dayan and Katz (1992) underline these two

theoretical concepts that are associated with a media event:

 2

The ‘aesthetics of compensation’ suggests that broadcasters provide extensive verbal

and visual information to make up for the limited information that the viewer has in
comparison to an eye-witness. The second concept addresses media aspirations to
present the events as the core cultural experience of that moment. Eye-witnesses recount
their experience from ‘where it is happening (the centre) to the viewers (remote)
(Bouvier, 2005, p. 21).

The body section of this paper will discuss several topics. The first topic will explore the

criticisms of the media’s actions on covering the 9/11 terrorism attacks. The competition of

media coverage forces news channels to out do one another. This means showing the most

horrific photographs, the most absurd rumors, and good sound bites. The actions of these

journalists represent complete and total chaos (Blondheim & Liebes, 2002).

The second section will examine the content of the media’s coverage of 9/11. There have

been several studies that analyzed this coverage and in this paper, their findings will be discussed

(Bouvier, 2005; Li & Izard, 2003). The third section of the body portion will briefly look at the

public opinions of terror coverage that were reported in national surveys conducted by the Pew

Research Center for the People & the Press (2001). The last topic of the body will explore the

lessons that journalists must take in order to avoid the criticisms of their ethics. “It [the media]

owes itself and the public a careful review and reevaluation of its ethics and standards in serving

the public when disaster strikes,” (Blondheim and Liebes, 2002; Noll, 2003, p.196).

Body

9/11 Media Criticisms: Scholars around the world have researched the mistakes and

criticisms that the media has received. One of the criticisms that the government was extremely

disappointed in our society’s media is the accusation that the media tried to over-power the

country’s administration. The conditions that journalists are under when covering a disaster

marathon are improvised, making the message that they are trying to deliver seem unstable,

uncertain, and can cause the development of anxiety among its viewers.
 3

When events like this takes place, chaos and lack of control are perceived. This chaos

makes the public not have full faith in their government and can cause them [the public] to turn

against the administration. Blondheim and Tamar (2002) believe that this provides journalists a

behind the scenes look at how the system operates. This gives journalists more power than ever.

But on the other hand, journalists are put under conditions that are completely chaotic, that it

makes professional and responsible journalism close to impossible.

Another criticism of media coverage of 9/11 is the fact that since hundreds of journalists

were trying to ‘out-do’ one another with horrifically, graphic video and audio, they became seen

as a crazed bunch of “cheerleaders” (Boehlert, 2006). The following is a piece of an article

written by Eric Boehlert that discusses his thoughts on the media’s coverage of September 11,

2001:

Because if one of the enduring legacies of 9/11 has been this Administration’s
politicization of terror threats inside the United States, the media’s lapdog hyping of the
threats--its tendency to act as a megaphone instead of a filter, even in the wake of the
Administration’s clear record of distortion--is another. Too often anxious for access and
too nervous about allegations of liberal bias ( and, to be fair, somewhat constrained by
the fact that the Administration often controls key information and decides how to
disseminate it), news organizations remain much more willing to cheerlead terror
warnings than seriously question them or put them in proper political context.

Journalists were also criticized for being irresponsible to foreign affairs. By showing that

the country is ‘out of control and chaotic,’ the enemy, such as bin Ladin may perceive America

as being vulnerable. The question of what he may do with this information is what had the

government criticizing the media. “...we zero in on television’s actual coverage of September 11,

observing how the disaster marathon format could be manipulated by a perpetrator such as bin

Ladin to serve his cause,” (Blondheim & Liebes, 2002; Noll, 2003, p. 189). The media’s

irresponsible behavior to neglect its duties as a watchdog to critically study the government’s

policies and give voice to different options, is another criticism of the event’s coverage.
 4

From a journalist stand-point, Dale Curry (2009), retired reporter and food critic of the

Times-Picayune, said that although the images of 9/11 were extremely hard to watch, she

believes that the journalists did a “good job.” She believes that America wants to see explicit

images and listen to horrific audio because it will be like they were there. The media was just

simply giving Americans what they want and not “sugar coding it.” One thing to remember when

trying to criticize the media for their actions during this tragic event is that they were thrown into

this story without warning or preparation. There was no editing and no script. This coverage was

completely live and as the audience was seeing the tragedies unfold, so were the journalists.

On the contrary to all of the criticisms, there are some that believe the media did an

amazing job at covering the attacks (Nichols & McChesney, 2005). The media had around-the-

clock coverage and had a great amount of technology that ensured its viewers that they would be

updated on what was going on and how everyone around the country were reacting to the event.

Dan Gillmor, a noted technology writer and former columnist for the San Jose Mercury

News, even agrees to this opinion. -- “Journalists did some of their finest work and made me

proud to be one of them.” These events were, at times, remarkable and absolutely unforgettable.

“They brought us together,” (Nichols & McChesney, 2005).

Content of 9/11 Media Coverage: Xigen Li and Ralph Izard (2003) conducted a content

analysis study that compared the similarities and differences of the way national television

networks delivered coverage of 9/11 with the way national newspapers delivered it. Their study

found newspapers were more concerned with human-interest framing than television networks

that were concerned with informing the people of what was going on. Human-interest framing

was found to be more evident during later coverage.

 5

Both forms of media both showed to have mainly focused on delivering factual

information, rather than sympathy and compassion (i.e. the footage of people jumping to their

deaths from the Twin Towers). The study found that during times of crisis, journalists feel that it

is more important to give the public helpful information. To contradict the previous section that

stated the government criticized journalists for trying to make them ‘look bad,’ Li and Izard

found that government officials were one of the top sources for both broadcast networks and

newspapers. However, newspapers were shown to have used more diverse sources.

Another study, conducted by Gwen Bouvier (2005), analyzed the 9/11 coverage of the

BBC, the British public service broadcaster. The coverage analyzed is the first three hours of the

breaking news. The BBC starts the broadcast with still images of the second plane’s destruction

on the World Trade Center. The first hour of coverage is completely voice overs of the reporters

and witnesses giving their in put. All the audience can see is a live feed of shots over Manhattan.

Then the still images change to a shot of smoke pouring out of Washington’s Pentagon.

Bouvier states that it is clear that the reporters are trying to keep up with the unexpected events

which explains why images are being shown unannounced. Towards the end of the report, the

broadcast has gotten back on track and has very few professional mistakes and technological

difficulties. The BBC did not show the images of people jumping off buildings, however, they

were reported on.

Public Opinion: The public’s trust in American government, particularly the Bush

administration, was questioned after the events of 9/11 due to the media’s overpowering

behavior. There were rumors spread about Bush’s involvement in the attacks of 9/11 accusing

him of being an accomplice of bin Ladin.

 6

As for the public’s trust in the media, the opinions are varied. In a national survey

conducted by the Pew Research Center (2001), statistics showed that the positive reaction to

news coverage after September 11 improved the people’s perception of the media’s role and

performance, especially the public’s opinion that the press stands up for America and protects

democracy. On the contrary, there are still some characteristics of the media’s actions that the

public views negatively. For instance, 52% of Americans reported that the media tries to cover

up their mistakes and 47% think that some national news networks are politically biased (Pew,

2001).

Although in communication scholars’ content analysis studies on media coverage of 9/11

found that the media was more worried about factual information rather than guidance and

compassion, 47% of respondents to the Pew survey feel the media cares about the people they

report on. The study also found that young people’s thoughts on this matter has gone up 30%

since the attacks. Women were more likely to believe the media cared than men -- 53% to 41%.

Most conservative Republicans, however, remain extremely critical of the media and in most

cases perceptions of the media has only improved on the “moderate-to-liberal end of the political

spectrum, further exacerbating ideological divisions,” (Pew, 2001, para 3).

Lessons for the Future: Now that the media has faced a tragic, expected event like the

attacks on the World Trade Center and on the Pentagon, journalists can try to be more prepared

for such disasters. There is no real preparation for these types of events, but they can learn from

the mistakes of past journalists and try to avoid them. Television shouldn’t turn back to its old

pre-9/11 routine. There should be public debates on how they feel the media should cover if a

disaster should strike again. Blondheim and Tamar (2002) believe that the goal of the journalists

should be coming up with strategies to decrease the motives of the cruel to partake in violence in
 7

order to take away the voice of the media -- “the very media that must remain free in order to

sustain life, liberty, and happiness,” (p.196-Nolls, 2005).

McNee (2002) tries to explain in his study that terrorists know how much of an impact

the media has on public, and even the government. Terrorists realize that the media can intensify

and propagate the atrocity of their attacks. However, media can make false media products that

will deny them the importance and fear that they crave. This, in hand, offers a feasible

“alternative to the disaster marathon, empowering the audience to reclaim the stage,” (McNee,

2002; Noll, 2005, p. 121).

Conclusion

September 11, 2001 was a major landmark in our society’s history. Many lives were lost

in this terrible event. The fear of ‘what if’ lingers in the minds of Americans that fear there will

be another day to come like the morning of 9/11. The news spread like wildfire across the

country. Many of the brave firefighters and police officers, that tried to save the people trapped

inside of the buildings, lost their lives as well. Although these times were horrible and never

wished upon our enemies, 9/11 brought America back together. ‘We’, as a country, felt the pain

for the victim’s family and felt the same kind of fear. We weren’t just people living on one piece

of land, we were unified, yet diverse, family. The lives lost on this day will never be forgotten

and they will be a part of history for many years to come.

The attacks were also a major part of the history of communication. It has been argued

that the terrorist attacks are a media event. Going through the criteria provided by Dayan and

Katz (1992) it is evident that 9/11 is in fact a “media event” (see Appendix III). Journalists were

unprepared for these kinds of events, so they had to simply improvise on pretty much every

move they made. Technological difficulties were also a problem for the journalists.
 8

The criticisms made on journalists, while there are quite a few, are a tad harsh. Critics

must realize the pressure journalists had to of been under. The coverage may not seem

professional to some, but there really was no way to be professional in this matter. These

journalists were just ‘winging it’ so that the public could see what was happening or at least hear

what was happening. As the audience saw the destruction unfold, the reporter did as well. No

one could have been prepared for an event like this. Journalists aren’t trained to watch people

commit suicide and planes crashing into buildings while still trying to be professional and do

their job. There are probably few in this country who could have done what those journalists did

that day. And for that they should be recognized.

However, the criticisms which believe that the journalists should have been more

carefully with how they represented the country’s reaction to the attacks -- especially for the

networks that could be viewed internationally. Perceiving the country as weak and vulnerable

could have ended a lot worse than what it did. The enemy could have jumped on this opportunity

to attack again because we were in such a chaotic state that we could have been an even more

easier target.

Although there was a large amount of negative thoughts on the media coverage of 9/11,

there were a few that believed to have been “some of their finest work” and that they did an

excellent job at handling a situation at such high magnitude. Most of the positive thoughts came

from journalists, themselves, because they know the hard work that these men and women put

into delivering the coverage.

The content of the coverage varied. In the early parts of most footage, the audience can

only hear audio from the reporter while they watched a feed of still images from the top of

Manhattan. These technical difficulties slowing started to fade as the constant coverage went on.
 9

Some stations showed images of people jumping off the Twin Towers to commit suicide. The

BBC was not one of them. Those images really shouldn’t have been shown on national

television. They were bound to appear on the internet from either reporters or witnesses, but to

show that kind of graphic image was a little too much. The competition of who has the best shots

and audio to gain more viewers is taken into consideration, but the stations should have thought

more about the families of those ending their lives.

Despite all of the negative criticisms, the media actually gain more a positive outlook by

the public. Post 9/11, they have said to of believed the press “stands up for America”. Within in

one month those who believed that went up from 47% to 78% (Pew, 2001). However, there was

a good bit of Americans that said the though the news was biased and tried to cover up there

mistakes. These Americans were typically conservative Republicans. The public also showed

that they started questioning the administration.

This probably happened because the media made them look weak and incompetent.

Rumors flourished the streets about the president being friends with bin Laden. These

accusations were ridiculous. There is no United States president that wishes these kinds of tragic

events upon his country. The citizens that believed these rumors must have been simple-minded

and must not generally taken part in their country’s political system. Other rumors that were not

found were spread around through media and word of mouth as well. The media has a great

influence on how people react to things. Many believe that everything they hear on the news is

always completely factual. Because of that it is journalists’ jobs to report facts and only facts; not

spread rumors that will only hurt the journalist in the end.

The lessons that future journalists can take from this notable piece of history are very

important. Although there were some that praised journalists for their delivery of ‘fine work,’
 10

they were also torn to pieces by more. Journalists should always remember their responsibilities

as professionals -- remain as the public’s watch dog to critically review the government’s

actions; be careful of foreign affairs and not to ever make out country look ‘bad’; stick by their

ethics and standards as professionals, meaning not turning into a 14-year-old school girl [the

media] who heard a rumor and likes to spread it all over school [the world].

Journalism students rarely discuss this event in their communication classes. It should be

more important to communication professors to explain to the students the struggles that the 9/11

coverage journalists had to face, along with all of the negative attention. There should be some

kind of exercise that journalism students can’t practice so that they won’t be completely

unprepared like past reporters. Students, regardless of practice and training, are still going to be

unprepared for an incident like 9/11 because they are only human. But if they have some training

and can remember what past journalists did wrong, then they might follow their professionalism

a little better. Another thing that should be learned from the surveys which the Pew Research

Center conducted is that journalists need try to stop being biased in their material because they

have had enough training to know that it’s not their job to take a side. It’s the media’s job to give

the facts and only that.

 11

Bibliography

Blondheim, M. & Liebes, T. (2002). Live television’s disaster marathon of September 11 and its
subversive potential. Prometheus 20, 3, 271-76. Retrieved from Crisis
Communications, a collection of scholarly articles.
Blondheim teaches in the Department of Communication and American Studies at the
Hebrew University of Jerusalem and serves as director of the university’s Smart Family
Foundation Communication Institute. Liebes is a communication professor and chair if the
Department of Communication and Journalism at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Boehlert, E. (2006). Politics, the media, and 9/11. The Nation. Retrieved from http://
www.thenation.com/directory/bios/eric_boehlert.
Boehlert is a senior fellow at Media Matters for America He is also the author of
Lapdogs: How the Press Rolled Over for Bush (Free Press).
 12

Bouvier, G. (2005). ‘Breaking’ news: The first hours of the BBC coverage of 9/11 as a media
event. Journal for crime, conflict and the Media, 1 (4), 19-43. Retrieved from
Google Scholars.
Bouvier got her PhD at University of Wales, Aberystwyth. In her paper she produces a
structural analysis of the first hours of BBC coverage as a media event.

Curry, Dale. (2009) Personal Interview, 2:30 p.m. 30 November 2009, Frostop, LaPlace, La.,
(985) 703-1286, dalecurry60@gmail.com.

Curry worked as a food editor for the New Orleans Times-Picayune for twenty years. She
was a reporter for the Memphis Commercial Appeal, the former Atlanta Constitution, and New
Orleans States-Item. She also, at one point, worked as the New Orleans correspondent to the
Baton Rouge Advocate and the Baton Rouge State-Times. She now works for New Orleans
magazine as the food columnist. She graduated from the University of Mississippi with a
bachelor of arts degree in journalism and in political science.

Dayan, D. & Katz, E. (1992). Media events: The live broadcasting of history,
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Dayan is a social scientist born in Casablanca. Dayan studied at the Sorbonne, Stanford
University, and Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales. He holds degrees in
Anthropology, Comparative literature, semiotics, film studies, and received a Ph.D in Aesthetics
under the direction of Roland Barthes. Katz has spent most of a lifetime in research on
communication, his main focus being the interplay between media, conversation, opinion, and
action in the public sphere. Katz is Trustee Professor at the Annenberg School for
Communication, University of Pennsylvania, Emeritus Professor of Sociology and
Communication at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Scientific Director of the Guttman
Institute of Applied Social Research.

Li, X. & Lizard, R. (2003). 9/11 Attach coverage reveals similarities, differences. Newspaper
Research Journal, 24 (1), 204-219. Retrieved from Ebscohost.
Li is an assistant professor, and Izard is the Sig Mickelson/CBS professor in the Manship
School of Mass Communication at Louisiana State University. The authors wish to thank Laura
Lindsey and Kirsten Morgensen for their permission to use the data television coverage of 9/11
and Xiaowei Chen and Ying Kong for their assistance with the research.

McNee, Fiona. (2002). Something’s happened: Fictional media as a recovery mechanism.

Prometheus, 20(3), 281-87. Retrieved from journal collection - Crisis
Communication: Lessons from 9/11.
Fiona McNee has qualifications in both law and communication at a post-graduate level.
Having practiced as a commercial lawyer in the fields of intellectual property and new media,
she now works in Australian public sector. Her current research interests include convergence in
the entertainment and media industries, and the social impacts of mass communication.
 13

Nichols, J. & McChesney, R.W. (2005). Tragedy & Farce: How the American Media
Sell Wars, Spin Elections, and Destroy Democracy, New York, NY: The New
Press.
John Nichols is The Nation’s Washington correspondent and an editor at the Capital
Times. He is the author of The Rise and Rise of Richard B. Cheney and Jews for
Buchanan. He lives in Madison, Wisconsin, and Washington, D.C. Robert W. McChesney,
professor at the University of Illinois, is the author of the award winning Rich Media, Poor
Democracy (The New Press) and, with John Nichols, Our Media, Not Theirs. He lives in
Champaign, Illinois.

Noll, A. M. (2003). Crisis Communications: Lessons from September 11. Lanham,

MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.

A. Michael Noll is a professor at the Annenberg School for Communication at the

University of Southern California. He is also affiliated with the Columbia Institute for Tele-
Information at Columbia University’s Business School and the Media Center at New York Law
School.

Pew Research Center for the People & the Press. (2001). Terror Coverage Boosts Media’s
News: New Media’s Post 9/11 Image. Retrieved from http://people-
press.org/report/?pageid=11. The Pew Research Center for the People & the Press is an
independent, non-partisan public opinion research organization that studies attitudes toward
politics, the press and public policy issues. In this role it serves as a valuable information
resource for political leaders, journalists, scholars and citizens. The survey conducts regularly
monthly surveys.