Column: How we would cover 9/11 today
Nine years after the 9/11 attacks and it’s still a very exposed wound. Look to the recent mosque and Quran controversies for proof of that. In an increasingly short attention span country, even saying 9/11 will bring up memories of the event.
Where do our memories of that day come from? We all remember where we were when we first heard about it. Most of us probably turned on the TV to see the coverage. CNN? Yeah me too.
It’s the kind of event that defines a generation and shapes our industry. How we covered 9/11 has been the focus of books, reports, and archival efforts. The truth is that we’re at our best when our community is at its worst. It’s why I love journalism.
I think it’s safe to say that some of the best coverage efforts in the history of American journalism came out of ground zero. Check out this page from the New York Times.
I don’t remember how it broke down in the coverage. All I know is that I turned the television on and sat there in a daze. I do remember the image of a reporter turning to the camera in tears after she let somebody tell us a family member was missing.
But how would something like 9/11 be covered today? My guess is that it would be covered in a way that those working nine years ago wouldn’t recognize.
It would all have to be faster and delivered in tiny bites of information spoon-fed to readers throughout the day via communication services that didn’t exist on 9/11 but have since taken over the media landscape.
Think about the following in regards to September 11, 2001:
- Twitter, Facebook and YouTube hadn’t been created yet.
- The smartphones and the mobile web that comes with them weren’t around.
- According to the Pew Research Center, broadband Internet wasn’t in 10 percent of homes until 2002.
Nothing real surprising there, right? We all know that stuff. Think about how those three bullet points have evolved since 9/11 and how they now dominate what we do in newsrooms.
Some things would be the same. Everybody would be called in. Newsrooms across the country would rush to localize the story. Special print editions would be produced. Our websites would be turned over to the event. Google would crash. Television stations would actually cover news in a responsible and brilliant way.
Journalists everywhere would tell tales of grief, heroism, resilience, defeat, anger, and relief.
Photographers would take some of the most iconic pictures ever produced. Designers would create covers forever archived. Copy editors would have to write gripping headlines while blazing through stacks of copy.
Much would be different.
I think twitter would be the first know with a rush of single line tweets. I wouldn’t learn about it first by turning on the TV or even visiting a website. It would come through my iPhone apps on the way to work while texting friends from all over the country.
Twitter would, of course, promptly shut down for those using the desktop. So Facebook would be next. The amount of status updates, pictures, and messaging would be historic. MySpace would most likely reappear.
Journalists would be scouring social media and check-in sites to find witnesses, photos, and videos.
YouTube would probably create a page dedicated to what’s being submitted. Much of that content would be in HD and available faster than traditional media outlets could make their own videos public.
We’d have to monitor Vimeo, Viddler, Dailymotion, Ustream, Qik, Justin.tv, Livestream, Flickr, Tumblr, and countless blogs in the hopes of finding photos or videos.
There is decent chance the media outlets near the attack would have user-created slideshows that get more raw emotion than we would be able to only because of the timeline.
Then there’s SEO. It won’t be enough to say Terrorists attack America. We’d have to write specific and wordy headlines as part of the media battle for web traffic.
CNN would go to that girl with the accent to break down what the Internet is saying in the middle of the news coverage. Every TV anchor would have a screen streaming tweets behind him/her.
All that before noon.
The crazy thing about journalism is that our approach will probably be completely different nine years from now.
Take comfort in the fact that one thing will always be the same. Society will always need somebody to interview desperate family members while wiping away the tears.
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